Court Opinion

ID: 9558533
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:11:31.638693+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:22.139593
License: Public Domain

BAKES, J.,
concurring in the judgment and dissenting in part:
I concur in the judgment in Part IV of the majority opinion which holds that the trial court committed reversible error by entering the injunctions under the circumstances of this case. However, I disagree with the reasoning and the law expressed in Part II of the majority opinion.
Regarding Part II and the legality of teachers’ strikes, it seems to me that the majority is saying that teachers’ strikes are prohibited, i. e., that they are illegal, although that point is not entirely clear. But there is no Idaho statute which prohibits a strike by public school teachers. Although I.C. § 33-1271 provides for labor negotiations by public school teachers, that statute says nothing about strikes. In contrast, the statute which provides for labor negotiations by firefighters expressly prohibits strikes by firefighters. I.C. § 44-1811. In the absence of a direct statutory prohibition, what basis is there for saying that teachers’ strikes are illegal?
The majority, pursuant to I.C. § 73-116, looks to the common law for the applicable rule, concluding that at common law public employees had no right to strike and that therefore the public school teachers today in this state have no right to strike. Although the majority opinion cites no authority for that common law rule, some courts have indicated that at common law no employee — public or private — had a right to strike in concert with fellow workers and that such collective action was often held to be an illegal conspiracy. However, with the passage of Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, 452, 29 U.S.C. § 157 (1935), the conspiracy element was removed and the private employee’s right to strike became fully protected. International Union, U. A. W. A., A. F. of L. Local 232 v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 336 U.S. 245, 69 S.Ct. 516, 93 L.Ed. 651 (1948). Nevertheless, some courts have continued to hold that the common law rule was not abrogated with respect to public employees. School Committee v. Westerly Teachers Assn., 111 R.I. 96, 299 A.2d 441 (1973); United Federation of Postal Clerks v. Blount, D.C., 323 F.Supp. 879 (1971).
Even assuming that at common law public employees did not have the right to strike, that rule does not, by virtue of I.C. § 73-116, become ipso facto the controlling rule of law in this state. Long ago this Court stated with reference to the precursor of I.C. § 73-116:
“By the adoption of that section this state did not adopt the common law of England when such common law was inapplicable to the conditions of the state. The territory and state of Idaho, following the lead of other states having similar statutory provisions, only adopted such provisions of the common law as were applicable to the conditions of the state.” Northern Pacific Ry. Co. v. Hirzel, 29 Idaho 438, 161 P. 854 (1916).
Moreover, the common law was not composed of unalterable or immutable rules which survived the reasons or conditions on which they were founded. Common law rules were flexible and evolving rules which adapted to changing social conditions and practical realities of the times. That was the genius of the common law. R. Pound, *493The Spirit of the Common Law, ch. VIII (1921). In Good v. Good, 79 Idaho 119, 311 P.2d 756 (1957), this Court stated:
“[I]t does not follow that the rule of the common law must forever remain fixed and unyielding in all cases and under all circumstances. The contention ignores or denies one of the basic virtues of the common law system. The common law is not immutable. It is a flexible legal system capable of expansion and change necessary to meet new and changed problems and conditions, or to meet a new or altered public policy evolving from such changed conditions in an expanding and developing social order.” 79 Idaho at 123-124, 311 P.2d at 759.
See also Funk v. United States, 290 U.S. 371, 54 S.Ct. 212 (1933).
The changing rights of women is a good example of this common law flexibility. The common law rule regarding the legal rights of married women was, in essence that the husband and the wife were one in the law — that one being the husband. The legal existence of the woman was suspended during marriage. Blackstone, Commentaries, 189 (B. Cavit ed. 1941). The changes which have evolved in the common law rights of women are apparent — and most recently dramatic. Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 92 S.Ct. 251, 30 L.Ed. 225 (1971); Turner v. Dept. of Employment Sec., Etc., 423 U.S. 44, 96 S.Ct. 249 (1975); Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 96 S.Ct. 2831, 49 L.Ed.2d 788 (1976); Harrigfeld v. District Court of Seventh Jud. Dist. 95 Idaho 540, 511 P.2d 822 (1973). Cf. Williams v. Paxton, 98 Idaho 155, 559 P.2d 1123 (1977). If we were today confronted with a gap in our statute regarding the rights of married women this Court would certainly not feel bound through I.C. § 73-116 to impose the old common law rule on women in our present society. Why then has the majority reached back into antiquity to resurrect the common law anti-strike/conspiracy rule which is equally as outmoded?
