Court Opinion

ID: 9634837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:25:51.091165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:44:04.146065
License: Public Domain

ZAPPALA, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
As does Justice Larsen, I agree with the majority that the evidence is insufficient to establish liability of IBT, but depart from its holding that there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could find Local 107 liable for damages arising from the shooting. Although the majority concludes that Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Anti-Injunction Act requires a greater burden of proof than that required under the common law rules of agency to establish the liability of a union for the acts of its members and officers, it quickly abandons this requirement on the particular facts of the case.
*537The majority heavily emphasizes the status of William Crossan and Robert Kendig as union stewards and members of the negotiating committee, and their involvement in the shooting incident, in arriving at its conclusion that the evidence was sufficient to hold Local 107 liable as a participant. The uncontroverted evidence repudiates the majority’s implication that the status of these two individuals as stewards and negotiating committee members was such that their conduct could be sufficient to establish that Local 107 actually participated in the acts. Neither of these positions vested authority in those individuals to control the picket line; yet, the majority presumes such authority existed, stating “No one used his authority to remove [the pistol] or stop the drinking.” [Majority Opinion at 17.] Contrary to the expansive responsibilities imagined by the majority to exist in one who held those positions, a steward’s only responsibility was the processing of grievances. R. 461a, 475a. This function had significance only as long as the collective bargaining agreement was in effect.
In order to perfect its premise, the majority finds that Crossan and Kendig, as members of the negotiating committee, were imbued with “new authority”. This finding is the entire underpinning of the majority’s theory of liability as it relates to Local 107. Without evidence that Crossan and Kendig were responsible for supervising the conduct of the striking workers while on the picket line, their actions are not a proper predicate for establishing liability of Local 107. The record demonstrates that as members of the negotiating committee, Crossan and Kendig simply acted as sources of information relative to the progress of the negotiations. R. 447a, 476a. No actual participation in the violence, or authorization, by the union is established simply by showing that members who happened to be on the negotiating committee were involved in acts of violence.
The acknowledged purpose of the higher standard of proof required in this particular type of litigation is to protect the workers’ right to collective bargaining without exposing the union to greater costs resulting from the *538application of an agency concept of respondent superior. The majority lauds the purpose, only to defeat it by misrepresenting the import of the cases on which it relies. It seizes on isolated phrases without any reference to the context in which they were originally used. This is especially disingenuous where the language now given broader application by this indiscriminate use was first employed to demonstrate the more stringent proof requirements of the legislation.
This is demonstrated by the majority’s reliance on Charles D. Bonanno Linen Service v. McCarthy, 708 F.2d 1 (1st Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 936, 104 S.Ct. 346, 78 L.Ed.2d 312 (1983), and NLRB v. Brewery and Beer Distrib. Drivers, 281 F.2d 319 (3rd Cir.1960) to bolster its finding of liability. The majority’s reliance on Brewery and Beer Distrib. Drivers is unpersuasive because the court noted therein that the record was devoid of any evidence to establish the scope of authority the stewards had in representing the union and that no constitution or by-laws of the union defining such authority were submitted into evidence. That court premised its finding that the stewards had acted within the scope of their authority on clear evidence demonstrating a course of conduct.1 Different individuals holding the office of steward at various places of business had engaged in similar conduct. In the instant case, the evidence was undisputed that the responsibility of the stewards was limited to representing union members in grievance proceedings. No course of conduct similar to that in Brewery and Beer Distrib. Drivers was established.
Following its statement that “[t]he passing of the weapon among union officials responsible for the negotiating process is sufficient to hold Local 107 liable as a participant.” (emphasis added), the majority cites to Bonanno for the proposition that liability could be imposed where a union representative with authority to control violence, failed to *539act. However, Bonanno reinforces only one premise of the majority’s syllogism. The deficiency of the majority’s logic is that the facts in this case do not support the same premise. In Bonanno, there was an indisputable breach of responsibility to control violence. When the company had first requested an injunction against the union, its representative “promised the court he would control the pickets”, Id. at 11, and the court refused the injunction. After the violence, a restraining order was issued on the court’s finding that the representative who had the power and authority to control the violence had deliberately failed to deliver on his promise. Indeed, in an earlier opinion in the case the court noted that the representative had given approval for one of those subsequent acts of violence. Charles D. Bonanno Linen Service, Inc. v. McCarthy, 532 F.2d 189, 191 (1st Cir.1976).
