Opinion ID: 387100
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the jurisdictional question: injunctive relief and the

Text: NORRIS-LAGUARDIA ACT 11 The district court issued a permanent injunction against the Sabine Area Building and Construction Trades Council, twenty-four of its member unions, and all persons conspiring with them. The court's injunction ordered that those parties subject to its terms 12 ... shall not hereafter combine, conspire, threaten, intimidate, assault, or commit any act of violence toward or upon any person, property or possession of any person or his family who may work upon, travel to, deliver materials, goods, or services to A. A. Cross Construction Co., Inc., or to the site of the alligator Bayou Pump Station on Taylor's Bayou near Port Arthur, Jefferson County, Texas. 13 The defendants contest the district court's power to issue such an injunction, arguing that the Norris-LaGuardia Act deprives the district court of jurisdiction to enjoin labor organizations from engaging in conspiratorial conduct. They maintain that the unembellished language of the Act is sufficient to show the court's usurpation of authority. 14 We disagree. The Norris-LaGuardia Act was passed for the purpose of limiting the circumstances and conditions under which injunctive action could be taken against labor organizations in the context of a labor dispute. The labor injunction had been an important device used by employers to counter organized labor's most effective economic weapons, strikes, boycotts, and picket lines. However, the Act was predicated on the conviction that labor disputes turned on issues of social and economic policy that could not appropriately be resolved by the courts. The legislative solution to the problems confronting workers in a complex industrial economy was union organization and collective bargaining. Since the ready issuance of labor injunctions presented a serious obstacle to the concerted activities of organized workers, Congress decided to remove the federal judiciary from labor disputes. Thus, section 5 of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 105, limits the equitable power of the federal courts in the following way: 15 No court of the United States shall have jurisdiction to issue a restraining order or temporary or permanent injunction upon the ground that any of the persons participating or interested in a labor dispute constitute or are engaged in an unlawful combination or conspiracy because of the doing in concert of the acts enumerated in section 104 of this title. 16 29 U.S.C. § 105. 17 But the Act does not impose an unqualified prohibition against federal injunctive relief. Section 105 merely restricts the court's power to enjoin concerted or conspiratorial activity where the conduct to be enjoined is an act enumerated in section 104. 2 The enumerated acts include refusing to work, joining a labor organization, paying or withholding strike benefits from a labor disputant, lawfully giving aid to a labor disputant who is prosecuting or defending a court action, truthfully and peacefully publicizing a labor dispute, peacefully assembling to promote one's interests in a labor dispute, and agreeing with or inducing other persons to do any of those acts. In short, section 104 interdicts injunctive relief against the legitimate activities of labor unions. However, there is nothing in this provision denying to federal courts the power to enjoin violence, breaches of the peace, or criminal acts simply because they may be committed by persons participating or interested in a labor dispute. 18 In fact, the Norris-LaGuardia Act itself implicitly recognizes the threatened commission of violent acts as a condition under which an injunction may issue. Section 107 states that no court of the United States has jurisdiction to grant an injunction, unless, after a hearing, the court finds (t)hat unlawful acts have been threatened and will be committed unless restrained.... 29 U.S.C. § 107(a). Thus, violence, intimidation, threats, vandalism and combinations or conspiracies to commit such acts may be restrained and enjoined even though they arise in connection with a labor dispute. See, e. g., Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. v. Dukakis, 412 F.Supp. 580 (D.Mass.1976); Potomac Electric Power Co. v. Congress of Racial Equality, 209 F.Supp. 599 (D.D.C.1962). The Norris-LaGuardia Act does not divest the district court of jurisdiction to enjoin the kind of violent conduct present in this case. 3 III. THE STATUTORY QUESTION: THE SCOPE OF REMEDY UNDER 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3)
