Court Opinion

ID: 9544499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:56:18.801113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:06.573312
License: Public Domain

EDMONDS, J.
Under the law of this state as it has developed in recent years, and particularly since the decision in J. F. Parkinson Co. v. Building Trades Council, 154 Cal. 581 [98 P. 1027, 16 Ann.Cas. 1165, 21 L.R.A.N.S. 550], the intentional interference by union labor with the advantageous economic relations of others is not tortious provided the means used are peaceful and truthful and the object sought to be accomplished has reasonable relevance to labor conditions. And it has been held that the boycott, either primary or secondary, is a form of economic pressure which may be employed to accomplish any lawful purpose. (McKay v. Retail Auto. S. L. Union No. 1067, 16 Cal.2d 311 [106 P.2d 373]; C. S. Smith Met. Market Co. v. Lyons, 16 Cal.2d 389 [106 P.2d 414] ; Fortenbury v. Superior Court, 16 Cal.2d 405 [106 P.2d 411].) But in the present ease, the trial judge found that the purpose of the union and its agents was neither a lawful one nor was it related to the establishment of better wages, hours, or conditions of employment. I concur in the affirmance of the judgment giving effect to those conclusions because, as I read the record, the evidence compels the findings upon which the injunction was ordered, or taking the. position most favorable to the appellants, the decision of the trial court rests upon conflicting evidence which places the determination beyond the reach of an appellate tribunal.
By the decisions of this court, the right of a labor organization to picket an employer or boycott a third person under certain specified conditions has been recognized as an exception to the general principles of tort law. In our present day highly industrialized society, both employers and organized labor invade the respective fields of operation of their competitors. Each group has economic interests, the inten*755tional invasion of which is prima facie tortious and is actionable unless privileged. But because competition is an essential element of private enterprise, this disregard of property rights has been held to be justified when the purpose is reasonably related to the economic interests of the invading group. More particularly, the proposition that a court should not intervene to aid one person in an economic struggle in which another has a substantial interest at stake and is employing lawful means is founded upon a weighing of the benefits obtained against the detriment to society and the person injured.
In applying these rules to cases involving labor controversies, it has become the settled law of this state that organized labor has the constitutional right, as an incident of free speech, to fully publicize the facts of a labor dispute and invite public support of its position. (C. S. Smith Met. Market Co. v. Lyons, supra; McKay v. Retail Auto. S. L. Union No. 1067, supra.) And in the exercise of its constitutional right of free speech, a union is privileged' intentionally to induce others, in their relation with an employer, to apply economic pressure upon him resulting in injury. However, this privilege to interfere with a competitor’s valuable and legally protected economic interests is not an absolute one, but is qualified and conditional.
The first limitation which has been applied by this court is that a union, in compelling compliance with its demands through the application of economic pressure, induced by publication of the facts and the solicitation of support, is privileged to invade the interests of others only where it employs peaceful and truthful means. (Magill Bros. v. Building Service etc. Union, 20 Cal.2d 506 [127 P.2d 542]; Steiner v. Long Beach Local No. 128, 19 Cal.2d 676, 696 [123 P.2d 20]; C. S. Smith Met. Market Co. v. Lyons, supra; McKay v. Retail Auto. S. L. Union No. 1067, supra; J. F. Parkinson Co. v. Building Trades Council, supra.) The second general condition necessary to justify the invasion of economic interest is that the end be lawful. “Any injury to a lawful business ... is prima facie actionable, but may be defended upon the ground that it was merely the result of a lawful effort of the defendants to promote their own welfare.” (J. F. Parkinson Co. v. Building Trades Council, supra.) The purpose of labor must be reasonably relevant to legitimate labor conditions and *756.the labor controversy o.ne in which the union has-“a substantial” and a “direct and obvious” interest. The activity of the workers, it has been said, must “benefit them directly” or “enhance their bargaining power”; for example, the concerted action must have the direct effect of and be reasonably relevant to “the attainment of higher wages, shorter hours of labor or better working conditions.”
