Court Opinion

ID: 9549177
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:14:29.315267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:57.017228
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frantz
dissenting:
We are considering the propriety of the action of the trial court in granting a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. This motion was addressed to the third counterclaim in which W. J. Digby, Inc., sued for damages alleged to have resulted from certain conspiratorial acts of Denner and Baldwin and other individuals, together with the labor organization acting through its agents and members.
Much reliance for sustaining the trial court is placed on the opinion of Mr. Justice White in the recent case of Atkinson v. Sinclair Refining Co., 370 U.S. 238, 82 S.Ct. 1318, 82 L.Ed.2d 462. I believe the complaint in the cited case is distinguishable from the complaint in the present case, and that under the rules of pleading of both the federal courts and our courts, as interpreted by them respectively, a claim is stated in the third counterclaim. It may be that W. J. Digby, Inc., will be unable to sustain the complaint, and it may, upon trial, bring itself within the rule laid down in the Atkinson case. But that is not our concern at the present time: we are dealing solely with the sufficiency of the counterclaim.
In the Atkinson case, Mr. Justice White said this about the comparable claim in that case, i.e., comparable to the third counterclaim in the instant case:
“Count II of the complaint purported to invoke the diversity jurisdiction of the District Court. It asked judgment in the same amount against 24 individual employees, each of whom was alleged to be a committeeman of the local union and an agent of the international, and responsible for representing the international, the *267local, and their members. The complaint asserted that on February 13 and 14, the individuals, ‘contrary to their duty to plaintiff to abide by said contract, and maliciously confederating and conspiring together to cause the plaintiff expense and damage, and to induce breaches of the said contract, and to interfere with performance thereof by the said labor organizations and the affected employees, and to cause breaches thereof, individually and as officers, committeemen and agents of the said labor organizations, fomented, assisted and participated in a strike or work stoppage ....’”
True, the complaint in the Atkinson case alleged the dual role of the defendants (acting individually and as officers, committeemen, etc.), but Mr. Justice White emphasized their activity as being on behalf of the labor union.
Commencing at page 246 of the U.S. Reporter, the Court again emphasized the activity of the individuals as being the activity of the union in this language:
“* * * 0ount II states that the individual defendants acted ‘as officers, committeemen and agents of the said labor organizations’ in breaching and inducing others to breach the collective bargaining contract. Count I charges the principal, and Count II charges the agents for acting on behalf of the principal. Whatever individual liability Count II alleges for the 24 individual defendants, it necessarily restates the liability of the union which is charged under Count I, since under § 301 (b) the union is liable for the acts of its agents, under familiar principles of the law of agency (see also § 301 (e)).”
There can be no doubt that the Supreme Court of the United States viewed Count II of the complaint there under consideration as asserting that the individual defendants in that case were acting on behalf of the union and not in any respect wholly in their individual capacities.
*268This is fortified by a footnote appearing at page 249 of the opinion, in which the Court expressly says that it is not passing upon the question of what would be the applicable law if the individual defendants were not acting in behalf of the union “but in their personal and nonunion capacity.”
At pages 248, 249 the Court succinctly states its ruling:
“Consequently, in discharging the duty Congress imposed on us to formulate the federal law to govern § 301 (a) suits, we are strongly guided by and do not give a niggardly reading to § 301 (b). ‘We would undercut the Act and defeat its policy if we read § 301 narrowly’ (Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S., at 456). We have already said in another context that § 301 (b) at least evidences ‘a congressional intention that the union as an entity, like a corporation, should in the absence of agreement be the sole source of recovery for injury inflicted by it’ (Lewis v. Benedict Coal Corp., 361 U.S. 459, 470). This policy cannot be evaded or truncated by the simple device of suing union agents or members, whether in contract or tort, or both, in a separate count or in a separate action for damages for violation of a collective bargaining contract for which damages the union itself is liable. The national labor policy requires and we hold that when a union is liable for damages for violation of the no-strike clause, its officers and members are not liable for these damages. Here, Count II, as we have said, necessarily alleges union liability but prays for damages from the union agents. Where the union has inflicted the injury it alone must pay. Count II must be dismissed.” (Emphasis supplied.)