19 Section 1985(3) was originally enacted by Congress as a part of the Ku Klux Klan Act in order to enforce the Civil War amendments to the Constitution and to provide a means of redress for persons victimized by the Klan's acts of terror and intimidation. The statute imposes civil liability on persons conspiring to deprive another person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws. 4 Narrow judicial construction made section 1985(3) a seldom-used remedy during the first century after its enactment. See, e. g., Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U.S. 651, 71 S.Ct. 937, 95 L.Ed. 1253 (1951). However, the Supreme Court decided in 1971 to accord to the words of the statute their apparent meaning and held section 1985(3) provided a civil remedy for damages against wholly private infringements of constitutionally protected rights. Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 97, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 1795, 29 L.Ed.2d 338, 345 (1971). In Griffin, a group of whites assaulted three black men along a Mississippi highway in the mistaken belief that their victims were the associates of a civil rights worker. The blacks brought an action under section 1985(3) to redress violations of the laws of the United States and of Mississippi, including the rights of free speech, assembly, association, interstate travel, liberty, and security of their persons. The Supreme Court first held that the text of the statute, recent judicial interpretations given to related civil rights provisions, the complementary relationship of the various civil rights statutes, and the legislative history surrounding section 1985(3) all point unwaveringly to § 1985(3)'s coverage of private conspiracies. 403 U.S. at 101, 91 S.Ct. at 1798, 29 L.Ed.2d at 347. 20 While eliminating the state action requirement, the Griffin court was concerned that the statute, if applied too broadly, would displace many areas of tort law that have traditionally been reserved to the states and thereby violate constitutionally-based principles of federalism. That the Statute was meant to reach private activity does not ... mean that it was intended to apply to all tortious, conspiratorial interferences with the rights of others. 403 U.S. at 101, 91 S.Ct. at 1798, 29 L.Ed.2d at 347. Accordingly, the Court read section 1985(3) to apply only to actions which are inspired by some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus. 403 U.S. at 102, 91 S.Ct. at 1798, 29 L.Ed.2d at 348. It then delineated four elements necessary for a plaintiff to establish a § 1985(3) cause of action: 21 (1) the defendants must conspire or go in disguise on the highway or premises of another; 22 (2) for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; and 23 (3) one or more of the conspirators must commit some act in furtherance of the conspiracy; whereby 24 (4) another is either (a) injured in his person or property or (b) deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States. 25 See id. at 102-03, 91 S.Ct. at 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d at 348. Subsequently, this court has added a fifth element,(5) that the conspirators' conduct must be unlawful independent of the section 1985(3) violation. 26 See McLellan v. Mississippi Power & Light Co., 545 F.2d 919 (5th Cir. 1977) (en banc). 27 The Griffin court, having concluded that the plaintiffs had stated a cause of action under section 1985(3), then sought to locate a source of congressional power to reach the private conspiracy alleged. The sources identified in Griffin were the Thirteenth Amendment and the constitutional right to travel. 403 U.S. at 104-06, 91 S.Ct. at 1799-1800, 29 L.Ed.2d at 349-50. The Court observed, however, that other provisions of the Constitution, including section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, might empower Congress to reach other conspiracies by private persons. Id. at 107, 91 S.Ct. at 1801, 29 L.Ed.2d at 351. However, the Court found the facts of that case made it unnecessary to look beyond the Thirteenth Amendment and the right to interstate travel.
28 Griffin's principles indicate the plaintiffs here have made out a cause of action under section 1985(3). The facts of this case clearly embody four of the five elements essential to a successful § 1985(3) claim. First, the evidence is sufficient to establish a conspiracy among some of the Council's constituent unions and individual defendants. Second, proof that plaintiffs were assaulted, beaten, and threatened and that property was destroyed establishes the requisite act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Third, these acts are indisputably illegal apart from § 1985(3) as required by McLellan. Fourth, there is evidence of personal injuries, property damage, and economic loss. The only element requiring analysis is the requirement that the conspiracy be for the purpose of depriving a person of the equal protection of the laws or equal privileges and immunities under the laws. This requirement, in turn, has two components: (1) the violation of some protected right and (2) a class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus motivating the violation.
