Court Opinion

ID: 9713823
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:23:16.951811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:20.656978
License: Public Domain

Crumpacker, J.
The appellants were enjoined by-order of the Marion Superior Court from continuing to maintain a picket line they had established at the entrance to the appellee’s place of business in Indianapolis, Indiana, as the result of which picket line the appellee suffered a financial loss of $400 per day during the time it was maintained with the probability of insolvency if continued. The appellants contend that such order is contrary to law because injunctions, under the circumstances of this case, are prohibited by the Anti-Injunction Act of 1933, §40-501, et seq. Burns’ 1952 Replacement, in cases involving or growing out of labor disputes.
It is fundamental, we think, that if a litigant seeks the protection of the Anti-Injunction Act against an injunction that is otherwise proper, the burden is on him to bring himself within the provisions of the act. The most cursory reading of the act is sufficient to convince one that it is predicated in its entirety upon the existence of a labor dispute and if none exists it has no application. The court found the facts specially and among its findings is the following : “That there is no labor dispute between the plaintiff and its employees and the defendant union or its members, as disclosed by the facts in this case.” If that *60finding is supported by evidence of probative value it disposes of the major question involved in this appeal.
There is evidence tending to establish the following-facts: The appellee is a corporation duly organized and existing under the laws of the State of Indiana, engaged in the warehouse business in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, in connection with which it employs from 8 to 10 persons none of whom belongs to the appellant union. The appellant Local No. 135 is affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers and is an association of individuals designated as a local labor union with approximately 5,000 members living in Indianapolis, Indiana. All members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers customarily refuse to cross a duly authorized picket line. The appellee is a member of an organization known as the Indianapolis Warehouse Association all of whose members, except the appellee, have been organized by the appellant union and operating contracts with them have been negotiated. About a year ago the appellant had membership applications of all persons then employed by the appellee but for reasons not disclosed failed to ask for an election designating it as the bargaining agent for said employees. In the meantime the matter of organizing the appellee’s employees remained quiescent and all but one of those for whom the appellant held cards voluntarily left the appellee’s employment and went elsewhere to work. On April 25, 1955, without having made any effort whatever to organize the appellee’s present employees by contact and persuasion the appellant placed a picket line at the entrance of the appellee’s place of business carrying signs bearing the legend “Merchandise Warehouse Company, Inc. does not employ members of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehouse-*61men & Helpers, Local No. 135 A. F. L., Indianapolis, Indiana.” At least one picket, one J. D. Smith, was instructed by the appellants to keep all union drivers off the appellee’s premises and it is reasonable to infer that, one picket having been so instructed, they all were. Although the picket line was peaceful in all respects it resulted in a stoppage of incoming merchandise to the appellee’s warehouse with an attendant loss of $400 per day and if continued would constitute a menace to the appellee’s survival in busines.
In our opinion these facts fail to show a labor dispute within the meaning of the Anti-Injunction Act of 1933. In this connection Mitchell v. Gibbons (1949), 172 Fed. 2d 970, is very much in point. In that case the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit, said: “The defendants’ attempt to organize them (the plaintiff’s employees) and plaintiff’s resistance result in the existence of a labor dispute.” We are willing to go a step farther and say a union’s attempt to organize a group of employees and the unwillingness of such employees to be organized constitutes a labor dispute. In the present case we have neither situation. There is not the slightest evidence that the appellee at any time in any degree resisted, in any way or manner, the appellants’ efforts to organize its employees. In fact the only effort they made was 100 percent successful without the aid of a picket line but for some reason not disclosed by the evidence they slept on their rights until those employees whom they had “signed up” left the appellee’s employ and went elsewhere to work. Almost a year later without any effort whatsoever to negotiate with the appellee or its present employees, they threw a picket around the appellee’s place of business for the single purpose, they say, of organizing said employees all of whom, for aught that appears in the record, may have been ready and willing to join *62the appellant union. Webster defines the word dispute as a “verbal controversy; contest by opposing argument or expression of opposing views or claims; controversial discussion.” Sec. 13 of the Anti-Injunction Act, being §40-513, Burns’ 1952 Replacement, defines a labor dispute as including “any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether or not the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee.” (Our emphasis). Assuming that organizational efforts of labor unions are included in this definition obviously a controversy of some kind is essential to a labor dispute. Here we have none and under such circumstances there is no lawful justification for that form of economic coercion known as the picket line.