Considering the situation of the parties in the present case, the appellant union, in accordance with the general purpose of organized labor, has a direct and substantial interest- in obtaining maximum wages, minimum hours, and better working conditions, and, in maintaining such advantageous labor conditions, once achieved, the workers may obtain closed shop contracts or devise any other means reasonably adapted to securing an advantageous bargaining position. On the other hand, a person has the right to own and control his own business, work in that business with his own hands, refuse to employ workers for whom he has no need, and to procure the merchandise or products without which the business could not operate. It is these conflicting economic interests which must be weighed in determining the respective rights of the parties.
By an affidavit.of Jones, its business agent, the union stated in particular the basis for its position that the boycott against the respondents was for a lawful purpose. According to this .affidavit the reasons for refusing to admit Bautista and Macias, and other persons termed “independent peddler distributors,” to membership are economic and not personal, political, or national. Jones declared that companies engaged in industries where commodities sold at retail are delivered by automotive transportation have fostered and encouraged a form of retail delivery “variously known as ‘-independent peddlers’, ‘independent distributors', and ‘venders’, that said companies in distributing their products have encouraged this form of distributing and delivery for various economic reasons; among others, it eliminates the responsibility of the company for .the payment of the Old Age and Un-employment Insurance tax and it eliminates the necessity of paying or carrying employers liability insurance and evades the responsibility imposed by the workmen’s compensation, insurance and safety ■acts and .further evades liability under the master and servant law; that as the result of the growth and development of this *757system of ‘independent peddler distributors’ many union wage earners are deprived of the benefits of the social security laws, workmen’s compensation laws, and various other beneficial legislation enacted for the benefit and progress and' social welfare of the people of the State of California . . . these so-called ‘independent peddler distributors’ work long hours in excess of the hours fixed by the union for their membership and the said ‘venders’, otherwise fail to observe the reasonable rules and regulations established by the union for the betterment of working conditions. . .
It may be conceded that the dissatisfaction of organized labor with a system of distributing milk-products which avoids minimum wages and hours, workmen’s compensation and social security benefits is a legitimate matter.of labor dispute (Emde v. San Joaquin County etc. Council, 23 Cal.2d 146, 155 [143 P.2d 20, 150 A.L.R 916]). But no such plan is shown in the present case. Here we have two men who were, in effect, retail merchants carrying on their business by their own efforts. The union does not claim that Bautista and Macias are now or have ever been directly or indirectly connected with the milk brokers from whom they were purchasing milk products at the time the boycott was instituted; on the contrary, it affirmatively appears that for some seven or eight years the respondents have carried on a milk distributing business, buying dairy products from various brokers. Nor is there any showing that either Challenge Creamery and Butter Association nor Associated Dairies, against whom the boycott was directed, has fostered or encouraged the sale of its products by independent vendors; indeed there is no evidence that these companies sold to such vendors other than Bautista and Macias.
This is a very different situation from that shown in the Emde case where it appeared without contradiction that the dairy, notwithstanding a contract with the union providing for the employment of its members exclusively as truck drivers, decided to change the method of operation and negotiated with the men then in its employ to distribute milk to the same customers under an agreement providing for compensation upon a percentage basis. By establishing the new arrangement for the delivery of its products, the dairy escaped com> pliance with the- conditions imposed by union labor' as' to wages and working conditions. However, unless' one sub*758scribes to the broad proposition, that a retail merchant having no direct connection with the wholesaler from which he buys his goods, nor carrying on business by any subterfuge, must employ members of organized labor regardless of his need for them, then no lawful purpose has been shown in the present ease.
True, organized labor, as a matter which is within the proper concern of every citizen, has an interest in the working conditions of all persons who are engaged in business and industry. Also, every proprietor of a business who performs some of the same tasks as those of his employees, even within the usual hours of a business day, takes from those within the employee group part of the work which could be done by them. But the legitimate interest of a labor union is to secure reasonable wages and working conditions for those who, as employees, contribute their energy andVskill to the industrial life of the community. A requirement that the proprietor of a business must restrict his working hours and conditions to the standards set by a union has no reasonable relevance to advantageous labor conditions unless organized labor is to have a monopoly on all useful work with no right of the owner to do more than provide the capital by which wages may be assured.
