Court Opinion

ID: 9865316
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:31:25.008348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:38:26.637219
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Bakke
specially concurring.
The facts and issues are sufficiently detailed in Mr. Justice Bock’s opinion. They require no repetition or reiteration.
While- not particularly disagreeing with the majority opinion, or the conclusion reached therein, I think the case is one of the “mountain laboring and bringing forth a mouse. ’ ’ The mouse of unconstitutionality is probably there, but I do not like its color. It is too gray, and not recognizable in the dark. Everyone knows, and the majority opinion admits, that we are going through an experimental period in labor legislation, attended with litigation, and we might just as well have selected a white mouse, the kind ordinarily used in experimentation, because the results are more easily ascertainable under the microscope of critical analysis.
In any event, I choose to rely for the sustaining of the judgment on the assignment of error based upon the trial court’s holding that part of the anti-picketing law (1905 act) was impliedly repealed by chapter 59, Session Laws 1933. That such was the case, I shall proceed to demonstrate.
“If a criminal act [in our ease, one dealing with heretofore called criminal conduct] deals with the. same subject as a prior act and is inconsistent with and repugnant to the prior act, the latter will be repealed by implication to the extent of the inconsistency. ” 25 R. C. L. 930, §179.
Section 1 of the 1905 act (S. L. ’35, p. 160; ’35 O. S. A., v. 3, c. 97, §90, supra, C. L. §4162) is clearly inconsistent with and repugnant to paragraph (e) section 78, chapter 97, ’35 p. C. A., S. L. ’33, p. 406, §3. Section 78 reads, in part, as follows: “No- court, nor any judge or judges thereof shall have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or temporary or permanent injunction which in *399specific or general terms prohibits any person or persons from doing, whether singly or in concert, any of the following acts: * * *
“(e) Giving publicity to and obtaining or communicating information regarding the existence of, or the facts involved in, any dispute, whether by advertising, speaking, patrolling any public street or any place where any person or persons may lawfully be, without intimidation or coercion, or by any other method not involving fraud, violence, breach of the peace, or threat thereof.”
Certainly it cannot be urged with any merit that the announced public policy of the state, which will not allow injunctive relief against such conduct, would permit the same result to be achieved by having a supposed violater arrested and jailed. The repugnancy is so obvious as to be inescapable. Section (e) supra, cannot be construed in any way, except as “an indication that the sovereign power no longer desires the former offense [picketing in a labor dispute] to be punished or regarded as criminal.” 14 Am. Jur. 777.
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin in its opinion in the American Furniture Co. v. Chauffeurs etc., Local, 222 Wis. 338, 355, 268 N. W. 250, speaking of the conclusion of the report of the house committee on the Norris-LaGuardia Act, said: “ * * * since the strike is a lawful instrument [as is the picket — in the sense it may not be enjoined — under the 1933 act] in the struggle between employer and employee, it would be hypocrisy to concede these rights and then to prohibit any effective exercise of them by labor.” (In our case by a criminal statute.) Italics are mine.
It is urged here, and some courts have held, that there can be no such thing as peaceful picketing, that it is per se a species of coercion and intimidation. That doctrine has long since been discarded. Wallace Co. v. International Ass’n, 155 Ore. 652, 63 P. (2d) 1090. The court in the latter case sustained the constitutionality of the Ore*400gon anti-injunction, statute regarding labor disputes. See, also, Lisse v. Local Union, 2 Cal. (2d) 312, 41 P. (2d) 314.
Section (e) supra, is identical with tbe one contained in the Wisconsin Labor Code and which was passed upon by the United. States Supreme Court in the case of Senn v. Tile Layers Union, 301 U. S. 468, 57 Sup. Ct. 857, 81 L. Ed. 1229. While it is true that the Wisconsin Code contains a specific provision to the effect that “peaceful picketing or patrolling, whether engaged in singly or in numbers, shall be legal,” and our act (sections 76-87, chapter 97, ’35 C. S. A.; S. L. ’33, pp. 404, 414, §§1, 12), does not contain such a provision; nevertheless, section (e) is in itself a sufficient definition of lawful picketing, if the language in the 1905’ act is a sufficient definition of unlawful picketing in a labor dispute. It therefore follows that the omission from the 1933 Colorado act of the quoted words which are found in the Wisconsin act is immaterial. The same is true in regard to the titles, because both the 1905 act and the 1933 act deal with conduct of people in labor disputes and are found in chapter 97, ’35 C. S. A. dealing with labor.
At the time the Senn case arose in Wisconsin, there was a criminal statute in that state to the effect that “Any two or more persons who shall combine, associate, agree, mutually undertake or concert together for the purpose of wilfully or maliciously injuring another in his reputation, trade, business or profession by any means whatever, or for the purpose of maliciously compelling another to do or perform any act against his will, or preventing or hindering another from doing or performing any lawful act shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year or by fin-e not exceeding five hundred dollars.” Wisconsin Statutes 1937, p. 2818, §343.681.
It was held by the attorney general of that state that picketing of a retail establishment was a violation of the section. 24 Atty. Gen. 613. (Predicated on non-existence of a labor dispute).
*401The "Wisconsin Labor Code (considered by the U. S. Supreme Court in the Senn ease, supra, says nothing about a repeal of the above §343.681, hence there is a situation identical with that in Colorado, except that in our case the legality of picketing in a labor dispute is raised in a criminal prosecution, while in the Senn case it arose on an application for injunctive relief. While neither the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in the American Furniture Company case, nor the Supreme Court of the United States mentioned any repeal of said section 343.681 supra, for the apparent reason that a labor dispute was involved, it was held unequivocally that peaceful picketing in such a dispute in Wisconsin was legal.
My conclusion, therefore, is that section 1 of the 1905 act was impliedly repealed by the 1933 act, to the extent that peaceful picketing in a labor dispute is no longer a crime. I agree with Justice Brandéis, where he says in the Senn case: “Exercising its police power Wisconsin [Colorado] has declared that in a labor dispute peaceful picketing and truthful publicity are means legal for unions.” (p. 482) See, also, People v. Spear (Cal.), 89 P. (2d) 445.