Court Opinion

ID: 9428319
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:25.094409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:12.815170
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice Burger,
with whom Justice Rehnquist joins, dissenting.
The Court today holds that individual employees who, without the approval of their union, breach a covenant not to strike in the collective-bargaining agreement between their union and their employers may not be held liable for resulting damages to the employers. At stake is the fundamental principle that individuals are accountable when they breach a voluntarily executed contract.
The underlying facts in this case are not in dispute. The respondents are members of Local 332 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which acts as their exclusive bargaining agent with petitioners, their employers. The union and the petitioners have entered into a collective-bargaining agreement that provides in part: ■
“The Unions and Employers agree that there shall be no strike, tie-up of equipment, slowdowns or walkouts on the part of the employee . . . without first using all possible means of settlement, as provided in this Agreement, of any controversy which might arise.” App. 14-15.
Despite this covenant, the respondents embarked on what is commonly called a “wildcat” strike; it is admitted that the local union “did not aid, assist or authorize the work stoppage or a tie-up of any equipment.” Id., at 25.
Section 301 (a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 185 (a), makes collective-bargaining agreements enforceable in federal courts against both unions and em*425ployers. See H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 46 (1947); S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 15-16 (1947). Of course the union, acting on behalf of its members, may sue the employer for any breaches of the agreement, and the employer may sue the union for its breaches. This is no more than a corollary to the enforceability of the contract under §301 (a). Moreover, the Court has had no problem in the past in holding the parties responsible for a breach accountable for their conduct. An employee may sue the employer directly for breach of the agreement even though the employee is not technically a party to the agreement, Smith v. Evening News Assn., 371 U. S. 195 (1962), but the employer may not sue an individual worker for a union-sponsored breach, Atkinson v. Sinclair Refining Co., 370 U. S. 238 (1962) (applying Labor Management Relations Act § 301 (b), 29 U. S. C. § 185 (b)). Nor may the employer sue the union for members’ breaches that the union has not condoned, Carbon Fuel Co. v. Mine Workers, 444 U. S. 212 (1979).1 This case presents the final unresolved situation: May individual union members be held accountable in a suit by the employer for a plain violation of the agreement committed without the approval of the union?
On the basis of literally centuries of the common law of contracts, one would have thought that the traditional notions of accountability for one’s voluntary actions would govern. Instead, the Court holds that individual workers, acting without union approval, are a special, privileged class who may with impunity violate an agreement voluntarily reached in arm’s-length bargaining. This result finds no support in the statute, it significantly undermines the usefulness and *426reliability of the collective-bargaining process, and it will not advance the goals the Court claims for it.
In reaching this unusual conclusion, the Court mistakenly relies on the last sentence in § 301 (b) of the Labor Management Relations Act, which states:
“Any money judgment against a labor organization in a district court of the United States shall be enforceable only against the organization as an entity and against its assets, and shall not be enforceable against any individual member or his assets.” 29 U. S. C. § 185 (b).
On its face, this clause does no more than insulate union members from personal liability for union breaches of the contract; Congress intended this provision to give union members a protection analogous to that afforded stockholders in corporations against personal liability for corporate acts. S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 16 (1947) (“members of the union would secure all the advantages of limited liability without incorporation”). It is acknowledged that Congress added this provision to the Act to prevent a recurrence of the Danbury Hatters situation, see Lawlor v. Loewe, 235 U. S. 522 (1915); Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U. S. 274 (1908), where the participants in a strike were held personally liable for the union’s actions on the theory that the union, as an unincorporated association, could not be sued. Ante, at 406-407, and n. 6; Atkinson v. Sinclair Refining Co., supra, at 248; 93 Cong. Rec. 5014 (1947) (remarks of Sen. Ball). But the language of § 301 (b) says nothing about holding union members harmless when they, without the approval of their union, individually breach the contract.
The special exemption in § 301 (b) affords individual union members protection against individual liability for collective action; this simultaneously encourages group action through the union — which is what unions are all about — and prevents potentially large damages awards against individual workers. But when Congress changed the law regarding individual lia*427bility for union conduct, it did not even hint at changing the common-law rule of contract law of individual liability for individual conduct, which does no more than articulate the basic idea of individual accountability essential to an organized society.2 When an individual, either personally or, as here, through an agent, voluntarily enters into a binding agreement, that individual is liable in damages for breach. A provision whose language governs — and whose history indicates it was designed to govern — only situations of individual liability for collective action should not be construed to wipe out core principles of personal accountability for individual actions.
Curiously, the Court, ante, at 416, n. 18, and the respondents suggest that this anomaly will promote more harmonious relations between employers and striking workers by preventing a long and drawn-out fight in the courts. This argument is wholly specious, and it is contradicted by the views Congress expressed when it adopted § 301. Congress fully recognized that agreements, if breachable with impunity, “do not tend to stabilize industrial relations. The execution of an agreement does not by itself promote industrial peace.” S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 16 (1947). If workers can “have their cake and eat it too” by holding the employer liable for its breaches but receiving immunity for their own, employers will be less likely to enter into mutually satisfactory collective-bargaining agreements in the first place. *428“Without some effective method of assuring freedom from economic warfare for the term of the agreement, there is little reason why an employer would desire to sign such a contract.” Ibid. Indeed, the Court’s logic would insulate unions from suit as well: an action against the union for a strike it had sponsored but that since has ended similarly tends to “reopen old wounds.” Moreover, I have difficulty seriously entertaining an argument that the employer is responsible for jeopardizing industrial harmony by seeking damages for injuries it has sustained when it was the unlawfully striking employees themselves who broke the peace in the first place. One must resist the temptation to recall the youth who, having deliberately murdered both parents, pleads for the court’s mercy as an orphan.
The respondents believe — and the Court accepts, ante, at 416, n. 18 — that the threat of discharge by the employer or discipline by the union is sufficient to ensure that collective-bargaining agreements generally will be followed by the union and its members.3 These measures, however, are no answer; they may be too little 4 and they surely come too late, after the employer has suffered substantial losses to its business due to a strike that, under the contract, never should have occurred. In theory, the employer might mitigate damages by hiring substitute workers, but this assumes qualified work*429ers could be found who would be willing to cross even a “wildcat” picket line.
Accountability of each individual for individual conduct lies at the core of all law — indeed, of all organized societies. The trend to eliminate or modify sovereign immunity is not an unrelated development; we have moved away from “The King can do no wrong.” This principle of individual accountability is fundamental if the structure of an organized society is not to be eroded to anarchy and impotence, and it remains essential in civil as well as criminal justice. Today the Court penalizes the employer for the “wildcat” breaches of the employees and rewards those errant employees.
It seems to me that, by now, the American labor movement has matured sufficiently so that neither unions nor their members need this kind of artificial, excessively paternalistic protection for admittedly illegal acts — a protection contrary to fundamental, centuries-old concepts of individual accountability. The stability of unions and the harmony of industrial relations will be enhanced, not impaired, by applying to union members the same standards of accountability that govern all other individuals in society.5
This Court ought not to make two classes of contract breakers under collective-bargaining agreements, one liable and one immune. I submit that if union members understand that where they breach a contract without the approval of their union, individual liability will follow, we will very likely see fewer unauthorized strikes, for union authority will be enhanced and greater industrial harmony will likely result.

