Court Opinion

ID: 9457067
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:11:25.150105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:12.409701
License: Public Domain

*52MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge
(concurring and dissenting):
Except in one respect I concur in Judge Lumbard’s carefully reasoned and thorough decision. Rather than hold that the June 12, 1970 temporary restraining order (“June Order”) did not apply to the Union’s January 1971 work stoppage, I would remand the case to the district court for a hearing to resolve that issue.
The plain, unambiguous language of the June Order, which enjoined “any strike, work stoppage, boycott of overtime work, slowdown or any other form of interference with the business of plaintiff,” was unquestionably broad enough on its face to bar the January 1971 work stoppage. On June 30, 1970, the parties entered into a written stipulation, “so ordered” by the Court (Las-ker, D. J.), adjourning indefinitely the Company’s motion for a preliminary injunction and extending the June Order as so written until determination of that motion, which still remains undetermined. Were it not for this stipulation consenting to extension of the June Order, I agree that the order would have been vulnerable to attack under the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. § 109, and Rule 65(b), F.R.C.P. A vaild consent of the parties, however, precludes such attack. See NLRB v. Ochoa Fertilizer Corp., 368 U.S. 318, 82 S.Ct. 344, 7 L.Ed.2d 312 (1961); NLRB v. International Hod Carriers, Local 210, 228 F.2d 589, 592, n. 2 (2d Cir. 1955).
When the Union was later cited for contempt of the June Order because of its January 1971 work stoppage, it argued that the June Order, notwithstanding its apparent applicability, was not intended by the parties to bar stoppages other than the June boycott of overtime work, which arose out of the Company’s transfer of certain Brooklyn switchmen. The Company took the opposite position, contending that the order was intended to be as broad in scope as its plain language stated. Faced with this issue as to intent of the parties in consenting to the June Order the district court should not, without first permitting the parties to be heard and to offer evidence, have interpreted the June Order as applying to the January strike. I believe that we should not fall into the same error by interpreting the order, on the basis of our speculation as to the parties’ motives and intent, as being limited in its applicability to the June dispute. In my view the better course would be to remand the issue for a hearing.
Most of the arguments offered by the majority in support of its interpretation cut both ways. Although the Company’s June 1970 complaint sought relief only against the current boycott, the supporting Littel affidavit did assert that the Union had resorted to “an unprecedented number of work stoppages of various types” and urged that the no-strike clause of the parties’ collective bargaining agreement be enforced “to stop the increasing resort by defendant unions to these illegal work stoppages.” If, as the Company’s counsel has since advised us, the June 1970 work stoppage was but one of a series of similar stoppages, amendment of the complaint to seek broader relief would undoubtedly have been permitted as a matter of right at such an early stage in the litigation, pursuant to the liberality with which such amendments are permitted. See Rule 15(a), F.R.Civ.P. As it was, the written consent to the extension of the June Order as broadly phrased rendered such amendment unnecessary.
The majority speculates that a fearless union such as the CWA would hardly have given up so much for so little. However, the June Order allowed the Union to buy time and avoid expensive legal confrontations with the Company, which might prove unsuccessful from the Union’s standpoint, due to the Supreme Court’s then very recent decision in Boys Market. More important, the Union did not give up as much as would at first appear. It expressly retained the right, in the first paragraph of the June 30, 1970 stipulation extending the June Order, to demand an immediate *53hearing at any time for the purpose of determining whether the Company’s motion for preliminary injunctive relief should be granted or denied. By exercising this right, even after the Company applied for a contempt order in January, the Union could have obtained a prompt determination as to whether the June Order would be dissolved or replaced with a preliminary injunction, rather than take the law in its own hands and treat the June Order as if it were merely a “letter to a newspaper,” United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 309-310, 67 S.Ct. 677, 91 L.Ed. 884 (1947). Yet the Union never asked for the forthwith hearing to which it was entitled. Instead it flagrantly flaunted Judge Cannella’s acceptance of the applicability of the plain language of the June Order and his order accordingly. Even if his interpretation of the order was taken by the Union to mean that he would deny an application for a forthwith hearing to which the Union was entitled under the June Order, the proper course was to seek a Writ of Mandamus or Writ of Prohibition, Developments in the Law — Injunctions, 78 Harv. L.Rev. 994, 1077 (1965), or an expedited interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a) (1). Cf. Davis v. Hayden, 238 F. 734, 737 (4th Cir. 1916), cert. denied, 243 U.S. 636, 37 S.Ct. 400, 61 L.Ed. 941 (1917).
