Court Opinion

ID: 9688719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:01:22.423079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:41.461654
License: Public Domain

On Application for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
In their application for rehearing the defendants are, for the first time, and contrary to the rules of this court and the jurisprudence thereof,1 seeking to raise Federal constitutional issues that were not raised or passed on when the case was originally before us, their contention now being that even though they employed illegal means and purposes in this labor dispute, the injunctions as issued by the district judge and affirmed by us nevertheless infringes and otherwise deprives them of certain rights claimed to be guaranteed by the Federal constitution.
This contention, developed in a most, ingenuous manner, would lead the reader to understand or believe the defendants were forever enjoined by the lower court from organizing, striking, and peacefully picketing the plantations and mills of the plaintiffs, and that we, in affirming this decree, held in effect, and on the basis of a so-called local emergency doctrine raised by us for the first time,2 that the public policy of this state prohibits agricultural laborers, merely because they happen to be working with perishable crops, from exercising their constitutional right to strike, *176to peacefully picket, and/or to take any effective legal action to secure better wages and working conditions. Finally, and without detailing in any way their specific complaints with respect thereto, they claim the injunction as issued is too broad in scope, and, because of our failure to “tailor” or “clarify” the same, “they have been deprived of their basic constitutional rights and guarantees without even having been afforded a hearing before a court of law in final determination of their legal rights.”
Inasmuch as these matters are being raised for the first time in application for rehearing, this court would, ordinarily, dispose of the application summarily without further consideration, under the authorities cited in footnote No. 1. However, to clear the confusion created by the application and to disabuse the minds of the applicants as to their claimed fears, it is apt to observe that the opinion reflects, in Paragraph 4, the only errors assigned by the defendants in appealing from the decree of the district court in so far as pertinent here — and the crux of the objections then levelled at that judgment — is that the defendants, “as agricultural workers * ■ * * have a right to organize and to take all legal ■ economic steps'necessary to secure employer recognition and negotiation, in-cluding the publicizing of their dispute by the picketing of a premise or business of the offending employer that is manned by employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement with another union containing a ‘no strike’ clause,3 and * * * such picketing cannot be enjoined in the absence of illegal methods or an itnlawful purpose even though it causes loss and injury not only to the employer but to the entire community.” (Emphasis supplied.)
If there were any doubt as to this issue being correctly stated in the opinion, we in-r vite attention to the following quotation from pages 10 and 11 of the brief of defendants : “In the absence of unlawful methods or unlawful purposes4 the prohibition of the picketing and other activities of defendants embraced in the permanent injunctions was contrary to the law and public policy of Louisiana and in derogation of the constitutional rights of the defendants under the Constitution of the United States and of Louisiana.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Clearly, therefore, under the specific assignments of error made by the defendants *178themselves, they thus precisely prescribed the issues we were requested to pass on, i. e., whether or not the methods and purposes were legal and lawful, and on this issue we found as a fact these activities were unlawful and illegal.
The effort of applicants to show that the effect of the court’s decision is to forbid to this class of laborers “because of the happenstance that they are engaged in farm work and in the processing of a perishable crop, a fundamental constitutional right,” 5 is trite to say the least when one reads the opinion which clearly and unmistakably recognizes, as did the trial judge, the right of agricultural workers and laborers to organize, to strike, and to picket to secure recognition and collective bargaining for better wages and working conditions. But we did point out that this right cannot be paramount to all other rights for “ ‘by the same constitutional guarantees, that make these rights secure for the laborer, the employer is also insured he will not be deprived of his property except by due process of law and that the courts shall be open to him for the protection of his rights.’ ”
The final complaint, with respect to the scope of the injunction as issued, is as vague in the application for rehearing as it was on original hearing, as evidenced by the sole comment in original brief, i. e., “Even if the court were to find unlawful methods or an unlawful purpose the injunction contravened the defendants’ rights and should have been tailored to fit the specific needs of the situation " (Emphasis supplied.)
In their application for rehearing they do not point to any specific right we have failed or refused to pass on that was raised. They do not tell us in just what way they would have us “tailor” the injunction. Instead, they resort to generalities which are fairly summarized in Paragraph 18 of their application as follows :
“Defendants urge the court that regardless of the determination of the issues involved herein as they relate to the picketing of plaintiffs’ mills and plant sites, different issues are raised in relation to the balance of the injunctive order issued by the district court and that these issues are vital to defendants’ constitutional freedoms and should be finally determined by the court, and that the present judgment and opinion do not adequately state the disposition of defendants’ arguments and pleas that the district court injunction violates their right of free speech, assembly, organization and strike.”
As shown above, applicants are thus attempting to argue issues not heretofore raised or passed on, and, further, issues that have no basis in fact or in law since the *180injunctive decree of the lower court (affirmed on appeal), of necessity, dealt with the conditions existing at the time of the application therefor. It was not intended to and did not in fact give relief except as to the conditions as they existed then, that is, to prevent work stoppage at the sugar factories and refineries during the harvest season of 1953, which season ended, according to the record, either late in December of 1953 or early in January of 1954. The injunction was never intended to and did not in fact extend beyond that crucial period, as the opinion will reflect.
The application for rehearing is denied.

. Section 2 of Rule X of this court, adopted October 4, 1951, and in effect since January 1, 1952. See, also, Sorbe v. Merchants’ Ins. Co., 6 La. 185; Rightor v. Phelps, 1 Rob. 330; Garland v. Holmes, 1 La.Ann. 405; Stephens v. Duckett, 111 La. 979, 36 So. 89, and State ex rel. Murtagh v. Dept. of City Civil Service, 215 La. 1007, 42 So.2d 65. See further Godchaux Co. v. Estopinal, 251 U.S. 179, 40 S.Ct. 116, 64 L.Ed. 213.

. To the contrary, the judgment of the lower court, as reflected by the judge’s reasons quoted extensively in our opinion, is predicated on this same foundation.

. Although defendants now maintain they did not attempt to and did not enlist the aid and assistance of the union employees in the mills, or encourage them to strike, tlie testimony in the record establishes the contrary to be true;- as does the circulation among these employees of the several letters issued by Local 317 enlisting their active support.

. The appellees in their pleadings, during the trial in the lower court, and on appeal here took the position that both the purposes and the methods employed were illegal and that, accordingly, no federal or constitutional question was raised.

. As stated in the application, the “right to strike and to picket in an effort to persuade or induce other working men to sympathize with their cause'and join in bringing economic pressure on the employer.”