29 In Griffin, the Supreme Court stated that a § 1985(3) conspiracy must aim at a deprivation of the equal enjoyment of rights secured by the law to all. 403 U.S. at 102, 91 S.Ct. at 1798, 29 L.Ed.2d at 348. The plaintiffs in the case at bar contend that the object of the defendants' conspiracy was to deprive them of their First Amendment right to associate with their fellow nonunion employees. They argue that curtailment of their interests secured by the First Amendment is a deprivation of equal protection of the laws within the meaning of section 1985(3) as interpreted by Griffin. 30 The Ku Klux Klan Act was originally entitled, An Act to Enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for Other Purposes. 17 Stat. 13 (1871). The guaranties afforded by the First Amendment are protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. E. g., Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 30-31, 98 S.Ct. 5, 10, 21 L.Ed.2d 24, 31 (1968); New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 276-77, 84 S.Ct. 710, 724, 11 L.Ed.2d 686, 704 (1964); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303, 60 S.Ct. 900, 903, 84 L.Ed. 1213, 1217 (1940); De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364, 57 S.Ct. 255, 260, 81 L.Ed. 278, 283 (1937). Moreover, the right of free association is closely aligned with the right of free speech and is similarly protected by the First Amendment. E. g., Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U.S. 209, 233, 97 S.Ct. 1782, 1798-99, 52 L.Ed.2d 261, 283 (1977); Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169, 181, 92 S.Ct. 2338, 2346, 33 L.Ed.2d 266, 279 (1972); Baird v. State Bar of Arizona, 401 U.S. 1, 6, 91 S.Ct. 702, 705, 27 L.Ed.2d 639, 646 (1971); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 462, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 1171-72, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488, 1499 (1958). 31 The defendants urge that section 1985(3) does not provide a remedy for private interference with First Amendment freedoms. They appeal to the well-established principle that the Fourteenth Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminating or wrongful. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 13, 68 S.Ct. 836, 842, 92 L.Ed. 1161, 1180 (1948). To support their construction of section 1985(3), the defendants rely upon several decisions of the Seventh Circuit. In Dombrowski v. Dowling, 459 F.2d 190 (7th Cir. 1972), the court held that section 1985(3) does not afford protection against private deprivations of rights protected under the Fourteenth Amendment absent some kind of state involvement. Emphasizing the historical connection between sections 1983 and 1985(3), the court decided that it is necessary to identify the interests which Congress intended to protect from unequal treatment as well as the kinds of conduct which it meant to proscribe. 32 The breadth of the statute's coverage is yet to be determined, but three categories of protected rights have been plainly identified. Griffin gives express recognition to a black citizen's Thirteenth Amendment rights and to his federal right to travel interstate; the title of the statute expressly identifies the third category, namely, rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. We think the § 1983 cases make it clear that in this third category a state involvement requirement must survive Griffin. 33 459 F.2d at 195 (footnotes omitted). 5 Subsequently the Seventh Circuit has extended the Dombrowski rationale in Murphy v. Mount Carmel High School, 543 F.2d 1189 (7th Cir. 1976), expressly holding that section 1985(3) provides no remedy for purely private impairment of First Amendment speech and associational freedoms. Accord Bellamy v. Mason's Stores, Inc., 508 F.2d 504 (4th Cir. 1974). 34 The Seventh Circuit's reasoning is contrary to the Supreme Court's analysis in Griffin. Of course, most basic constitutional provisions impose limitations on the power of government to regulate private conduct. Thus, the rights they confer on individuals are typically rights of the individual against the state. But the Griffin court, after acknowledging the conceptual difficulties associated with private deprivations of constitutional rights, construed section 1985(3) to reach both public and private constitutional wrongs. 35 A century of Fourteenth Amendment adjudication has ... made it understandably difficult to conceive what might constitute a deprivation of the equal protection of the laws by private persons. Yet there is nothing inherent in the phrase that requires the action working the deprivation to come from the State. Indeed, the failure to mention any such requisite can be viewed as an important indication of congressional intent to speak in § 1985(3) of all deprivations of equal protection of the laws and equal privileges and immunities under the laws, whatever their source. 