Court Opinion

ID: 9419147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:46:40.63035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:15.615906
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Roberts,
dissenting.
I am unable to agree to the court’s disposition of this case. I think the writ should be dismissed or the judgment affirmed.
*327The record presents difficult questions concerning. Illinois procedure, as to which the parties are in disagreement, and we ought not to attempt to resolve them.
The respondents filed a complaint in the Circuit Court, on which a temporary injunction issued. The petitioners answered. They also made a motion to dismiss the complaint and that motion was granted, with the result that the temporary injunction was dissolved. On appeal, the appellate court reversed the order dismissing the complaint. From that action an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the State, which affirmed the decree of the appellate court. On analysis of the complaint, the Supreme Court found that it charged that no disputes existed between the employer and his employees; that the petitioners had been indulging, and were continuing to indulge, in a series of libels against the respondents; were indulging and were continuing to indulge,' in threats and acts of violence. The grounds on which the court sustained the complaint as stating a cause of action in equity are summed up in the conclusion of its opinion thus: “A State or nation ceases to be sovereign if it tolerates within it any force other than its own, and that force must be such as is established by law, directed by the courts, observing the principles of due process and equal protection of the law. To whatever extent these rules are violated we have lawlessness, and under such circumstances a court of equity will not pick and choose among the unlawful acts and threats but will enjoin the whole scheme.”
Thereafter the record discloses merely that the cause came on for further hearing in the appellate court. We do not know whether that hearing was upon the bill and answers or upon the complaint and the motion to dismiss, and the parties are in grave dispute on the *328subject. We do know from the record that the appellate court, after reciting the previous history of the case, including the affirmance of its judgment by the Supreme Court, and a statement that, under the law of Illinois, peaceful picketing is unlawful when conducted by strangers to the employer, coupled with the further statement that the respondents were entitled “in this case” to relief by injunction against the threat of such peaceful picketing, and that the respondents had maintained their complaint and the equities of the case were with them, the appellate court proceeded to decree “in accordance with the mandate of the Supreme Court of Illinois,” that the petitioners should be enjoined from picketing or patrolling respondents’ shop, exhibiting signs and placards to persuade persons to refrain from entering the place of business and from acts of violence menacing or coercing persons seeking employment from entering respondents’ place of business.
From this final decree the petitioners sued out a writ of error in the Supreme Court of Illinois and the respondents moved to dismiss it for the reason that the order and opinion on the previous appeal “finally settles all the rights of the parties.” In the brief filed by the petitioners they stated: “The writ of error is here presented with knowledge that this court has fully settled all issues of the case in a prior review thereof and that the decree entered by the Appellate Court is in compliance with the mandate of this court ... If this court adheres to the position in People v. Militzer, 301 Ill. 284, page 287; 133 N. E. 761, that issues once decided on review will not be again considered on a second review, a final order in this case may properly dismiss the writ of error on the ground that all issues of the case have beeh settled on prior appeal and that the decree entered by the Appel*329late Court is in conformity with the mandate issued to the Appellate Court by this Court.”
The Supreme Court of Illinois, without opinion, sustained the motion and dismissed the writ of error. I am unable to say that this action was an affirmance of any recital in the decree of the appellate court respecting the legality of peaceful picketing disconnected with a continued course of publishing libels, making threats, and using force. If the final decree was right on the ground stated by the Supreme Court in sustaining the temporary injunction; and if, under the Illinois practice, the affirmance of such a correct decree based on a previous opinion of the Supreme Court does not amount to the adoption of a preamble or recital of the decree, then we ought not to reverse the final decree of the Supreme Court, which, on the facts stated in the complaint, is correct when tested by the principles enunciated in Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U. S. 436, 461, and in Milk Wagon Drivers Union v. Meadowmoor Dairies, ante, p. 287, because of a recital in the decree of the appellate court.
The Chief Justice joins in this opinion.