Opinion ID: 1958228
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the arbitration case.

Text: We see no basis whatever for the allowance of counsel fees in the arbitration case. The litigation does not even come close to being within the scope of the Anti-Injunction Act and there is no other applicable court rule permitting an award to the successful attorneys. Despite the broad definitional sections of such statutes ( N.J.S. 2A:15-58, derived from 29 U.S.C.A. § 113), not every situation involving management and labor amounts to a labor dispute nor does each litigation which concerns that relationship involve or grow out of a labor dispute so as to bring the provision of the law into operation. Bakery Sales Drivers Local Union No. 33 v. Wagshal, 333 U.S. 437, 68 S.Ct. 630, 92 L.Ed. 792 (1948). Cf. Outdoor Sports Corp. v. A.F. of L., Local 23132, 6 N.J. 217 (1951). The letter of the definitions must be qualified by fair intendment indicated by the statutory purposes and policies. See N.J.S. 2A:15-51 and 52. For example, basic purposes of the analogous Norris-LaGuardia Act were spoken of by the United States Supreme Court in Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen Enterprise Lodge No. 27 v. Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad, 321 U.S. 50, 64 S.Ct. 413, 88 L.Ed. 534, 543 (1944), as to head off strikes and the violence which too often accompanies them, by requiring the statutory steps to be taken before the aid of federal courts is sought in equity and to prevent the use of injunction improperly as a strike breaking implement. See also Independent Dairy Workers Union of Hightstown v. Milk Drivers and Dairy Employees Local No. 680, 30 N.J. 173, 185 (1959). Obviously a suit to decide the arbitrability of an employee's grievance under a collective bargaining agreement providing for amicable settlement of disputes covered thereby is not within the intended scope of an anti-injunction statute. And the counsel fee provision in section 53 can have no application independent of the balance of the act. Moreover, the inherent basic premise of the applicability of such laws is that the primary object of the suit be to enjoin some kind of alleged unlawful, coercive activity by the labor side of the controversy, which is causing irreparable injury to the management side. The employer's action here is not that kind of a suit. In fact it is not an injunction suit at all in the sense that term is used in such laws. The instant action is actually nothing more than a declaratory judgment suit asking for a judicial declaration as to arbitrability of the particular grievance under the labor contract. The prayer for an injunction amounts only to an ancillary request for a stay of the arbitration pending the determination. The suit did not belong in the Chancery Division at all since the primary relief sought was purely legal and the law court has ample power to grant such a stay. Cf. Battle v. General Cellulose Co., supra (23 N.J., at pp. 543-544). See Constitution of 1947, Art. VI, sec. III, par. 4. Here the employer was compelled to take the initiative because the arbitration procedure called for by the contract was self-starting, so to speak, and would proceed to conclusion without its participation absent a stay. If the instant action had been brought in the law court where it belonged, any suggestion that the Anti-Injunction Act could apply would have been frivolous indeed. The union and Borkowski failed to cite any direct or analogous authority in support of their claim. Their argument finally boils down to contending that arbitrability should be determined by the arbitrator and not by a court and therefore an employer who loses a judicial action contesting that question should, in the broad cause of the furtherance of industrial peace, be compelled to pay the other side counsel fees. The basic premise has no foundation beyond a theory of what might be, a matter outside of our province. Here the arbitration association advised plaintiff it could not determine arbitrability. More important, as the Appellate Division pointed out on the main appeal (67 N.J. Super., at p. 394), the United States Supreme Court has recently held, in a case involving this very union, that that question is [one] for the courts to decide. United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 4 L.Ed. 2 d 1409, 1418, n. 7 (1960). This is so despite the fact that the same court had held that Congress has precluded the states from applying state law in cases involving questions of arbitration under provisions of collective bargaining agreements affecting interstate commerce. Textile Workers Union of America v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S. 448, 77 S.Ct. 912, 1 L.Ed. 2 d 972, 980 (1957). One other factor in the instant situation deserves mention. Not until the main case was all over and the present application for fees prosecuted was it even suggested that the suit fell within the scope of the Anti-Injunction Act. The issuance of the pendente lite restraint of the arbitration did not follow the procedure required by section 53 and no objection was made on that score. As earlier indicated, appellants procured taxation of their costs in the Appellate Division as of right, following the practice in non-labor injunction cases. [2] In all fairness, their claim of entitlement to fees on the ground that the case is governed by the act comes much too late.