36 403 U.S. at 97, 91 S.Ct. at 1796, 29 L.Ed.2d at 345 (citation omitted and some emphasis supplied). Thus, Griffin made it unmistakably clear that section 1985(3) was intended to provide a remedy for all private conspiracies. It is thus evident that all indicators text, companion provisions, and legislative history point unwaveringly to § 1985(3)'s coverage of private conspiracies. Id. at 101, 91 S.Ct. at 1798, 29 L.Ed.2d at 347. 6 The Griffin Court's method of analysis and the unequivocal language of its opinion foreclose our adoption of the approach taken by the Seventh Circuit. 37 In addition, the interpretation given to the statute in this circuit makes that approach unnecessary. Although Griffin found that section 1985(3) covered purely private conspiracies, it did not announce what might constitute a deprivation of equal protection by private persons. Uncertainty in this regard may have contributed to the Seventh Circuit's decision to retain some form of state involvement as a part of the § 1985(3) cause of action. See Dombrowski, 459 F.2d at 194. However, this circuit has adopted a different tack. McLellan establishes that section 1985(3) was not intended to redress every conceivable private interference with another's rights. Rather, the object of a section 1985(3) conspiracy must be to deprive another of the enjoyment of legal rights by independently unlawful conduct. McLellan, 545 F.2d at 927 (footnote omitted). The independent illegality requirement was derived in part from the passage in United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629, 1 S.Ct. 601, 27 L.Ed. 290 (1883), which explains that the only method by which a private person can deprive another of the equal protection of the laws is by the commission of some offense against the laws which protect the rights of persons, as by theft, burglary, arson, libel, assault, or murder. Id. at 643, 1 S.Ct. at 612, 27 L.Ed. at 295. In this way, McLellan limited the potentially boundless reach of the statute and provided meaning to the concept of a private impairment of constitutional rights. Therefore, McLellan resolved the difficulties perceived by the Dombrowski court and made its analysis unnecessary. 38 It cannot be gainsaid that the defendants' conspiracy comprehended an intent to violate the law independent of section 1985(3). The plaintiffs contend that the conspiracy was calculated to deprive them of the right to freely associate with other nonunion laborers. They have alleged and have sought to prove that the defendants conspired to accomplish this object by assaulting and beating them with wooden boards and iron bars; by destroying tools, equipment, and automobiles; and by overturning and setting fire to the Cross office trailer. The means adopted by the conspirators to deprive the plaintiffs of their rights of free association encompass patent violations of both the civil and criminal laws of Texas. See, e. g., Tex.Penal Code Ann. §§ 22.01 (assault); 22.02 (aggravated assault); 28.02 (arson); 28.04 (reckless damage or destruction) (Vernon 1974). See generally W. Prosser, Law of Torts §§ 9-10 (assault and battery); 14 (trespass to chattels). The plaintiffs also offered proof that the conspirators engaged in the very unlawful conduct they conspired to commit and that as a result plaintiffs suffered injury to their persons and property. Under such circumstances, we conclude that section 1985(3) affords a remedy for purely private conspiracies aimed at denying their victims the First Amendment right of free association. 7
39 The plaintiffs have also satisfied Griffin's class-based, discriminatory animus component of the § 1985(3) cause of action. Our analysis involves two distinct but closely related questions. First, does section 1985(3) coverage extend to private conspiracies founded upon some invidiously discriminatory animus other than racial prejudice? Second, if it does, is the particular class to which the plaintiffs belong, nonunion workers and their employers, one which falls within the statute's protective ambit? We answer both these questions in the affirmative. 40 There is no allegation that the defendants in this case were motivated by an invidiously discriminatory racial animus, and there is no evidence that would support such an allegation. Indeed, the theory of the plaintiffs' case is that they are the victims of a conspiracy motivated by the defendants' hostility toward nonunion workers of any race and the employers who hire them. We must, therefore, answer the question specifically reserved by Griffin and still unanswered in this circuit: does section 1985(3) reach conspiracies founded upon discriminatory animus directed against classes defined by some characteristic other than race? 41 Griffin noted that not all private conspiracies to interfere with the rights of another would come under the protective umbrella of section 1985(3). The Court determined the congressional purpose was to include only those conspiracies animated by an invidiously discriminatory motivation. 