It will be noted from this language that where the union has inflicted the injury, it alone must pay. In the instant case we have a pleading which provides in significant part as follows:
“4. That the said plaintiffs, F. W. Denner and Everett Baldwin, together with Harry Bath, Floyd J. Overturf, *269Orville Grove, Vernon O. Deus, and Thomas Buchanan, each and all of them, willfully, wantonly, maliciously, and unlawfully agreed and conspired, together and among themselves, together with the said Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, Local No. 961, by and through its agents, officers and members, Since on or about September 1, 1960, to cause a breach of contract by the members of said Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, Local No. 961, and to attempt to force and coerce the defendant, W. J. Digby, Inc., to abandon its rights under the existing collective bargaining agreement above described, defendant’s Exhibits 1 and 2, and to interfere with and damage the defendant’s business in order to accomplish this by illegal and unlawful work-stoppages, walk-outs, threatened strikes, threats, coercion, intimidation, and violence and protracted grievances on the part of the members of said union and as employees of the defendant, W. J. Digby, Inc.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Other paragraphs of the complaint reinforce the theory of individual activity of Denner and Baldwin and other persons and that they acted not as members of the union but together with the union through the union’s agents, officers, and members. There is no allegation that they acted both individually and on behalf of the labor organization, or wholly on its behalf.
I believe that we violate rules of pleading, as we have construed them in the past, if we sustain the trial court’s dismissal of the third counterclaim. It has been stated by this court and by the Supreme Court of the United States that “a complaint will not be dismissed ‘unless it appears to a certainty that plaintiff would be entitled to no relief under any state of facts which could be proved in support of claim . . . ’ ” People ex rel. Bauer v. McCloskey, 112 Colo. 488, 150 P.2d 861; Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80.
The counterclaim under consideration charges that *270certain individuals acted in concert with the labor union in seeking to bring about a breach of contract. And how did these individuals act in concert with the union? Through the union’s officers and agents! Such an allegation negates the majority’s view that this was a union activity in which the union was acting through Denner and Baldwin and certain other named individuals.
If the proof of Denner and Baldwin showed that they acted in conjunction with the other named individuals, but contrary to the directions of the union (proof which would have been proper under the complaint), individual liability would have been established. And if the proof showed that these individuals acted in concert, but there was an absence of evidence linking the union with their activities, again the liability of the individuals would have attached. Thus, a state of facts conceivably could have been adduced supportive of the claim.
Moreover, we have stated that, in testing the sufficiency of a claim, we search its four corners to ascertain whether a claim for relief can be spelled out of the pleading under scrutiny in any way, and if such can be done, the claim is not assailable by a motion to dismiss. Dillinger v. North Sterling Irr. District, 135 Colo. 100, 308 P.2d 608; Kubal v. Jackson, 119 Colo. 390, 203 P.2d 737. We have said, also, on a number of occasions, that a motion to dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim for relief admits the verity of the facts alleged in the complaint. McKinney v. Christmas, 143 Colo. 361, 353 P.2d 373; Ferch v. Hansen, 115 Colo. 366, 174 P.2d 719.
Tested by these pronouncements we should hold that a claim may be spelled out against individuals, even though it is further alleged that these individuals acted cooperatively with the union. Failure to prove union participation would still have left a substantiated claim against the individuals. An allegation of individual activity should be accepted at face value on a motion to dismiss, even though it was further charged that such *271activity was joined in by the union. Absence of proof that the union took part in the activity would not have affected individual liability.
I reiterate that we are confronted with a problem of pleading. By virtue of our rules of pleading and our decisions construing the rules, we should, as we have unswervingly done in the past, resolve all doubts in favor of the pleader and against the party attacking the sufficiency of the pleading.