Case Name: O'BRIEN et al. v. FACKENTHAL
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1925-05-16
Citations: 5 F.2d 389
Docket Number: No. 4110
Parties: O’BRIEN et al. v. FACKENTHAL.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 5
Pages: 389–393

Head Matter:
O’BRIEN et al. v. FACKENTHAL.
(Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
May 16, 1925.)
No. 4110.
Injunction @=>63 — Sheet metal manufacturer employing union carpenters to install his prod-duct held entitled to injunction restraining interference by Sheet Metal Workers’ Union claiming right to such work.
Complainant, constructor of sheet metal doors and frames, who employed union carpenters to install his product, and who had contract with city for furnishing and installation of metal doors and casings in municipal buildings under construction, held entitled to injunction restraining officers of Sheet Metal Workers’ Union, claiming that under award of National Board they were entitled to such'work, from interfering with plaintiff by strikes or coercion of city inducing it to break its contract with complainant.
Mack, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Ohio; D. C. West-enhaver, Judge.
Suit in equity by Joseph'D. Eaekenthal, ancillary receiver of the Central Metal Prod- uets Corporation, against William O’Brien, individually and as secretary of Local No. 65, and as vice president of the Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers’ International Alliance, and others. Decree for plaintiff, and defendants appeal.
Affirmed.
This controversy is immediately between a Sheet Metal Workers’ Union and a Carpenters’ Union, at Cleveland. The facts are fully stated by the District Court in its first opinion. 278 F. 827. From the injunction entered upon this opinion there was an appeal; but we dismissed the appeal because the buildings, to work upon which the contest related, had been finished and the appeal had become moot. 284 F. 850. After remand, a supplemental bill was filed, and it was made to appear that there were issues still alive, particularly as to the more general rights involved. The district judge filed a supplemental opinion, parts of which are printed herewith, again ordered an injunction, and this appeal was taken.
To recapitulate briefly: Plaintiff below, appellee here, is a factory constructor of sheet metal doors, frames, etc. He also employs workmen and installs his product in the erection of the buildings where it is used. He employs union carpenters for that purpose. A so-called jurisdictional dispute has long existed between union carpenters and union sheet metal workers as to which 'craft had the right to install sheet metal doors and frames. It is' claimed that this dispute was submitted by those representing the respective unions, to a building trade arbitration tribunal and decided against the carpenters. To this decision the Carpenters’ Unions have refused to yield, for various stated reasons.
The city of Cleveland was engaged in erecting two buildings, upon each of which some sheet metal work was required which indisputably called for the employment of sheet metal workers. Upon one of these buildings plaintiff became subcontractor for furnishing -and installing metal doors and frames and this work was in progress through his union carpenters. Thereupon the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union threatened the city of Cleveland that unless it discharged plaintiff from his subcontract, or persuaded him to discharge the carpenters and employ the other union, they would strike upon both of these buildings, and one or both of these strikes in fact followed. There being no other sheet metal workers obtainable except those who had struck, the city yielded and discharged plaintiff'from his subcontract. The injunction forbids a further continuance of this course of conduct.
Luther Day and Wm. J. Dawley, both of Cleveland, Ohio (J. Paul Thompson, of Cleveland, Ohio, on the brief), for appellants.
Walter Gordon Merritt, of New York City (Stanley & Horwitz, of Cleveland, Ohio, on the brief), for appellee.
Before DENISON, MACK, and DONAHUE, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
DENISON, Circuit Judge
(after stating the facts as above). The majority of the court think that the judgment should be affirmed and, in the main, for the reasons stated by the district judge in both opinions. Judge MACK thinks otherwise. Under these circumstances it seems sufficient to state the conclusions of the majority without elaboration.
1. So far as the injunction may forbid the Sheet Metal Workers' Union from inducing and procuring other crafts to strike in aid of its position, neither the practical effects of the injunction nor the facts involved are clear enough to justify consideration. We do not think that particular subject-matter is necessary to be decided.
2. So far as the injunetion forbids threats of strikes and coercion of that nature as to a building upon which plaintiff is not engaged and no carpenters are employed in the disputed work, the right to injunction has a stronger foundation than as to buildings upon which this dispute has become concrete; but the decree below cannot be wholly sustained by restricting it to this situation.
3. The sheet metal workers say that the carpenters have refused to abide by the controlling union laws; and, if this is true, then, so far as we can see, the carpenters have become, for this purpose and from the viewpoint of the sheet metal workers, nonunion men, and the legal 'aspect of the controversy is just the same as if between union and nonunion workmen.
4. The right to strike and threaten to do so, as a means of coercing an employer with whom the strikers.have a direct controversy, and as a general right, is not questioned upon this appeal; it is the limitations upon that right which are here involved.
5. There is not and never was any employer-employee relation between the plaintiff and the Sheet Metal Workers' Union. There was no controversy between the building owner and this union. A valid contract existed between plaintiff and the city, and the defendants compelled the city to break it; and the city doubtless became, in a sense, engaged in a joint conspiracy with the sheet metal workers to compel the plaintiff to con duct his business in a way distasteful to him. The effort of the sheet metal workers is to succeed over their immediate opponent, the carpenters' employer, by injuring and threatening to injure third parties, the building owners, who are strangers to the controversy.
6. While the ease does not show the malicious enticement of the Hitehman ease, and while it does not present a secondary boycott in the precise aspect of the Duplex and Truax eases, we conclude that it is governed by the underlying principle of the two cases last named, and that the decree below was therefore justified upon that principle.
7. It is more than doubtful whether the Carpenters' Union was bound to submit or did submit this jurisdictional dispute to the arbitral tribunal. If not — as the district judge was inclined to think and as appellee forcibly argues — the questions chiefly relied on by appellant disappear from the case. At any rate, plaintiff was not bound by the arbitration, and cannot be compelled to conduct his business accordingly.
The decree is affirmed.