Both sides were represented throughout by experienced legal counsel, not only at the time when they entered into the June 30, 1970 stipulation but also during the January contempt proceedings. Against such a background, while there may be circumstances casting doubt on whether the parties contemplated that the stipulated June Order would continue in full force and effect to bar a work stoppage unconnected with the June boycott, I am not prepared to hold as a matter of law that such astute counsel did not intend the June Order to mean what it plainly says, at least not without a hearing at which both sides can present relevant evidence. It is no answer to say, as does the majority, that if the parties intended the broad language of the stipulated June Order to be as effective as it reads, they should have clarified the matter before Judge Lasker (who approved the stipulation) by executing a separate written memorandum. If the language of the stipulation or order were ambiguous, such a course of action might have been advisable. But here the language was plain and unambiguous. The parties expressly stipulated in writing that the Company’s motion for a preliminary injunction should be “adjourned * * * without date,” subject to the Union’s right to request the court for a hearing at any time, and that “The temporary restraining order entered herein on June 12, 1970, shall be 'extended until the determination of plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction.” The June Order enjoined “any strike, work stoppage, boycott of overtime work, slowdown or any other form of interference with the business of the plaintiff.” It is difficult to conceive how this plain language could have been made any clearer by filing a supplemental memorandum with the court. If the language of the order was too broad, the proper course was for the Union to seek modification by the court.
“[If the terms of a consent decree] read more broadly than respondent intended that they should, the time and manner of avoiding that breadth was by objections to the decree before its entry and not by disobedience of it afterwards.” NLRB v. American Manufacturing Co., 132 F.2d 740, 742 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 319 U.S. 743, 63 S.Ct. 1030, 87 L.Ed. 1700 (1943). “Familiar equity procedure assures opportunity for modifying or vacating an injunction when its continuance is no longer warranted.” Milk Drivers Union, Local 753 v. Meadowmoor Dairies, Inc., 312 U.S. 287, 298, 61 S.Ct. 552, 557, 85 L.Ed. 836 (1941).
“The breadth and vagueness of the injunction [restricting the exercise of First Amendment rights] itself would also unquestionably be subject to substantial constitutional question. *54But the way to raise that question was ' to apply to the Alabama courts to have the injunction modified or dissolved.” Walker v. City of Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307, 317, 87 S.Ct. 1824, 1830, 18 L.Ed.2d 1210 (1967).
In concluding that the better course would be to remand the case to the district court for a hearing as to the intended scope of the June Order, I am also persuaded by a long line of cases holding that consent orders are to be interpreted and enforced as written even if they are overbroad. In Swift & Co. V. United States, 276 U.S. 311, 48 S.Ct. 311, 72 L.Ed. 587 (1928), when the company there sought to invalidate a consent decree agreed to years earlier on the grounds, inter alia, that it should be limited to acts in interstate commerce, the Supreme Court refused because the company had consented to its being applied to acts in interstate and intrastate commerce. Id. 330-331, 48 S.Ct. 311. See also United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 116-117, 52 S.Ct. 460, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932); McComb v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 336 U.S. 187, 192, 69 S. Ct. 497, 500, 93 L.Ed. 599 (1949) (“Respondents could have petitioned the District Court for a modification, clarification or construction of the order. * * * But respondents did not take that course either. They undertook to make their own determination of what the decree meant. They knew they acted at their peril. * * * It does not lie in their mouths to say that they have an immunity from civil contempt because the plan or scheme which they adopted was not specifically enjoined.”); NLRB v. Ochoa Fertilizer Corp., 368 U.S. 318, 323, 82 S.Ct. 344, 7 L.Ed.2d 312 (1961); United States v. Armour Co., 402 U.S. 673, 91 S.Ct. 1752, 29 L.Ed.2d 256 (1971); NLRB v. International Hod Carriers, 228 F.2d 589, 592 n. 3 (2d Cir. 1955) (Frank, J.) (“Since the decree was entered with the consent of the parties, respondents [who were judged in civil contempt] do not, and cannot object to its broad scope [citations omitted].”); NLRB v. Retail Clerks International Association, 203 F. 2d 165 (9th Cir. 1953), affd. on rehearing, 211 F.2d 759, 763 (9th Cir. 1954), cert. denied, 348 U.S. 839, 75 S.Ct. 47, 99 L.Ed. 662 (1954); NLRB v. American Manufacturing Co., 132 F.2d 740, 742 (5th Cir. 1943); cf. NLRB v. M. Lowenstein & Sons, 121 F.2d 673, 674 (2d Cir. 1941) (per curiam); Evans v. International Typographical Union, 81 F. Supp. 675, 678 (S.D.Ind.1948).
Strict adherence to the foregoing line of cases would compel us to affirm the district court’s decision. However, Judge Lumbard’s persuasive argument to the effect that the June Order was not intended to apply as written convinces me that an issue worthy of a hearing is presented.