Court Opinion

ID: 9757283
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:28:51.525845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:37.212402
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, President Judge,
dissenting:
The trial court, in my view, was correct in holding the Pennsylvania Labor Anti-Injunction Act, 43 Pa.C.S. § 206a et seq. inapplicable to this case. The majority’s conclusion that “there was no evidence that property was seized,” at 580 is not supported by the record.
The Pennsylvania Labor Anti-Injunction Act limits the jurisdiction of state courts over labor disputes. A court *510may issue an injunction in a labor dispute only upon “strict compliance” with the statute. 43 Pa.C.S. § 206d. See id. § 206i (detailed bill of particulars to be filed; trial court to make specific findings of fact before injunction may be issued). The statute does not apply in certain circumstances, which are set forth in Section 206d. Here, the initial issue is whether the statute applies, for if it does not, compliance with the pleading and procedural requirements was not necessary. Only if the statute does apply, as appellant argues and the majority holds, or stated differently, only if Section 206d does not apply, need we inquire whether, for example, the trial court’s order was accompanied by findings of fact. See Fountain Hill Underwear Mills v. Amalgamated Clothing Workers’ Union of America, 393 Pa. 385, 143 A.2d 354 (1958) (if labor dispute falls within exclusion of Section 206d, compliance with procedural requirements of pleading and proof not prerequisite to issuance of injunction). Compare DeWilde v. Scranton Building Trades and Construction Council, 343 Pa. 224, 22 A.2d 897 (1941) (if exception contained in Section 206d does not apply, compliance with statute is required).
In issuing the preliminary injunction here, the trial court relied on 43 Pa.C.S. § 206d(d), which provides:
[T]his act shall not apply in any case—
(d) Where in the course of a labor dispute as herein defined, an employe, or employes acting in concert, or a labor organization, or the members, officers, agents, or representatives of a labor organization or anyone acting for such organization, seize, hold, damage, or destroy the plant, equipment, machinery, or other property of the employer with the intention of compelling the employer to accede to any demands, conditions, or terms of employment, or for collective bargaining.
The record reveals the following evidence in support of the trial court’s order.
Picketing at the plant began on October 12, 1982, the day after management announced the plant closing. At the hearing on appellee’s petition for a preliminary injunction, *511on October 14, 1982, there was testimony that the picketing had continued throughout October 13, 1982, with between five and thirty-five pickets marching in the plant parking area and driveways, and that some but not all of the pickets had been employees of appellee. There is no dispute that representatives of the union were involved in the picketing.
On the first day of picketing, four delivery trucks were stopped, pickets talked to the drivers, and the trucks then turned away, without making their pick-ups or deliveries. One of the drivers was told that if he came in the driveway, the picketers would follow him “back to Ohio.” 1 During the morning it was discovered that locks on three of the four doors to the plant had been tampered with, so that the keys would not work in the locks.
Ronald Roberts, an employee who drove appellee’s tractor-trailer, testified that when he arrived at the plant with his truck on the first day of picketing, he was forced to drive up on the pavement to avoid hitting the pickets who were then blocking the driveway. When Roberts began backing up to the loading dock, a picket stopped him and asked whether he “was going to be a hero.” The picket, with fist raised and shouting obscenities, followed Roberts as he left the truck and walked back to the loading dock. Someone later threatened Roberts: “Wait until you have to go home tonight.” When he left the plant that afternoon, Roberts was followed by two cars, “which [he] was able to lose.” Two former company employees were in one of the cars; Roberts did not recognize the occupants of the second. Roberts left the tractor-trailer at the plant overnight and upon his return the next morning its tires had been deflated. Later in the day he went to pick up a container that was to have been delivered by one of the trucks that turned away the previous day.
The question we must decide is whether this evidence showed that the union or its representatives “seize[d], h[e]ld, damagefd], or destroyed] the plant, equipment, ma*512chinery, or other property of the employer [appellee]____” 43 Pa.C.S. § 206d(d). In considering this question, we are to keep in mind our standard of review:
“... on an appeal from a decree which refuses, [or] grants ... a preliminary injunction we will look only to see if there were any apparently reasonable grounds for the action of the court below, and we will not further consider the merits of the case or pass upon the reasons for or against such action unless it is plain that no such grounds existed or that the rules of law relied on are palpably wrong or clearly inapplicable.”