The relationship between employers and workers is very different today from that in which the common law rule against strikes by workers developed. Today, collective bargaining between employers and employees in the private sector is protected — even mandated under most circumstances — by federal law. Similarly, our legislature has expressly provided for labor negotiations between public school teachers and the school districts. I.C. §§ 33-1271 et seq. It is also a practical and historical fact of life thoroughly recognized by judicial decisions, that the strike, or at least a threat to strike, is what brings the employees’ interests to bear upon the employer. American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Council, 257 U.S. 184, 209, 42 S.Ct. 72, 78, 66 L.Ed. 189 (1921). N. L. R. B. v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U.S. 221, 233-234, 83 S.Ct. 1139, 1148, 10 L.Ed.2d 308 (1963). A labor organization that can make no credible threat to strike is simply impotent in labor negotiations.
After concluding that strikes by school teachers are prohibited and illegal the majority equivocates, it seems to me, suggesting that the trial court did not have to grant an injunction for the “illegal strike” of the school teachers if it found that the school board was acting in bad faith, citing the “basic maxim of equity that one who seeks equitable relief must enter the court with clean hands.” Ante at 835. There is some authority for the proposition that school boards must negotiate in good faith in order to obtain an injunction to prohibit a strike as shown by the following quote from Timberlane Regular School Dist. v. Timberlane Regular Education Assn., 114 N.H. 245, 317 A.2d 555 (1974):
“Accordingly, it is our view that in deciding to withhold an injunction the trial court may properly consider among other factors whether recognized methods of settlement have failed, whether negotiations have been conducted in good faith, and whether the public health, safety and welfare will be substantially harmed if the strike is allowed to continue.” 317 A.2d at 559.
It seems to me that the problem is compounded by this line of reasoning. Thus, now by mandate of this Court, not only can *494teachers not strike, but by judicial fiat, school boards must now negotiate in good faith or lose the availability of a court injunction.1 This effectively means that the final arbiters in wage negotiations between teachers and school districts are going to be the courts who must decide whether the parties are negotiating in good faith, imposing or withholding the court’s injunctive powers based upon the outcome of that finding. I doubt the wisdom of placing the courts in such a position. It is not every social ill which can be resolved by the courts. It is my considered view that, in the absence of legislation holding otherwise, our society would be better served in most instances by a rule which permitted teachers to strike and school boards to negotiate within the statutory framework, whether in good or bad faith, letting economic and other social factors finally forge the conclusion of that conflict, rather than interjecting the courts into the fray where the threat of an injunction dangles over the head of teachers, but only if, in the opinion of the court, the school board has negotiated in good faith.
Our legislature, when it enacted the Professional Negotiations Act, I.C. § 33-1271 et seq., which provided for negotiations between teachers’ organizations and their employers, the school districts, was presumably well aware of the present state of labor relations in this country, which generally favors an economic, rather than judicial determination of wage disputes. In adopting that act the legislature might have prohibited strikes by teachers as it did in the legislation providing for labor negotiations by firefighters. I.C. § 44-1811. Having made no provision prohibiting strikes by teachers in their negotiations with school boards, it seems to me that the legislature has itself opted for an economic rather than a judicial determination of wage disputes between teachers and school boards. Therefore I cannot concur with the majority of this Court when they state, albeit by dictum, that teachers’ strikes are prohibited and illegal and that courts should employ their injunctive powers to prohibit strikes by school teachers. In concluding otherwise it is not necessary to assert that the right of teachers to strike is a constitutionally protected right. It is merely enough to observe that the legislature has not prohibited strikes by teachers, and the common law strike/conspiracy rule is totally inappropriate to present day circumstances, Good v. Good, supra. Therefore, the right of teachers to strike is neither prohibited nor illegal.
For this reason, as well as the procedural reason expressed in Part IV of the majority opinion, I would join in the decision of the majority reversing the orders of the trial court which granted the injunctions. In light of the foregoing, it is not necessary to reach the constitutional issue in Part I, or the anti-injunction statute issue addressed in Part III of the Court’s opinion.

. The Professional Negotiations Act provides that “the board of trustees of each school district . . shall . enter into a negotiation agreement with professional employees and negotiate with such employees in good faith on those matters specified in any such negotiation agreement . . I.C. § 33-1271. See also I.C. § 33-1272(3). However, that act does not require the school district to negotiate in good faith with respect to the negotiation agreement which specifies the matters subject to negotiation. Consequently, the act does not prohibit an arbitrary or bad faith refusal by the school district to include important matters in the negotiation agreement. By exercising this unqualified power to limit the subject matter of the negotiations the school district can avoid the statutory obligation to negotiate in good faith or negotiate at all with respect to the excluded matters.