 Thus, the union is not an “insurer” of members’ compliance with the collective-bargaining agreement, or vice versa. Had this been the case, I might have been willing to join in the Court’s position, for the union .would remain liable for failing to see that its members abided by the agreement.

 The Court cites various comments by Members of Congress regarding immunity for union members when they act with union approval. Those remarks do not address the issue before us — individual liability for individual conduct undertaken without union involvement. The nearest the Court comes to finding support on that question is a remark by Senator Taft, made during debate on a predecessor bill subsequently vetoed by the President, that employers may fire “wildcat” strikers. Ante, at 409. Even Senator Taft’s statement does not directly touch on individual liability for individual action, and, ironically, the Court’s use of it follows on the heels of the Court’s own admonition to avoid “suggestions] by negative implication.” Ante, at 407.

 The Court also mentions the employer’s suit against the union itself when the union is responsible. Obviously, that remedy is wholly irrelevant to this case. See supra, at 425.

 Justice Powell, in his separate opinion, thoroughly analyzes the inadequacy of these measures. The union’s impotence is demonstrated by its failure to control its members in the first place. In addition, union officers in some instances may reject discipline in the hope of appeasing “wildcat” members and bringing them back under union control. As Justice Brennan, writing for the Court in NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co., 388 U. S. 175, 183 (1967), aptly noted:
“Where the union is weak, . . . the union faced with further depletion of its ranks may have no real choice except to condone the member’s disobedience.”

 Cf. United States v. Park, 421 U. S. 658 (1975), in which the chief executive officer of a supermarket chain was held criminally liable for permitting food to be left in insanitary conditions after notice of those conditions.