Court Opinion

ID: 9447223
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:29:22.302296+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:57.114102
License: Public Domain

CAMERON, Circuit Judge
(concur. ring in part and in part dissenting).
* concur in the enforcement of the Board’s order insofar as it relates to ^be issues raised by the pleadings and to the Parties before the Board and be" fore us: and in the °Pinion of the ma' í01^’ excePt to the extent that. aP" proves the finding of the Board justify-ing ^be application of the cease and desist order to “aiW other employers” with whom Respondent might deal. Specifically, I dissent from these findings of ^be Board now approved by the majority °Pinion whicb are italicized in the following quotation:
“Accordingly, we shall modify the Trial Examiner’s recommended cease and desist order, which we otherwise adopt in its entirety, by enlarging its scope so as to enjoin the Respondent from the commission of similar illegal actions not only with respect to the Company, but also with reference to any other employers.”
I would first question the use of the word “enjoin” in the findings of the La-bor Board. The word “enjoin” has his-torically a definite and well understood meaning in legal parlance.1 In former *418times its use evoked a spontaneous feeling of respect, even reverence. It is difficult to envisage the extent of the dilution of that veneration by the profligate issuance of ill-considered in junetions which has taken place in recent years if the word is now to be permitted to find its way into the orders of administrative agencies, creatures of statute and possessing only closely circumscribed powers.
The error in the majority opinion, as I see it, runs deeper. The proceedings before the Board were set in motion2 by two charges brought under 29 U.S. C.A. § 160(b), signed by agents of Industrial Painters and Sandblasters based upon specified and dated alleged violations by Respondent of § 8(b) (4) (D) of the National Labor Relations Act. These charges were consolidated and made the basis of a complaint3 filed by a Regional Director of the Board which alleged that Respondent was guilty of unfair labor practices under said section of the Act in its relationship with the employer, Industrial Painters. This complaint was answered by Respondent and the issues were thus framed upon which the hearing before the Board was conducted. The findings of the Board above quoted were used by it in arriving at its order requiring Respondent to “Cease and desist from inducing and encouraging the employees of Industrial Painters or any other employer to engage in a strike * * * ”
majority opinion approves the findings and the entry of this “Mother Hubbard” order upon which this Court will enter a judgment whose violation will be punishable as a contempt of court. The injunctive power is an important component of the judicial process, but it is a delicate power, one which should be exercised sparingly and with caution.4 The limitations attending its exercise, based in great part upon Supreme Court decisions,5 are well expressed in 28 American Jurisprudence, injunctions, § 300, pp. 472-473:
“An injunction should conform to the requirements of equity decrees generally. The relief should run only against those who are parties and are properly before the court and should not attempt to bind persons who are not named or served as defendants and who are not *419brought within the court’s jurisdiction. * * *
“The decree should conform to and be supported by the pleadings, proof, and findings, and should conform to the requirements of the partieular case, so as not to go beyond such requirements or be broader or more extensive than the case warrants. If the wrongs complained of and against which injunctive relief is sought are alleged violations of a statute in certain particulars, the decree may restrain the defendant from further like violations of the act, but should not enjoin in general terms violations of the act in the future in any particular, because an injunction of such general character would be violative^ of the elementary principles of justice, in that it would compel the defendant thereafter to conduct himself and his business under the jeopardy of punishment for contempt for violating a general injunction. * * * ”
As based upon the facts in this record, I think the majority opinion goes beyond the issues raised by the pleadings, approves an order whose impact would extend to persons not before the Court6 and places Respondent in a strait jacket, greatly restricting its ability to deal with other employers at other times and places and under other conditions in the indefinite future. What the majority here does is in effect to import into a proceeding to which it is inapplicable the mechanism of class actions — a contrivance at best fraught with high potentialities of injustice unless utilized undei the limitations with which it is normally surrounded.7 In fact, it is not unlike the issuance of a peace bond with all the world as obligee, against a litigant who has been engaged in three or four fights,
It is the genius of this government that every citizen, individual, labor union or corporation shall have unlimited access to any an(j every tribunal and as often as may be thought proper to assert his contentions as to what under the law are his just rights; and to make every effort to get the law, whether made by legislature or courts, changed to conform to his ideas of what is just and proper. I would not enforce the portion of the order here discussed.

