Court Opinion

ID: 9751443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:27:24.17198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:46.929244
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Bell:
Plaintiffs, who are engaged in the trucking and storage business in Harrisburg, sought and obtained an injunction restraining a union, its officers. and agents, from peacefully picketing its platform facilities at a railroad station where the plaintiffs operated a local freight pick-up and delivery service. The picketing caused tremendous losses and irreparable damage to the plaintiffs. Some of plaintiffs’ business was' inter-state.
The Courts of Pennsylvania have hitherto always taken jurisdiction in cases involving alleged irreparable damage or injury, including cases involving labor-industrial disputes, and have then decided each particular case on its own facts and merits. The basic *31reasons are (1) there is no adequate remedy at law to compensate for irreparable damage, and (2) irreparable damage cannot as a practical matter be prevented by the slow process authorized under existing Congressional Acts.
Defendants contend that the picketing was peaceful and was conducted solely for organizational purposes, namely, to persuade plaintiffs’ non-union employees to join the union. Peaceful picketing for a lawful purpose conducted in a lawful manner, is protected by both our State and Federal Courts: Wortex Mills, Inc. v. Textile Workers Union, 369 Pa. 359, 85 A. 2d 851; Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88; Carlson v. California, 310 U. S. 106; Cafeteria Employees Union v. Angelos, 320 U. S. 293; A. F. of L. v. Swing, 312 U. S. 321; Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp. v. United Steelworkers of America, 353 Pa. 420, 45 A. 2d 857. If the peaceful picketing was conducted solely for organizational purposes and in a lawful manner, I agree with the majority that it would not violate the Constitution or the laws of Pennsylvania and should not be enjoined. If on the other hand one of the objectives of the peaceful picketing was for an unlawful or illegal purpose or objective or, more particularly, was to coerce an employer to violate the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act of June 1, 1937, as amended, then such picketing is subject to the jurisdiction of a Court of Equity and should be enjoined. Hughes v. Superior Court of California, 339 U. S. 460; Building Service Union v. Gazzam, 339 U. S. 532; Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490; Carpenters & Joiners Union v. Ritter’s Cafe, 315 U. S. 722; International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Etc., Union, Local 309, et al. v. Hanke, et al., 339 U. S. 470; Wortex Mills, Inc. v. Textile Workers Union, 369 Pa. supra; Wilbank v. Chester & Delaware Counties Bartenders Union, 360 *32Pa. 48, 60 A. 2d 21; Phillips v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 362 Pa. 78, 66 A. 2d 227.
Where peaceful picketing causes irreparable damage and one of its objectives violates not only a statute of Pennsylvania but also a provision of the Taft-Hartley Act, the jurisdiction of State Courts has not yet been specifically decided by Congress or by the Supreme Court of the United States. If no question of the TaftHartley Act were involved, it would be clear and unquestionable that Courts of Equity in Pennsylvania have always possessed and exercised and do still possess and exercise jurisdiction upon facts such as are alleged in the instant case, viz., irreparable damage and a violation of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act.
A Sovereign State should not be deprived of any of its sovereign rights and powers except by the clear and express mandate of the Constitution or of Congress or of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the Wortex Mills case, 369 Pa., supra, we said (page 364): “It is well to recall that a State or other Sovereign has a paramount right and an inescapable duty to maintain law and order, to protect life, liberty and property and to enact laws and police regulations for the protection and preservation of the safety, health and welfare of the people of the state or community; Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp. v. U. S. W. of A., 353 Pa. 420, 426, 45 A. 2d 857; Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. United Electrical Workers, 353 Pa. 446, 460, 46 A. 2d 16.
‘The power and duty of the State to take adequate steps to preserve the peace and protect the privacy, the lives, and the property of its residents cannot be doubted’: Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 105; Carlson v. California, 310 U. S. 106, 113. The sovereign powers of a State should be protected and sus*33tained except where restricted by the Federal or State Constitution and except where 'an "intention of Congress to exclude States from exerting their police power [is] clearly manifested.” Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 272 U. S. 605, 611, and cases cited; Kelly v. Washington, 302 U. S. 1, 10; South Carolina Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., 303 U. S. 177; H. P. Welch Co. v. New Hampshire, 306 U. S. 79, 85; Maurer v. Hamilton, 309 U. S. 598, 614; Watson v. Buck, supra': Allen-Bradley Local v. Wisconsin E. R. Board, 315 U. S. 740, 749.”
The jurisdiction of State Courts to enjoin picketing, including peaceful picketing which is conducted in an unlawful manner or for an unlawful purpose, has been sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States in oyer a dozen recent cases, some of which are reviewed in Wortex Mills v. Textile Workers, 369 Pa., supra, and in the dissenting opinion in American Brake Shoe Co. v. District Lodge 9, 373 Pa. 164, 94 A. 2d 884.
Moreover, in Auto Workers v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 336 U. S. 245, 253, Mr. Justice Jackson, in sustaining an injunction against a union by a State Court of Wisconsin in matters affecting interstate commerce, said: “. . . we have said of the National Labor Relations Act what is equally true of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, that 'Congress designedly left open an area for state control’ and that the 'intention of Congress to exclude States from exercising their police power must be clearly manifested/* Allen-Bradley Local v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 315 U. S. 740, 750, 749. . . . While the Federal Board is empowered to for*34bid a strike, when and because its purpose is one that the Federal Act made illegal, it has been given no power to forbid one because its method is illegal— even if the illegality were to consist of actual or threatened violence to persons or destruction of property. Policing of such conduct is left wholly to the states. . . . This conduct is governable by the State or it is entirely ungoverned.”
The Supreme Court of the United States has not specifically decided the question here involved and a number of decisions of that Court and of this Court indicate that the State Courts still have jurisdiction upon these or similar facts. Since the intention of Congress to exclude State Courts from exercising their traditional and long-established equity powers in this class of case is not clearly manifested I would uphold and sustain the jurisdiction of our State Courts.
For these reasons — without discussing or deciding the merits of the case — I dissent.

 Italics throughout, ours.