For these reasons the trial court was fully justified in finding that the purpose of the union and its agents “was not reasonably connected with any controversy which affects workers in the milk industry generally, or any workers employed by plaintiffs, nor was it reasonably related to employment or collective bargaining; that such purpose was essentially selfish and unreasonable and outside of and repugnant to the legitimate purposes and activities of labor unions in respect to improving - the workers’ condition as such; that such purpose and the results thereof subserved no public interest and was not for public welfare.'” There is substantial evidence to the effect that the boycott was instituted solely because Bautista and Macias were not American citizens, in addition to that relating to the conflicting economic interests which were required to be weighed in determining the respective rights of the parties.
The appellants rely not only upon the decisions of this court by which it was held that organized labor, under specified conditions, is privileged to appjy economic pressure upon employers but assert that the conclusions of the Supreme *759Court of the United States compel a reversal of the judgment in the present controversy. They call particular attention to Cafeteria Employees Union v. Angelos, 320 U.S. 293 [64 S.Ct. 126, 88 L.Ed. 58], and Bakery & P. Drivers Local v. Wohl, 315 U. S. 769 [62 S.Ct. 816, 86 L.Ed. 1178],'in which the court struck down, as an abridgement of free speech, broad injunctions granted by New York courts prohibiting picketing of any nature against persons having no employees upon the ground that no “labor dispute” was involved within the meaning of the state statute.
Mr. Justice Brandeis, by dictum in Senn v. Tile Layers Protective Union, 301 U.S. 468 [57 S.Ct. 857, 81 L.Ed. 1229], for the first time suggested that the right of labor to picket peacefully was an incident of free speech under the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. Senn’s complaint charged that the unions had picketed his place of business and also had sent letters to architects and contractors requesting them not to patronize him because he was conducting a nonunion shop and threatening to picket them if they did so. Through counsel the unions agreed that they would not send any other communications of that kind nor would they resort to picketing. Most significantly, the United States Supreme Court emphasized in its statement of the facts of the case that the trial judge treated this agreement as disposing of the claim for relief on account of the boycott. For that reason, it was said, the union’s acts in regard to a boycott were not material.
Considering the facts upon which the case was decided, it appears that Senn, the proprietor of a small business, and also his employees, declined to join the tile layers’ union. When he refused to sign a contract which barred him from working at his trade with his employees the union peacefully picketed the place of business. Denied an injunction under a Wisconsin statute allowing labor to use that form of economic pressure, upon certiorari to the Supreme Court he contended that the statute abridged his right under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to work under conditions of his own choice. In affirming the judgment, Mr. Justice Brandéis, speaking for the court, observed: “The question for our determination is whether either the means or the end sought is forbidden by the Federal Constitution. Clearly the means which the statute authorizes—picketing and peac*760eful publicity—are not prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment. ..■. The picketing was peaceful. The publicity did not involve, á .misrepresentation of fact. . . . The end sought by the unioiis is not unconstitutional. ’ ’ This conclusion was based upon the finding that the union had legitimate interests to protect and that Senn’s action was in conflict with those •interests. Succinctly summarizing the basis for the decision, it was heldThe laws of Wisconsin, as declared by its highest court, permit unions to: endeavor to induce an employer, when unionizing his shop, to agree to refrain from working in his business with his own hands—so to endeavor although none o.f. his employees is a member of a union. Whether it was' wise for the state to permit the unions to do so is a question . of -its public policy—mot our concern. The Fourteenth Amendment does not prohibit it.”
Unlike the present case, Senn was an employer and the .union peacefully picketed his place of business after abandoning its secondary boycott. But there is a more fundamental distinction between the situation of Senn and that of Bautista and Macias in the present case, for the United States Supreme Court merely decided .that the Wisconsin Labor Code violated no constitutional principle because the Fourteenth Amendment does not guarantee the right of injunction against peaceful picketing. In this • connection, the court held that it was not concerned with the wisdom of the public policy of Wisconsin;.- The Senn -case therefore is not authority for the proposition that an injunction prohibiting the application of economic pressure against a person carrying on a business entirely -by his own efforts violates constitutional guarantees of free speech. On the contrary, the decision is consistent with the California cases which restrict • organized labor’s privilege intentionally to injure its competitors. More, particularly, the federal court held that this privilege did not stem from the provisions of the Wisconsin Labor Code, declaring: ‘‘Members of a union might, without special statutory authorization by a State, make known the facts of a labor dispute, -for freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.”