In this connection it is well to point out that the present case is distinguishable from Spickelmier v. Chambers (1943), 113 Ind. App. 470, 47 N. E. 2d 189, which the appellant contends is decisive of the question of the existence of a labor dispute. In the Spickelmier case the court said: “The appellant’s employees were not members of any union and had no desire to become members of any union. . . .” (Our emphasis). If the present record showed “no desire” on the part of the appellee’s employees to join Teamsters Local No. 135, which it does not, we would concede the existence of a labor dispute.
We recognize the peaceful picket as a legitimate weapon available to a labor union in its efforts to organize an industrial plant if such effort is met with resistance on the part of the management or its employees but, by reason of the economic repercussions that incidentally but inevitably follow its use, we feel *63that an attitude of fairness and common decency condemns its use as being neither morally nor legally justified when organization can be accomplished without it.
We are aware that it is universally held by the courts of this country that the right to picket involves the right of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Such constitutional guaranty, however, does not protect falsity or misrepresentation. We think the clear implication of the signs carried by the pickets charged the appellee with refusing to hire members of the appellant union as a matter of fixed policy. There is no basis for such accusation as the only evidence on the subject discloses that a year ago 100 percent of the appellee’s employees had signed membership cards in Teamsters Local No. 135. It is true that in the meantime all but one of such employees had gone elsewhere to work but to this day the matter of hiring members of said local was never discussed with the appellee nor, as far as the evidence discloses, has a member of Teamsters Local No. 135 ever presented himself for work at the appellee’s plant. Picketing accompanied by misrepresentation of the facts involved will be enjoined. Spickelmier v. Chambers, supra.
Next the appellants assert that Teamsters Local No. 135, being an unincorporated association of individuals, a judgment against it as an entity, as is the case here, cannot stand. We agree that the judgment so far as it is against Teamsters Local No. 135 as such is a nullity. An examination of the whole record, however, indicates that this is a suit against a class of individuals too numerous to be brought into court and that the appellants James Burrello, William Schlott, Harry Belmore and Gene San Soucie were sued as the representatives of that class known as Teamsters Local No. 135. The judgment, by its express *64terms runs against all the members of Teamsters Local No. 135, separately and severally, and against Gene San Soucie, President, James Burrello, William Schlott and Harry Belmore as their agents and representatives. To that extent the judgment is valid.
Finally, the appellants contend that the Congress of the United States, having occupied the field of labor management relations through enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act, the appellee’s only remedy is in the manner therein provided and therefore the Marion Superior Court had no jurisdiction over the subject matter of this litigation. The TaftHartley Act and the machinery it sets up has to do only with labor management relations that involve inter-state commerce. By its finding No. 12 the court found “That the plaintiff’s (appellee) business is not one engaged in inter-state commerce.” If that finding is supported by competent evidence it disposes of the appellants’ present contention. The appellee does an annual business in the warehouse involved of approximately $80,000 not more than 20 percent of which is derived from or flows into inter-state commerce. The National Labor Relations Board has classified warehousing as “an intra-state link in inter-state commerce.” In United Terminal Corporation, 112 N. L. R. B. 121, said board said in effect that unless the operations listed in the category “intra-state link to inter-state commerce” has an annual volume of $100,000 received from services derived from interstate commerce, the operation is regarded as involving intra-state business only. Thus it appears that by the yardstick used by the Federal government itself in determining its jurisdiction in labor cases, the finding in question is sustained by the evidence.
Judgment affirmed.