Wilkes-Barre Independent Company v. Newspaper Guild, Local 120, 455 Pa. 287, 289, 314 A.2d 251, 253 (1974), quoting Minit-Man Car Wash Corp. v. Building and Construction Trades Council, 411 Pa. 585, 589, 192 A.2d 378, 380 (1963).
Applying this standard here, I am satisfied that we should not disturb the trial court’s order. The fact that as a result of the pickets’ confrontations with the drivers, four trucks turned away and did not make scheduled deliveries or pick-ups, was sufficient evidence that the plant was “seized” or “held” by the actions of employees or the union, and provided “apparently reasonable grounds for the action of the court below.” Moreover, while no evidence directly linked the union or employees with the broken plant locks or the deflated tires on the company’s tractor-trailer, such evidence was not necessary; the trial court could reasonably infer that “machinery or other property of the employer” had been “damage[d] or destroyed]” as a result of the union’s activities. In Capital Bakers, Inc. v. Local Union No. 454 of the Bakery and Confectionary Workers International Union, 281 Pa.Super. 384, 422 A.2d 521 (1980), quoting the United States Supreme Court, we said:
“it is true ... of a union as of an employer that it may be responsible for acts which it has not expressly authorized or which might not be attributable to it on strict application of the rules of respondent superior.”
Id., 281 Pa.Superior Ct. at 389, 422 A.2d at 524, quoting Milk Wagon Drivers Union of Chicago, Local 753 v. *513Meadowmoor Dairies, 312 U.S. 287, 295, 61 S.Ct. 552, 556, 85 L.Ed. 836 (1941).
I recognize that in other cases in which labor injunctions have been upheld on the basis of Section 206d(d) the interference with company operations was more severe and the property damage more widespread than that which occurred here. See, e.g., Altemose Construction Co. v. Building & Construction Trades Council of Philadelphia, 449 Pa. 194, 296 A.2d 504 (1972), cert. denied 411 U.S. 932, 93 S.Ct. 1901, 36 L.Ed.2d 392 (1973); Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, 262 Pa.Super. 315, 396 A.2d 772 (1978); Capital Bakers, supra. Here, however, the plant was relatively small, employing only about twenty-five persons, and the interference was sufficient to support the trial court’s order; the court was not obliged to await open, as compared with threatened, violence, or further damages, for picketing that denies access to a plant is a seizure under Section 206d(d). See Link Belt Co. v. Local Union No. 118 of American Federation of Technical Engineers, 415 Pa. 122, 202 A.2d 314 (1964); Westinghouse Electric Corporation v. United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, 383 Pa. 297, 118 A.2d 180 (1955); Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp. v. United Steelworkers, 353 Pa. 420, 45 A.2d 857 (1946); Westinghouse Electric Corporation v. International Union, supra.
In Frankel-Warwick Ltd. v. Local 274, 334 Pa.Super. 47, 482 A.2d 1073 (1984), we overturned a labor injunction issued on the basis of Section 206d(d). There, striking pickets were stationed outside the entrance to the Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia, making passage of guests into the hotel difficult. We stated: “Mere difficulty of passage of the hotel’s guests owing to the large number of pickets absent an intent to prevent their entrance and egress cannot be termed ‘seizure’ of the hotel. ... While the presence of the pickets may have made travel on the sidewalk somewhat difficult, we do not perceive from the record any instance of threats, intimidation or physical restraint to constitute a seizure.” Id., 334 Pa.Superior Ct. at 53, 482 *514A.2d at 1076.2 In contrast to Frankel-Warwick, here there was more than “[m]ere difficulty of passage;” several truck drivers chose not to enter the plant after discussion with the pickets, and one of them was threatened. In addition, Roberts, an employee, was threatened and followed. The trial court was entitled to regard this as sufficient evidence of “threats, intimidation or physical restraint to constitute a seizure.”
Appellant’s argument that the injunction issued by the trial court was unconstitutional is without merit.3 The order of the trial court should be affirmed.

. Albert Jacobson, Executive Vice President of appellee, testified over objection as to what one of the truck drivers had told him. No further objection was made to this testimony.

. It may be noted that Frankel-Warwick was an appeal from an order granting a permanent injunction. There, quoting Neshaminy Contractors, Inc. v. Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, 303 Pa.Super. 420, 423, 449 A.2d 1389, 1390 (1982), we noted that while the standard of review of an order granting or denying a preliminary injunction is whether "any reasonable grounds" exist for the trial court’s action, an abuse of discretion standard applies in the review of a permanent injunction. Frankel-Warwick, supra, 334 Pa. Super, at 48, 482 A.2d at 1074.

. The trial court's order did not prohibit picketing. Instead, it limited the number of pickets at entrances to the plant to three pickets, restricted the area of picketing, and prohibited physical interference with or intimidation of persons entering or leaving the plant. The order further provided that “nothing contained herein shall enjoin a picket from asking persons attempting to enter plaintiff’s premises not to enter because of the strike or from otherwise expressing their right to strike.”