42 The language requiring intent to deprive of equal protection, or equal privileges and immunities, means that there must be some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously, discriminatory animus behind the conspirators' action. 43 403 U.S. at 102, 91 S.Ct. at 1798, 29 L.Ed.2d at 348 (some emphasis supplied). Thus, Griffin expressly left open the possibility that a § 1985(3) cause of action existed against private conspiracies inspired by some nonracial class bias. 44 Encouraged by this suggestion, numerous lower courts have already found that section 1985(3) is not limited to protecting classes defined by race. Indeed, we are aware of no post-Griffin decision by a circuit court that has limited the scope of the statute to racially-motivated conspiracies. See cases cited infra at p. 723. 45 Furthermore, extending section 1985(3) protection to include conspiracies motivated by nonracial class animus comports favorably with the Supreme Court's approach to other Reconstruction civil rights statutes in recent years to 'accord (them) a sweep as broad as (their) language.'  Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. at 97, 91 S.Ct. at 1796, 29 L.Ed.2d at 345. The expansive language of the statute could reach all conspiracies which deprive any class of persons of equal protection of the laws, not just those animated by racial discrimination. Sections 1981 and 1982, for example, both contain specific references to race, and the courts have consistently limited their application to instances of racial discrimination. See, e. g., McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co., 427 U.S. 273, 96 S.Ct. 2574, 49 L.Ed.2d 493 (1976) (§ 1981); Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409, 88 S.Ct. 2186, 20 L.Ed.2d 1189 (1968) (§ 1982); Olivares v. Martin, 555 F.2d 1192 (5th Cir. 1977) (§ 1981). By contrast, however, section 1983 makes no specific reference to race, and a wide variety of nonracial classes have sought and won relief from discriminatory treatment under section 1983. See, e. g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976) (prisoners); Johnson v. American Credit Co., 581 F.2d 526 (5th Cir. 1978) (debtors attacking state pre-judgment attachment procedure); Morris v. Michigan State Bd. of Education, 472 F.2d 1207 (6th Cir. 1973) (sex). Since section 1985(3), like section 1983, is not cast in racial terms, consistency demands that section 1985(3) also be read to protect nonracial classes. 46 The conclusion that section 1985(3) is not restricted to protecting victims of racial discrimination is also fully supported by the legislative history surrounding the statute's enactment. Both the congressional debates and the original statute's popular title suggest that the protection of groups who were being terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan (blacks and white Union sympathizers) was the Act's primary objective. Although concern for those persons victimized by Klan violence was the most pressing matter leading to adoption of the Act, both proponents and opponents of the legislation understood that it would cover other groups as well. Representative Hoar described the purpose of section 1985(3) as guaranteeing that under no temptation of party spirit, under no political excitement, under no jealousy of race or caste, will the majority either in numbers or strength in any State seek to deprive the remainder of the population of their civil rights. Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess. 335 (1871). Senator Edmunds' famous remarks also aptly illustrate the congressional attitude toward what classes would enjoy section 1985(3)'s protection: 47 We do not undertake in this bill to interfere with what might be called a private conspiracy growing out of a neighborhood feud of one man or set of men against another to prevent one (from) getting an indictment in the State courts against men for burning down his barn; but, if in a case like this, it should appear that this conspiracy was formed against this man because he was a Democrat, if you please, or because he was a Catholic, or because he was a Methodist, or because he was a Vermonter ... then this section could reach it. 48 Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess. 567 (1871). The congressional debates, which reflect a concern for all groups subjected to the Klan's organized lawlessness, make it appear that the statute's drafters intended to protect groups other than southern blacks. 49 Griffin, the statutory text, companion civil rights provisions, and the legislative history all indicate that a conspiracy motivated by invidiously discriminatory intent other than racial bias is actionable under section 1985(3). 