Court Opinion

ID: 9760413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:54:22.301966+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:11.934379
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice McBride:
This case involves two appeals. Appeal No. 101 is by the proprietors of the restaurant from the decree of *473the court perpetually enjoining them from operating a restaurant despite their having been granted a liquor license by the Liquor Control Board. The second appeal, No. 102, is from the action of the court below refusing to restrain appellees from picketing and boycotting their restaurant.
The decision of this Court treats the matter as if it were only one case and, having answered the contentions in No. 101, says that it is unnecessary to discuss the contentions in No. 102. I do not agree with this disposition. This is a separate appeal and must be passed upon. There does not seem to me to be anything in the record that would justify our dismissal of it as being moot. The picketing and boycotting was going on even during final hearing in the court below.
The premises in question is located in an A-Commercial zone and in such zone a restaurant is permitted. The plaintiff, Tioga-Nicetown Civic League, is an association of persons residing within an area of approximately one square mile adjacent to the restaurant.
It would appear that immediately following Brodsky’s application for the transfer of the restaurant liquor license to its present location the neighbors, including plaintiffs, presented their objections to the Liquor Control Board. Those objections were not personal to Brodsky but were based upon the fear that the owner could not control patrons once they got outside the premises. The Liquor Control Board, following our decision in Obradovich Liquor License Case, 386 Pa. 342, 126 A. 2d 435, held that it was required by law to grant the transfer and so it was approved. The restaurant opened March 31, 1958 with an approximately |35,000 investment in premises and cost of improvements.
The original complaint filed by the plaintiff, Burnetta Reid, Individually and as President of the Tioga-*474Nicetown Civic League, was filed on March 18, 1958, even before the restaurant was opened and recited that defendant was planning to open the premises as a taproom and that “in its very nature the taproom authorized for and which the individual defendant intends to open at premises here in question, will constitute a private nuisance . . . and a public nuisance.” The theory of the complaint, as plaintiff says, is that “their case is based, not on the assumption that the taproom would be improperly operated by the individual defendant but that it is inherently a nuisance.” This complaint was directed not only against Brodsky, the restaurant proprietor, individually, but also joined the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Plaintiff thereafter filed an amended complaint against Brodsky as sole defendant.
Shortly after the restaurant opened signs appeared on various porches reciting “We Oppose the Tap Room at 19th & Pacific Sts. Don’t Patronize It. The Block Organization.” Picketing commenced at the same time and continued, without interruption, until the restaurant was forced to close. Brodsky not only had been warned to remove the restaurant but he and his wife received anonymous telephone calls at night at their home. The plaintiffs frankly admitted that the boycott and picketing was for the express purpose of compelling Brodsky to close up his restaurant and to destroy his business.
As to appeal No. 102: Boycotting and picketing depend primarily upon the legitimacy of the purpose sought to be accomplished by them. See Restatement, Torts, §765. See also Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society v. Dougherty, 337 Pa. 286, 11 A. 2d 147. In the Watch Tower case, the decision that the defendants were justified in withdrawing their patronage or threatening to do so and in inducing others to do likewise was based upon the legitimacy of their purpose.
*475When a labor union pickets an employer for the purpose of recognition, or for higher wages, and by placards seeks to tell the facts and enlist public support, the purpose is not to destroy the business for that would destroy the workers’ jobs. In any case where that is its purpose the picketing is unlawful. In this case the picketing was not a means of communicating the nature of a dispute to the public. There was no demand for Brodsky to meet. There was nothing he could concede and thereby buy peace and thereafter carry on his business without further interference. The fixed purpose of the neighborhood was to extirpate this lawful business, to destroy it completely.