Nor are Carlson v. California, 310 U.S. 106 [60 S.Ct. 746, 84 L.Ed. 1104], and Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88 [60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093], determinative of the present controversy. These cases concerned an Alabama statute and a *761county ordinance of California, respectively. Bach enactment, which prohibited picketing in any form, was challenged as a denial of the right of free speech under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The court held both statutes unconstitutional. In the Thornhill case, the court pointed out that the legislation against picketing “leaves room for no exceptions based upon either the number of persons engaged in the proscribed activity, the peaceful character of their demeanor, the nature of their dispute with an employer, or the restrained character and the accurateness of the terminology used in notifying the public of the facts of the disphte. ’ ’ The court pointed out that “the dissemination of information concerning the facts of a labor dispute must be regarded as within that area of free discussion that is guaranteed by the Constitution,” and condemned the Alabama law because “whatever the means used to publicize the facts of a labor dispute, ... all such activity without exception is within the inclusive prohibition of the statute. ...” But the court recognized, in general terms, that a state was not required to permit picketing under all circumstances. In the Carlson case because of the “sweeping and inexact” terms of the ordinance, it was held to be violative of constitutional rights.
Picketing was again justified upon the ground of the guarantee of free speech in the case of American Fed. of Labor v. Swing, 312 U.S. 321 [61 S.Ct. 568, 85 L.Ed. 855], In that case, the state court enjoined the union from peacefully picketing a beauty parlor in an endeavor to unionize it upon the ground that the proprietor had no dispute with his employees and none of the members of the picketing union had ever been employed by Swing. In reversing the decree, the Supreme Court declared: “A state cannot exclude workingmen from peacefully exercising the right of free communication by drawing a circle of economic competition between employers and workers so small as to contain only an employer and those directly employed by him.” But neither of these decisions presents any constitutional obstacle to the injunction against the appellant union in this case, for they stand only for the proposition that organized labor has the constitutional right, as an incident of free speech, to peacefully picket employers, including those with whom the union membérship had no prior employment relation. And, it should be noted, the court employed general language in announcing the rule. *762Certainly, the court did not declare, and according to subsequent decisions it did not hold, that the rule announced was not without exceptions, whereunder state courts might properly enjoin “even peaceful picketing.” (Bakery & P. Drivers Local v. Wohl, supra.)
In Milk Wagon Drivers Union v. Meadowmoor Dairies, 312 U.S. 287 [61 S.Ct. 552, 85 L.Ed. 836, 132 A.L.R. 1200], a general limitation was placed upon the doctrine of the Thornhill and Carlson cases. The court was there concerned with ‘ ‘ acts in themselves peaceful” but “enmeshed with contemporaneously violent conduct.” In holding that the state court violated no constitutional principle, by enjoining the union from all picketing, Mr. Justice Frankfurter declared: “But utterance in a context of violence can lose its significance as an appeal to reason and become part of an instrument of force. Such utterance was not meant to be sheltered by the Constitution. . . . The Fourteenth Amendment still leaves the state ample discretion in dealing with manifestations of force in the settlement of industrial conflicts. . . . But these liberties [freedom of speech and press] will not be advanced or even maintained by denying to the states with all their resources, including the instrumentality of their courts, the power to deal with coercion due to extensive violence.” Although the decision, by necessity, was placed upon the ground of the constitutional guarantee of free speech, the same result would be reached by applying the rule long recognized in this state, that picketing conducted with violence is an unlawful means for exerting economic pressure. By the Meadowmoor decision, the Supreme Court plainly declared that, in enjoining what this court has said was unlawful picketing (Steiner v. Long Beach Local No. 128, supra; Magill Bros. v. Building Service etc. Union, supra), there is no violation of the federal Constitution. Moreover, implicit in the decision of Allen-Bradley Local No. 1111 v. Wisconsin Employment Relation Board, 315 U.S. 740 [62 S.Ct. 820, 86 L.Ed. 1154], is the further limitation that a state may reasonably restrict the place where picketing is carried on, for there the state court had enjoined, among other things, picketing in front of an employee’s home.