. I do not find in the record any justification for the majority’s assumption that the Board did not use the word in a “technical” sense. Certainly nothing in the history of the actions of these nowlyborn administrative agencies gives substance to the notion that they are imbued in any sense by reticence or reluetance as they have assayed and applied their powers. The word was used in a *418legal document and no presumption can be indulged except that the Board intended to invest it with the meaning which the law gives it.

. Cf. National Labor Relations Board v. Fant Milling Co., 1959, 360 U.S. 301, 307, 79 S.Ct. 1179, 3 L.Ed.2d 1243.

. As authorized under 29 U.S.C.A. § 160 (b).

. “The power to issue injunctions should be exercised with great caution and only where the reason and necessity therefor are clearly established.” 43 C.J.S. Injunctions § 15, p, 426.

. Inter Alia, Chase National Bank v. City of Norwalk, 1934, 291 U.S. 431, 54 S.Ct. 475, 78 L.Ed. 894; Scott v. Donald, 1897, 165 U.S. 107, 17 S.Ct. 262, 41 L.Ed. 648; Allen v. Pullman Palace Car Co., 1891, 139 U.S. 658, 11 S.Ct. 682, 35 L.Ed. 303; State of Wyoming v. State of Colorado, 1932, 286 U.S. 494, 52 S.Ct. 621, 76 L.Ed. 1245; New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 1906, 200 U.S. 361, 26 S.Ct. 272, 50 L.Ed. 515; Swift & Co. v. United States, 1905, 196 U.S. 375, 25 S.Ct. 276, 49 L.Ed. 518, and State of Wisconsin v. State of Illinois, 1929, 278 U.S. 367, 49 S.Ct. 163, 73 L.Ed. 426.
The principles have been applied in cases arising under the Act before us. National Labor Relations Board v. Cheney Cal. Lumber Co., 1946, 327 U.S. 385, 66 S.Ct. 553, 90 L.Ed. 739; May Department Stores v. National Labor Relations Board; 1945, 326 U.S. 376, 66 S.Ct. 203, 90 L.Ed. 145; National Labor Relations Board v. Express Publishing Co., 1941, 312 U.S. 426, 61 S.Ct. 693, 85 L.Ed. 930. National Labor Relations Board v. Dallas General Drivers, 5 Cir., 1956, 228 F.2d 702, Truck Drivers and Helpers Local Union No. 728 v. National Labor Relations Board, 5 Cir., 1959, 265 F.2d 439, 444; and National Labor Relations Board v. Local 926 International Union of Operating Engineers, Etc., 5 Cir., 1959, 267 F.2d 418.

. This is so for the reason that every other employer of Respondent’s members conld, without a Board hearing, induce contempt proceedings to be begun against them upon alleged violation of the judgment which will be entered enforcing the order before us. Moreover, if class action techñiques are applicable, — and I do not see any other possible justification for approving the Board’s broad order — res judicata would apply to all other employers whether, in such a proceeding as this, the Board’s order should be in favor of or against the union. Cf. Smith v. Swormstedt, 16 How. 288, 57 U.S. 288, 302, 14 L.Ed. 942; Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255 U.S. 356, 363 et seq., 41 S.Ct. 338, 65 L.Ed. 673; and 3 Moore’s Federal Practice, 2d Ed. pp. 3456 et seq. and 3470 ct seq.
The majority opinion calls attention to the fact that the order here approved is in all respects similar to those made in two other cases this day decided. The facts of this case and the contentions of Respondent, in my opinion, present a quite different proposition from the others. In addition to what has been said above, it is important to note that, in this case, one of Respondent’s members was employed to operate the compressors and the controversy centered around overtime claimed in his behalf and Respondent’s efforts to increase the number of its members to be assigned to the work, I think the position taken by the Respond-cut with respect to the portion of the Board’s order above discussed makes a different case and I do not think what I have said above is in conflict with the decisions in the other two cases.

. Cf. Rule 23, F.R.Civ.P., 28 U.S.C.A.