Court Opinion

ID: 9646619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:05:05.801467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:39.880918
License: Public Domain

DIXON, Chief Justice.
I concur in the views' expressed by Judge YOUNG.
This is neither a dispute between employees and their carrier employer, nor a jurisdictional dispute between two rival labor organizations. It is a dispute between some of the train and engine service employees of the Missouri-ICansas-Texas Railroad Company of Texas on the one hand and their respective labor organizations on the other hand. Plaintiffs in effect complain that their designated bargaining authorities, the Railroad Brotherhoods, have acted capriciously, arbitrarily and in abuse of their representative authority in ordering that Texas and Pacific Railroad Wain and engine employees be permitted to maintain at least one passenger crew operating a Missouri-ICansas-Texas engine and train between Whitesboro, Texas and Fort Worth, Texas.
The Texas and Pacific Railway Company is made a party defendant, but plaintiffs in their petition do not charge the Railway Company with initiating, promulgating, sponsoring, or even favoring the order. Apparently the only purpose in making the Railway Company a party defendant was to enjoin it from complying with the Brotherhoods’ order.
The Railway Company’s pleadings consist of a general denial, followed by a cross-action in which several third party defendants are joined, including the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company of Texas. The cross-action seeks only a declaratory judgment informing the parties whether they must comply with the order of the Brotherhoods. The attitude of the Texas and Pacific Railway Company is that of a disinterested spectator who does not care particularly which of the disputants prevails, but for its own protection, needs to be told what to do. This attitude is reflected throughout its pleadings, and as an example I quote this excerpt: “Pacific Company represents to the Court that if its employees have a right to -employment in operating a Missouri Company passenger train between Whitesboro and Fort Worth, Texas, the Court should adjudicate and declare such right in conjunction with the Court’s adjudication and declaration of the Defendant Missouri Company’s duty and obligation to afford such employment to Pacific Company’s employees; and if Defendant Missouri Company has no duty or obligation to afford such ' employment to Pacific Company’s employees, then this Court should adjudicate and declare that Pacific Company’s employees have no right of employment in so operating any of said Missouri Company’s passenger trains.”
*718Since this is a dispute between the Brotherhoods and some of their own members, I do not think the Railway Mediation Board or the Railway Adjustment Board has jurisdiction.
The Constitutions of the Brotherhoods provide that members of a Brotherhood may not sue their own organization, but are bound by the decisions of their properly chosen officers and committees. But there are occasions when such provisions are not applicable. Having exhausted all recourse within their organization, members may resort to the courts in those instances when the officers of their Brotherhood have acted capriciously, arbitrarily, and unjustly, thereby depriving the members of valuable property rights. Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173. The pleadings in the instant case present that very issue. And the evidence adduced at the hearing in my opinion was sufficient to warrant the granting of a temporary injunction.