Concurrently with the Allen-Bradley case, the court again sustained the right of a state to regulate labor disputes. In Carpenters & Joiners Union v. Ritter’s Cafe, 315 U.S. 722 *763[62 S.Ct. 807, 86 L.Ed. 1143], because Ritter engaged an independent contractor, who did not employ union labor, to build a structure, the carpenters’ union peacefully picketed his cafe, located a mile and one-half from the place of the construction work. The union also induced Ritter’s cafeteria employees, with whom he had no labor dispute, to strike. The picketing was enjoined under the Texas antitrust law. In sustaining the power of the state court to do so, Hr. Justice Frankfurter, speaking for the court, said; “The economic contest between employer and employee has never concerned merely the immediate disputants. The clash of such conflicting interests inevitably implicates the well-being of the community. Society has therefore been compelled to throw its weight into the contest. The law has undertaken to balance the effort of the employer to carry on his business free from, the interference of others against the effort of labor to further its economic self-interest. And every intervention of government in this struggle has in some respect abridged the freedom of action of one or the other or both.
“The task of mediating between these competing interests has, until recently, been left largely to judicial lawmaking and not to legislation. . . . The right of the state to determine whether the common interest is best served by imposing some restrictions upon the use of weapons for inflicting economic injury in the struggle of conflicting industrial forces has not previously been doubted.
“But the circumstance that a labor dispute is the occasion of exercising freedom of expression does not give that freedom any greater constitutional sanction or render it completely inviolable. Where, as here, claims on behalf of free speech are met with claims on behalf of the authority of the state to impose reasonable regulations for the protection of the community as a whole, the duty of this Court- is plain.
“Texas has undertaken to localize industrial conflict by prohibiting the exertion of concerted pressure directed at the business, wholly outside the economic context of the real dispute, of a person whose relation to the dispute arises from his business dealings with one of the disputants. The state has not attempted to outlaw whatever psychological pressure may be involved in the mere communication by an individual of the facts relating to his differences with another.
“It is true that by peaceful picketing workingmen communi*764cate their grievances. Ás a means of communicating the facts óf a labor dispute peaceful picketing may be a phase of the constitutional right of free utterance. But recognition of peaceful picketing as an exercise of free speech does not imply that.the states must be without power to confine the sphere of communication to that directly related to the dispute. Restriction of picketing to the area of the industry within which a labor dispute arises leaves open to the disputants other traditional modes of communication.
“In forbidding such conscription of neutrals, in the circumstances of" the case before us, Texas represents the prevailing, and probably the unanimous, policy of the states. ’ ’
Conforming to the doctrine of these decisions is the case of Bakery & P. Drivers Local v. Wohl, supra, wherein the trial court enjoined peaceful “secondary picketing” for the sole reason that'no “labor dispute” was involved, within the meaning of the New York statutes. Upon appeal, the ruling was affirmed without written opinion. In this connection, the Supreme Court called attention to the fact that in each of these cases, ‘ ‘ So far as we can ascertain from the opinions delivered by the state courts . . ., those courts were concerned only with the question whether there was involved a labor dispute within the meaning of the New York statutes. ...” In condemning the manner in which the courts enjoined peaceful picketing, the Supreme Court declared that “one need not be in a ‘labor dispute’ as defined by state law to have the right under the Fourteenth Amendment to express a grievance in á' labor matter by publication unattended by violence, coercion, or conduct otherwise unlawful or oppressive. ’ ’ Although conceding, in' the Wohl case, that “A state is not required to tolerate in all places and all circumstances even peaceful picketing,” New York’s attitude was assailed because “there are no' findings and no circumstances from which we can draw the inference that the publication was attended or likely to be attended by violence, force or coercion, or conduct otherwise unlawful or oppressive. ...” In the Wohl case, apparently in response to the assertion that the Court of Appeals of New York subsequently disclosed its basis for affirming the decree of the trial court, the Supreme Court observed: ‘ ‘ The respondents say that the basis for the decision below was revealed in a subsequent opinion of the Court of Appeals, where it was said with regard to the present case that ‘we held that it was *765an unlawful labor objective to attempt to coerce a peddler employing no employees in his business and making approximately thirty-two dollars a week to hire an employee at nine dollars a day for one day a week. ’ Opera on Tour v. Weber, 285 N.Y. 348 [34 N.E.2d 349, 136 A.L.B. 267], writ of certiorari denied in 314 U.S. 615 [62 S.Ct. 96, 86 L.Ed. 495], But this lacks the deliberateness and formality of a certification, and was uttered in a case where the question of the existence of a right to free speech under the Fourteenth Amendment was neither raised or considered.” From this it may be concluded that if the basis for the decision in the Wohl case had been clearly stated by the New York court, the United States Supreme Court might well have reached a different conclusion.
