Court Opinion

ID: 9652647
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:29:40.727655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:17.407696
License: Public Domain

AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
I agree that the convictions for violation of the Sherman Act should be reversed for the reasons stated in the majority opinion. But I think that the convictions under the Anti-Racketeering Act should be affirmed except perhaps in some instances where the evidence may have been of insufficient weight. The majority opinion, however, proceeds on the theory that the instructions of the trial judge were so insufficient or misleading as to call for reversal. With this I do not agree.
Under the Anti-Racketeering Act the defendants were indicted for conspiring to violate Section 420a, subdivisions (a), (b) and (c) of Title 18 U.S.C.A., which subject to punishment:
“Any person who, in connection with or in relation to any act in any way or in any degree affecting trade or commerce or any article or commodity moving or about to move in trade or commerce—
“(a) Obtains or attempts to obtain, by the use of or attempt to use or threat to use force, violence, or coercion, the payment of money or other valuable considerations, or the purchase or rental of property or protective services, not including, however, the payment of wages by a bonafide employer to a bona-fide employee; or
*690“(b) Obtains the property of another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right; or
“(c) Commits or threatens to commit an act of physical violence or physical injury to a person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to violate subsections (a) or (b) * * *
I agree that subdivision (a) of Section 420a contains an exemption from liability under the act which may reasonably, if not necessarily, be regarded as implicit in subdivisions (b) and (c), but I think that the scope of the exemption is not such as to relieve defendants from prosecution who obtained money by threats without earning wages for any real work even though they might have been willing to accept employment if the operators of the trucks had consented to engage them. Though acts of force, violence or coercion accompanying a labor dispute are sometimes condoned because of ultimate social gains, it nevertheless is true that they are plainly serious violations of law and would surely fall within the prohibitions of the Anti-Racketeering Act if the jurisdictional requirements existed and the exemption in subdivision (a) did not apply.
It is argued in the prevailing opinion that the exemption applies if the defendants though extorting money from the operators by coercion tendered their services in good faith. This is said to be so because “a bona fide tender is the only step that the putative employee can ever take towards performance” and because “guilt is personal to the' wro,ig-doer [and] it would be absurd to make it depend upon the fact that the employee had not gratuitously persisted in pressing his unwelcome services upon the employer.” My answer is that the employee is ex hypothesi a law breaker who has used violence or coercion to extort money and that money which he has not worked to earn is not wages nor paid as such. Only “payment of wages” is excepted under subdivision (a) from the penalties of the act. He does not come within the terms of the subdivision. I see no reason for enlarging its terms by implication for his'benefit even if some other person, who had gone far enough through the same unlawful means to obtain the status of an employee, would come within the exemption.
It may be added that Congress may have determined to exempt men from prosecution under the Anti-Racketeering Act who actually obtain a status as employees, even though the status is secured by coercion, but not to grant exemption to men who have done nothing but “shake down” prospective employers without rendering any service. The one policy would tend to preserve an employer-employee relation when once established, while the other would involve toleration of intermittent acts of brigandage resulting in no ascertainable advantage.