Bonanno does not provide proper support for the majority’s leap from the statement that the union officials were involved in the negotiating process to the conclusion that they had the power and authority to control the picket line. Although the court in Bonanno made this point, it did so by taking out of context a statement by the Supreme Court in the seminal case interpreting the Norris-LaGuardia Act, United Brotherhood of Carpenters v. United States, 330 U.S. 395, 67 S.Ct. 775, 91 L.Ed. 973 (1947). The Court did say that “[t]he grant of authority to an officer of a union to negotiate agreements with employers ... may well be sufficient to make the union liable.” Id. at 410, 67 S.Ct. at 783. The illegal act for which the union was sought to be held criminally liable in that case, however, was entering into a contract that violated the Sherman Act. If the purpose of the more stringent proof required by the act is to protect “unions as entities from adverse consequences arising from acts in which they did not participate,” Majority Opinion at 11, there is nothing unusual in finding union participation in an antitrust violation where its representative, with authority to enter a contract, entered a contract that was in fact illegal. “[T]he particular act charged, or acts generally of that type and quality, had been expressly authorized, or *540necessarily followed from a granted authority.” Id. at 406-07, 67 S.Ct. at 781. The entire stated purpose is defeated, however, if it can be assumed, as the majority does here, that a member given authority to negotiate on behalf of strikers thereby has control over all acts of the strikers and bears responsibility for them.
A final egregious example is the reference to United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966). The majority refers to the business agent’s overall responsibility for the control of the picket line and states that from his failure to act “the jury could properly infer the ‘knowing tolerance’ of violence held actionable under the Norris-LaGuardia Act ... in Gibbs.” The majority leaves the inference that business agent Smalley was present at the picket line and aware of the presence of the gun, but the record demonstrates that he was not. This point is significant in understanding the misuse of the phrase “knowing tolerance” taken from Gibbs.
In Gibbs, a dispute between a UMW local and a rival union over the organizing of a coal mine being newly opened had resulted in threats to Gibbs, a mine supervisor, and the beating of an organizer for the rival union by armed members of the UMW local. The UMW international union sent a representative, who established a limited picket line at the mine and instructed against further violence. The picket line remained for nine months without incident, and the mine was never opened.
Gibbs, who also had a contract to haul coal from the mine, lost his job as superintendent and, obviously, was never able to perform on his haulage contract. He sued the local and the international unions alleging that their conduct constituted secondary boycotts in violation of § 303 of the Labor-Management Relations Act, along with other state law claims, causing these injuries to his business. The only claim found to be supported by the evidence or cognizable by the federal court was the state law claim for interference with the employment relationship. Awards against the local and international unions were affirmed by *541the Circuit Court, and only the international was a petitioner in the matter before the Supreme Court.
The Court first made the point that the international could not be said to have ratified the threats and violence that had occurred merely by involving itself in the dispute on the side of the Local after the fact. It was in the context of establishing this point that the Court used the phrase “knowing tolerance”. Specifically, the Court stated
[w]hat is required is proof, either that the union approved the violence which occurred, or that it participated actively or by knowing tolerance in further acts which were in themselves actionable under state law or intentionally drew upon the previous violence for their force.
383 U.S. at 739, 86 S.Ct. at 1146 (emphasis added). The Court gave clear indication of the meaning of this passage when it later stated that “[t]he relevant question ... is whether ... UMW representatives were clearly shown to have endorsed violence or threats of violence as a means of settling the dispute. Id. at 741, 86 S.Ct. at 1147.
In this case, we see a single act of violence, clearly without purpose in regard to the labor dispute (two of the three persons injured were striking workers and the third was a security guard whose continued work gave neither advantage nor disadvantage to the company or the union in the contract negotiations). Both before and after the incident the picket line was peaceful. It is beyond my comprehension how it can be said that a Local 107 business agent, who was not present at the scene, (and through him the union Local) can be said to have “knowingly tolerated” the presence of the gun, let alone the violence. He neither knew of it, nor tolerated it.
By misrepresenting the facts and distorting the law, the majority destroys the legislation’s salutary purpose — the protection of employees’ power to bargain collectively. From this, I must dissent.
NIX, C.J., joins in this concurring and dissenting opinion.

. It was found that its stewards had encouraged employees of neutral distributors not to load beer orders of members of the complaining association unless they had entered into an agreement made between the union and another distributors association.