In Opera on Tour v. Weber, supra, because an employer refused to hire musicians to take the place of mechanical music, although no dispute existed between plaintiff and such employees, the musicians’ union “ordered and coerced” members of the stagehands’ union “to leave the employ of the plaintiff, causing ruin of the plaintiff’s business.’’ The musicians’ union was enjoined from inducing the members of the stagehands’ union from striking, upon the ground that their conduct amounted to an unlawful secondary boycott, instigated for an unlawful purpose. In affirming the judgment, the Court of Appeals made clear the fact that it did not consider that the boycott had “any reasonable connection with wages, hours of employment, health, safety, the right of collective bargaining, or any other condition of employment....” Upon certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States, the court denied the petition because “It does not appear from the record that the federal question presented by the petition was necessarily decided by the Court of Appeals.” (Opera on Tour v. Weber, supra; rehearing denied, 314 U.S. 716 [62 S.Ct. 477, 86 L.Ed. 570].) The implication justified from the denial, by the Supreme Court, of certiorari in that case compels the conclusion that the remedy invoked by Bautista and Macias violates no federal constitutional guarantee.
And it should also be noted that the issue in the present case is vastly different from the one determined by the Wohl decision in that the Supreme Court was there limited to deciding whether picketing could be enjoined for lack of a “.labor dispute.” The facts of the two cases are so different as to *766present other grounds for distinction. Although Wohl was engaged, much the same as Bautista, as an independent distributor of bakery products, he was part of a system fostered and encouraged by bakers in New York City. As stated by Mr. Justice Jackson, within five years, due to the passage of the social security and unemployment compensation laws, the number of independents increased from an insignificant number to more than 500. And, during the eighteen months preceding Wohl’s suit, employers had been forcing great numbers of union drivers, under the threat of dismissal, to quit the employment relation and continue thereafter in an independent capacity.
No such facts were shown in the present case. To the contrary, Bautista and his associate had been engaged independently in distributing milk for some seven years and it does not appear that either ever had been employed as a milk truck driver. Nor does it appear here that, as in the Wohl case, there were “the aggressive inroads of this kind of competition upon the employment and living standards of*’ union members.
In Cafeteria Employees Union v. Angelos, supra, the union peacefully picketed a small cafe which was operated by several copartners with no employees. The New York Court of Appeals affirmed a decree enjoining the union on the ground that there was no “labor dispute” within the meaning of the statutes. In reversing the New York court, the Supreme Court, citing the Swing and Wohl cases, declared that workers may “state their cases and appeal for public support in an orderly and peaceful manner regardless of the area of immunity as defined by state policy.” But it should be noted, the economic pressure applied by the union was picketing, and not a secondary boycott.
Certainly the decisions of the Supreme Court do not compel this court to permit a union to seek an unlawful objective, having no reasonable relation to working conditions or bargaining power. All that the Supreme Court has decided is that peaceful picketing, being an incident of freedom of speech guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment, cannot be blanketly enjoined by state courts, or arbitrarily prohibited or limited under all circumstances by legislative definition. Moreover, the Angelos case concerns different, although related, principles. A secondary boycott involves much more than persuasion, for it consists of the threat that economic *767pressure will be applied upon the third person, having no dispute with either of the principals to the controversy, unless he joins in the attack upon the one from whom union labor is endeavoring to obtain certain action deemed desirable.