Court Opinion

ID: 9419800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:51:32.24557+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:20.656692
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murphy,
dissenting in part.
I dissent from that part of the Court’s opinion that holds that the District Court erred in passing upon the merits of the controversy presented by this case. .
It may well be that there are serious questions as to how and against whom Florida’s new constitutional provision will be enforced. And the provision may be construed so as not to conflict with the National Labor Relations Act. Such matters must wait for authoritative action by the Florida courts. But there are federal constitutional issues inherent on the face of this provision that do not depend upon any interpretation or application made by Florida courts. Those issues were raised and decided in the court below. And they should be given appropriate attention by this Court.
The Court today holds that there is a very real and imminent threat to the entire system of collective bargaining in Florida growing out of the current attempts to enforce the Florida law. It should not be and is not difficult to discover the federal constitutional issues that are involved in that threat. True, we cannot say what constitutional issues may arise out of the law as subsequently interpreted and applied by the Florida courts. But we can say what issues are apparent on the face of the law itself, the law that has given rise to the grave threat to collective bargaining in Florida. Either the provision does or does not violate due process as guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment; either it falls outside or inside the permissible scope of the police power of the state; either it is in accord of in conflict on its face with the National Labor Relations Act. Those are the issues the parties have raised and the court *607below has decided. Those are the issues that are obviously involved in relation to the Florida law. I do not believe that a federal court is incapable of recognizing or deciding those issues. Nor do I believe that it should close its eyes to those issues merely because they are difficult or highly controversial. In short, appellants’ claims are ripe for adjudication.
Moreover, the Court remands the case to the District Court \yith directions to retain the case until the Florida courts interpret the provision in the Floridá constitution. The efficacy oJf this disposition of the case is less real than apparent. It affords little if any protection to the appellants so far as the issues now in dispute are concerned. They are left unprotected against the very threat which this Court states is real and. imminent. And should the Florida courts ultimately decide these issues adversely to appellants’ contentions they will have no effective recourse in the District Court, which already has expressed itself fully and adversely relative to those contentions.
I dissent, therefore, from a procedure depriving appellants of a full hearing and a determination of the issues they have properly raised in the District Court and denying them the right to secure the protection the federal equitable power might give them.