The law in Pennsylvania is well settled that peaceful picketing for an unlawful purpose may be prohibited by injunction. In Sansom House Enterprises, Inc. v. Waiters & Waitresses Union, 382 Pa. 476, 480, 115 A. 2d 746, Chief Justice Steen said: “There is no question but that, where picketing is for an unlawful purpose, it is no longer protected as an exercise of the right of free speech and may properly be enjoined.” In Anchorage, Inc. v. Waiters & Waitresses Union, 383 Pa. 547, 551, 119 A. 2d 199, this Court went a step further when, again speaking by Chief Justice Stern, it said: “Picketing may be enjoined if one of its objects is unlawful even though not the sole object.” The three justices who constitute the present majority have spoken for this Court to the same effect. See Wortex Mills v. Textile Workers Union of America, 369 Pa. 359, 366-67, 85 A. 2d 851; Fountain Hill Underwear Mills v. Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union of America, 393 Pa. 385, 392, 143 A. 2d 354; Grimaldi v. Local No. 9, Journeymen Barbers, etc. et al., 397 Pa. 1, 153 A. 2d 214.
The appellees were guilty of unlawful conduct when they started picketing on or about April 1, 1958, with the intention to continue it until Brodsky’s busi*476ness was destroyed, and to do so even though the court ruled that he was not maintaining a nuisance. For that reason alone the Chancellor should have denied them the equitable relief which they sought. That the purpose of the picketing was unlawful is readily apparent from even the most cursory reading of the record.
The appellee Reid was asked, “If the Court decided there was no nuisance would you continue your picketing?”, and she answered “Yes”. The witness Foster was asked, “If the Court should find in this matter that there is no nuisance, you nevertheless intend to continue your picketing?”, and he answered, “I intend to picket until the place leaves, period”. One neighborhood picket told Brodsky, “Jew Punk, we’ll carry you out; we’ll get you out of here one way or another; we’ll bring you out feet first or we’ll get you out, one way or another, feet first if possible.” A second picket told him, “You need a police escort every night, not just one night, to go home.” A third picket cursed him and said, “Brodsky, we’re going to get you out of here by hook or crook.”
The theory of the persons who later composed the Civic League, as well as its predecessor, was that the mere existence of the restaurant'would attract an undesirable element. Courts cannot say that persons from undesirable neighborhoods may not enter more desirable ones and purchase liquor from duly licensed establishments.1 If this Civic League can prevent the operation of this lawful business simply because they do not like it they can prevent other persons from coming to live in their neighborhood because they do not like them. After they come the question is different. It is this aspect of the case which troubles me.
I feel deeply sympathetic to the efforts of the Civic League in this as well as all other neighborhoods in maintaining their properties and the character of the *477neighborhood and in their efforts to eliminate or mitigate nuisances as they arise and to work cooperatively with the police. Had they gone to the court below without having first taken the law into their own hands even before the restaurant opened and thus prevented a man with a 24 year old record of good conduct from even having a fair chance to operate his business, the case might stand upon a different footing. However, it seems to me that the neighborhood is infected by a slight touch of anarchy. No matter how laudable their purpose may be the legislature has put control of the liquor traffic, licensing, operating, revocation, suspension of licenses, in the Liquor Control Board. The people of the neighborhood, having failed to make their protest succeed because of the mandatory provision of the Liquor Control Act took the law into their own hands. The violence that subsequently came about may well have been partly due to the resentment of the patrons of the restaurant to the picketing itself. The well recognized equitable principle that he who seeks equity must do equity is peculiarly applicable here.