50 However, the conclusion that section 1985(3) protects nonracial classes resolves only a part of the problem presented by this case, for we must also determine whether the particular class involved here is one which is covered by the statute's protective cloak. 51 Precisely what kinds of nonracial classes enjoy section 1985(3)'s protection is far from clear. Griffin presented conduct so close to the core of the coverage intended by Congress that it is hard to conceive of wholly private conduct that would come within the statute if it did not. 403 U.S. at 103, 91 S.Ct. at 1799, 29 L.Ed.2d at 348. At the same time, the Court's expressed concern over the broad reach of the statute's literal language dictates the exercise of restraint in defining what nonracial class-based discrimination is covered. Thus, we expressly limit our holding to a determination that section 1985(3) encompasses a private conspiracy against nonunion laborers and their employer. Appropriate development of judicial precedent demands that further delineation of the statute's outer limits must await specific cases. 52 Not every conceivable class of persons is covered by the statute. Members of the plaintiff class must share some common characteristic beyond simply being victims of the defendant's conspiratorial conduct. See, e. g., Askew v. Bloemker, 548 F.2d 673 (7th Cir. 1976) (homeowners raided by drug enforcement agents); Harrison v. Brooks, 519 F.2d 1358 (1st Cir. 1975) (property owners allegedly injured by city council rezoning efforts). The class cannot be so large and amorphous that its members are virtually indistinguishable from the vast majority of the populace. See, e. g., Blevins v. Ford, 572 F.2d 1336 (9th Cir. 1978) (nonlawyers). Even some clearly defined and easily identifiable groups have been denied protected status under the statute. See, e. g., DeSantis v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 608 F.2d 327 (9th Cir. 1979) (homosexuals); Carchman v. Korman Corp., 594 F.2d 354 (3d Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 898, 100 S.Ct. 205, 62 L.Ed.2d 133 (1979) (tenant organizers); Lessman v. McCormick, 591 F.2d 605 (10th Cir. 1979) (debtors); McLellan v. Mississippi Power & Light Co., 545 F.2d 919 (5th Cir. 1977) (en banc) (persons who file voluntary bankruptcy petitions); Bricker v. Crane, 468 F.2d 1228 (1st Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 930, 93 S.Ct. 1368, 35 L.Ed.2d 592 (1973) (physicians who testify in malpractice suits). 53 In the absence of Supreme Court guidance as to the kinds of classes protected by section 1985(3) or a method by which protected classes should be identified, our own en banc decision in McLellan provides our gauge. In McLellan, we held that the statute does not cover persons who file voluntary petitions in bankruptcy. The decision was based on three factors. First, the legislative history of the Ku Klux Klan Act contains no evidence of congressional concern about discrimination against persons who become insolvent. Second, while the protection afforded by the civil rights acts is not static, it would be inappropriate to enlarge the group of protected classes to include bankrupts when Congress had specifically declined to prohibit discrimination against them. Third, including bankrupts within the ambit of section 1985(3) would be unwarranted in light of the Supreme Court's refusal to characterize the right to file a bankruptcy petition as a fundamental right. 545 F.2d at 932-33. 54 Applying the McLellan factors to our case today, we find that the plaintiffs constitute a class for § 1985(3) purposes. 8 The labor union movement in America was yet to be born when the 42d Congress was in session, so it could not have been specifically concerned with discrimination perpetrated against nonunion laborers. However, the congressional debates evince a hearty regard for persons who are victimized because of their political beliefs and associations. Today's Ku Klux Klan proclaims itself to be a racist organization. But in 1871 it was regarded primarily as a political one. The motives and ambitions of the Klan disturbed the Republicans in the 42d Congress because they feared that its activities would defeat the policies of Reconstruction and deprive the newly emancipated blacks of rights secured to them under the recent amendments to the Constitution. Senator John Sherman of Ohio voiced this concern after he read aloud from a copy of the Klan's secret oath, 55 showing that here is a political organization, with political ends, political aims; it shows that the object and intent of that political organization is to prevent large masses of the people of the southern States from enjoying a right which has been guaranteed to them by the Constitution of our country. 56 Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess. 153 (1971). The Klan's political objective formed a recurrent theme in the Senate debates. 