Court Opinion

ID: 9650612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:46:13.525113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:24.403762
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with the conclusion of the majority, “that Section 108, 29 U.S. C., 29 U.S.C.A. § 108 does not disclose an intention on the part of Congress to deny to a complainant a right to injunctive relief against the unlawful acts of a defendant where the facts and circumstances alleged in a complaint are such as might justify a finding (if the case were heard upon its merits) that any effort on the part of the complainant to settle the dispute *318out of which the case arose would have been unreasonable.”
Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 108, limits the jurisdiction of the court in cases involving labor disputes by denying to federal courts power to grant a restraining order or injunctive relief “to any complainant * * * who has failed to make every reasonable effort to settle such dispute”, etc. This language is plain and unambiguous and leaves no room for interpretation. The power of the court to grant injunctive relief in the absence of some reasonable effort to settle is taken away without qualification, proviso or exception. No excuse whatever is provided for. In United States v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 278 U.S. 269, 277, 49 S.Ct. 133, 136, 73 L.Ed. 322, Mr. Justice Butler, speaking for the Supreme Court, said: “It is elementary that, where no ambiguity exists, there is no room for construction. Inconvenience or hardships, ■if any, that result from following the statute as written, must be relieved by legislation. * * * Construction may not be substituted for legislation.”
In the instant case it is alleged affirmatively that plaintiff made ho effort to settle the dispute at any time prior to the commencement of the suit for an injunction. In Grace Co. v. Williams, 8 Cir., 96 F.2d 478, this court declared that “it was incumbent upon plaintiff to disclose by affirmative allegations of its complaint that it was entitled to invoke the equitable jurisdiction of the court.” [page 481.], I fail to understand how a complaint seeking injunctive relief in a case involving a labor dispute within the meaning of the NorrisLaGuardia Act can confer jurisdiction upon a federal court when it fails to allege that “every reasonable effort to settle” had been made, but on the other hand alleges that no effort to settle had been made. The majority opinion, it seems to me, holds that the pleading of facts which in the opinion of the court, if proven, make it unreasonable for a plaintiff to settle on account of a contract. voluntarily entered into after the commencement of the dispute is somehow equivalent to an allegation that every reasonable effort to settle had been made. This seems to me to be an assumption of jurisdiction to determine a fact which the court has no power to determine. Such a result, in my opinion, not only amends but emasculates the statute.
I would affirm the judgment appealed from.