As to appeal No. 101: The decree of the lower court rests solely upon what the patrons did before they got to the restaurant and also what they did after they left it. The court beloAV found that the presence of the restaurant, under the circumstances in which it operated, constituted an offensive nuisance. I cannot ignore, however, the fact that it never had a chance to be otherwise. The boycotting and picketing commenced before the occurrence of any misconduct which is said to constitute the nuisance and may Avell have been the cause for such misconduct. While it is clear that a restaurant proprietor may be under a duty not to sell liquor to persons and send them forth into the streets so that they will commit trespasses, nevertheless, he cannot be held to the high degree of policing the streets. *478That is obviously the function oí the police department and as to persons who commit such trespasses before they enter his premises we held in Molony v. Pounds, 361 Pa. 498, 504, 64 A. 2d 802, that there is no duty on a tradesman to control the conduct of persons who have not yet entered his establishment. The sale of liquor is not now an outlaw business in Pennsylvania and while the proprietor exercising the privilege of a restaurant liquor license is under a higher decree of care in the conduct of his business than an ordinary merchant, I do not see how equity can step in and exercise what are essentially the duties and prerogatives of the Liquor Control Board. Equitable power is statutory and so is that of the Liquor Control Board. Although the court below describes the persons who entered the restaurant as patrons, there is no evidence that any of the persons guilty of misconduct before entering the restaurant or after leaving it purchased liquor on the premises or that any of this offensive conduct came about from an undue consumption of liquor upon the premises. If such is the case this can, of course, be remedied by recourse to the Liquor Control Board.
With respect to the Chancellor’s finding that Brodsky “permitted persons of the character who apparently frequented such establishments in this area to patronize the Star Dust”, it may be pointed out that Brodsky could not, without violating the law, have excluded any person unless he was visibly intoxicated, or insane, or a minor, or a habitual drunkard, or a person of known intemperate habits, or was a person of ill repute, a known criminal or a prostitute. Such persons are specified in the Liquor Code of 1951, P. L. 90, §493.
In order to be the legal cause of a nuisance it is not enough that the actor’s conduct be “ a substantial factor in bringing about the harm”; it is also neces*479sary to find that any intervening force which immediately produced the harm is not a superseding cause: Restatement, Torts, §440. In the present case, all that Brodsky did was to open a restaurant which caused nobody any harm. All the harm was brought about by intervening forces, i.e., the activities of some of the persons who visited this business. Most of the offensive conduct was criminal misconduct on their part, and ordinarily intentionally tortious or criminal acts do operate as superseding causes: Restatement, Torts, §448.
In addition, I do not see how the restaurant proprietor, apart from not being a legal cause of the nuisance, is a tortfeasor. The operation of the restaurant was not in itself negligent, reckless or an ultra-hazardous act, nor do I believe the proprietor intentionally and unreasonably caused the harm to the neighborhood of which it complains. Surely there is no proof that Brodsky intentionally and unreasonably caused wrong-way driving on 19th Street, repeated urination in an alley, and sexual misconduct on a porch a half-block away. Intentional harm occurs only where one acts with the purpose of bringing about the result which follows or where one does an act knowing that certain harm will result from his conduct.
Counsel for Appellant puts two hypothetical cases to us. 1. Assume that A, a reformed ex-convict, desirous of earning an honest living, opens a delicatessen store at 3620 North 19th Street, Philadelphia. He behaves himself with complete propriety, but many former prison mates and underworld characters come to visit him. On various occasions some of these visitors, while standing in front of the delicatessen store, engage in shooting at each other. The neighborhood is greatly disturbed by the influx of such an undesirable element which engages in brawling and profanity, and puts the neighborhood in fear of greater evil to come/ *480Would any court hold that the delicatessen proprietor was maintaining a nuisance and order him to close his doors and go elsewhere?
2. A negro purchases a home in a white neighborhood. Rowdy white elements who live ten blocks distant converge on this house and howl and yell and greatly disturb the neighborhood. Negro visitors engage in fighting with the whites who endeavor to prevent them from entering the house. Is the negro who has purchased the home for lawful residential purposes, and thereby created a situation in which the conduct of third persons is highly offensive and disturbing to the neighborhood, guilty of maintaining a nuisance by continuing to live in his new home? Would any court order him to move out in order to preserve neighborhood peace, as the Chancellor ordered Brodsky to move out in this case? In such circumstances should the court not limit itself to controlling the objectionable misconduct?
To visit upon this lawful business the penalty of extinction because of community disapproval seems to me to flout the mandate of the legislature and the decision of the Liquor Control Board which acted in accordance with the opinion of this Court in the Obradovich case, supra.
I dissent.
Mr. Justice Cohen joins in this dissenting opinion.