9 57 The apprehension of Republican senators over the Klan's scheme of terrorizing citizens for their political views and of preventing voters from exercising their franchise also echoed throughout the debates conducted in the House. Representative Ellis Roberts of New York expressed this concern in the following terms: 58 But one rule never fails: the victims whose property is destroyed, whose persons are mutilated, whose lives are sacrificed, are always Republicans. They may be black or white; they include those who wore the blue and those who wore the gray; newcomers and life-long residents, but only Republicans. Stain the door lintels with the mark of opposition to reconstruction and of hostility to the national Administration and the destroying angel passes by. Omit that sign and the torch may kindle the roof that covers women and children.... Such uniformity of result can come only from design. Republicans only are beaten and mutilated and murdered, because the blows are aimed at Republicans only. 59 Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess. 412-13 (1871). Other Republican congressman expressed similar views. 10 See generally Comment, A Construction of Section 1985(c) in Light of its Original Purpose, 46 Univ.Chi.L.Rev. 402, 407-420 (1979). 60 Thus, whereas McLellan could locate no indication of congressional purpose to protect persons discriminated against for filing bankruptcy petitions, the legislative history reflects a pervasive concern for persons conspired against for their political associations. The congressional debates surrounding adoption of the Act therefore provide support for including within the ambit of section 1985(3) those such as the plaintiffs who are punished because of their associations. 61 Similarly, enlarging the scope of the statute to include nonunion workers who are attacked for their choice to associate with other nonunion workers, thereby enabling an employer to offer significant work to the class, is appropriate in light of subsequently enacted federal legislation. While Congress has specifically refused to prohibit discrimination against bankrupts in legislation it has enacted on the subject, it has manifested a desire to protect laborers who opt not to affiliate themselves with a labor organization. Section 7 of the original Wagner Act provided that 62 (e)mployees shall have the right of self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities, for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection. 63 Wagner Act, § 7, 49 Stat. 452 (1935). When Congress passed the original Act, it rejected the argument that parity required granting protection against coercive tactics of labor organizations as well as against those committed by employers. See S.Rep. 573, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. 16 (1935). 64 However, significant change was not long in coming. The 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act brought the addition of unfair labor practices by labor organizations. The Taft-Hartley Act retained the right to form, join, or assist labor organizations, but it revised section 7 of the original Act so it would contain the right to refrain from any or all such activities. Taft-Hartley Act, § 101, 61 Stat. 140 (1947), currently codified at 29 U.S.C. § 157. Section 8(b)(1) now declares it to be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents to restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed by section 7. 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(1). Congress has thereby underscored the importance of the right of free association in the labor relations context and has guaranteed the right to a free and untrammeled choice to associate or not to associate with a labor organization. This manifestation of congressional concern for those in plaintiffs' class makes their protection by section 1985(3) particularly appropriate. 65 Finally, McLellan regarded the Supreme Court's refusal to call the right to file a bankruptcy petition a fundamental right as relevant to its own determination that bankrupts are not protected by section 1985(3). By contrast, the Supreme Court has characterized the right of free association as a right which, like free speech, lies at the foundation of a free society. Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 486, 81 S.Ct. 247, 251, 5 L.Ed.2d 231, 236 (1960). Our legal system honors the freedom of the individual to associate as he chooses because that freedom tends to produce the diversity of opinion that oils the machinery of democratic government and insures peaceful, orderly change. Gilmore v. City of Mobile, 417 U.S. 556, 577, 94 S.Ct. 2416, 2427, 41 L.Ed.2d 304, 321 (1974). The importance of the freedom of association has led the court to call it one of the indispensable liberties, NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 461, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 1171, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488, 1499 (1958), which ranks among our most precious freedoms. Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 30, 89 S.Ct. 5, 10, 21 L.Ed.2d 24, 31 (1968). The right of association is fundamental in our constitutional scheme of values. Thus, the difference in importance assigned to the right to file a bankruptcy petition and the right of the individual to freely associate with others of his own choosing favors protecting these plaintiffs. 66 Our determination that the plaintiffs constitute a protected class under section 1985(3) also comports favorably with the construction of the statute given by other courts. The lower federal courts have accorded § 1985(3) protection to two broad categories of nonracial classes. The first category consists of classes whose members are identified with one another by some inherited or immutable physical trait or by a history of past discrimination. See, e. g., Life Insurance Company of North America, 591 F.2d 499 (9th Cir. 1979) (women); Marlowe v. Fisher Body, 489 F.2d 1057 (6th Cir. 1973) (Jews); Baer v. Baer, 450 F.Supp. 481 (N.D.Cal.1978) (members of the Unification Church); Mandelkorn v. Patrick, 359 F.Supp. 692 (D.D.C.1973) (Children of God). Women, ethnic minorities, and religious sects are usually included under the statute because they are classes whose members bear no responsibility for their distinctive characteristics or because membership in the class has traditionally inflamed the irrational fears and hatreds of the majority. 11 Thus, they may be regarded as one of the groups which require and warrant special federal assistance in protecting their civil rights. DeSantis v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 608 F.2d at 332-33. The plaintiffs cannot claim they are distinguished from other persons by some immutable or inherited physical trait, like race or gender, over which they have no control. 67 However, courts have also granted protection to classes whose members are discriminated against because of their political beliefs or their associations. See, e. g., Means v. Wilson, 522 F.2d 833 (8th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 958, 96 S.Ct. 1436, 47 L.Ed.2d 364 (1976) (supporters of a particular political candidate); Glasson v. City of Louisville, 518 F.2d 899 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 930, 96 S.Ct. 280, 46 L.Ed.2d 258 (1975) (political demonstrators); Smith v. Cherry, 489 F.2d 1098 (7th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 910, 94 S.Ct. 2607, 41 L.Ed.2d 214 (1974) (voters for a sham political candidate); Cameron v. Brock, 473 F.2d 608 (6th Cir. 1973) (supporters of incumbent sheriff); Action v. Gannon, 450 F.2d 1227 (8th Cir. 1971) (worshipers at a predominantly white Catholic church disrupted by black civil rights protesters). It is within this second category of classes that plaintiffs fall. 68 Plaintiffs were denied the equal protection of law because they did not belong to a labor organization or worked for an employer which did not have a collective bargaining agreement and which hired workers without regard to their union membership. One of the unidentified co-conspirators made it clear to the plaintiffs before the destruction began that Port Arthur was a union town. The plaintiffs were attacked and beaten and property was destroyed because they chose to exercise their right not to join a labor organization and to work with others of the same mind. In view of the foregoing considerations, we hold that the plaintiffs belong to a class protected by section 1985(3). 69 Our decision does not imply that every union-nonunion controversy can create a section 1985(3) cause of action. Neither does it imply that every instance of violence arising in the context of a labor dispute will necessarily do so. Powerful limitations exist to restrict an overly broad application of the statute. See generally McLellan, 545 F.2d at 940-41 (Godbold, J., dissenting). Section 1985(3) cannot be invoked to disrupt the operation of a carefully integrated statutory scheme. See Great American Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Novotny, 442 U.S. 366, 99 S.Ct. 2345, 60 L.Ed.2d 957 (1979) (holding that deprivation of a right created by Title VII cannot form the basis for § 1985(3) cause of action). Neither can a § 1985(3) cause of action be predicated upon a simple unfair labor practice. Cf. United States v. DeLaurentis, 491 F.2d 208 (2d Cir. 1974) (holding an unfair labor practice not cognizable under 18 U.S.C. § 241, the criminal analogue to section 1985(3)). Unionism or nonunionism in and of itself does not create a covered class. But where, as here, there is no campaign to organize employees and force or violence is used to deprive nonunion workers and their employer of the right to freely associate with one another, a section 1985(3) action will lie. 12 70