Court Opinion

ID: 9592934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:18:10.111269+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:13:32.983265
License: Public Domain

NEELY, Justice,
dissenting:
The majority do not understand Sears, Roebuck and Company v. San Diego District Council of Carpenters, 436 U.S. 180, 98 S.Ct. 1745, 56 L.Ed.2d 209 (1978), but in all truth, the judges who wrote Sears and related cases had no clear vision, and produced murky prose because no broad consensus could be reached.1
In the case at hand, Riesbeck is a non-union food store, and the Union is making no attempt to organize its workers. The Union, however, wishes to inform potential customers that Riesbeck does not pay union wages. The Union entered onto the common area of the shopping center in which Riesbeck is located and distributed handbills urging shoppers to limit their purchases to Union stores. The Union was not on Riesbeck’s individual leasehold, but rather on the shopping center’s common area.
Riesbeck and the shopping center landlord then went to state court to enjoin the Union from entering on their private property for the purpose of doing them injury, and the circuit court entered a preliminary injunction. Up to that point, no one had gone to the National Labor Relations Board. However, after the circuit court entered its preliminary injunction, the Union filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB. Therefore, the question in this case is not whether the jurisdiction of the NLRB would preempt state jurisdiction should the NLRB choose to take jurisdiction, but rather what happens in this dispute between the entry of the pickets onto the landlords’ private property and the NLRB’s final decision.
Justices Blackmun and Powell, in their concurrences in Sears, discussed the problem of a “jurisdictional no-mans’s land”. Justice Powell addressed the “jurisdictional no-man’s land” problem that exists after a matter like the one before us is presented to the NLRB:
With all respect, this optimistic view overlooks the realities of the situation. *21Trespass upon private property by pickets, to a greater degree than isolated trespass, is usually organized, sustained, and sometimes obstructive — without initial violence — of the target business and annoying to members of the. public who wish to patronize that business. The “danger of violence” is inherent in many — though certainly not all — situations of sustained trespassory picketing. One cannot predict whether or when it may occur, or its degree. It is because of these factors that, absent the availability of an equivalent remedy under the National Labor Relations Act, a state court should have the authority to protect the public and private interests by granting preliminary relief. •
In the context of trespassory picketing not otherwise violative of the Act, the Board has no comparable authority. If a § 8(a)(1) charge is filed, nothing is likely to happen “in a timely fashion.” The Board cannot issue, or obtain from the federal courts, a restraining order directed at the picketing. And it may take weeks for the General Counsel'to decide whether to issue a complaint. Meanwhile, the “no-man's land” prevents all recourse to the courts, and is an open invitation to self-help. I am unwilling to believe that Congress intended, by its silence in the Act, to create a situation where there is no forum to which the parties may turn for orderly interim relief in the face of a potentially explosive situation.
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In sum, I do not agree with Mr. Justice Blackmun that “the logical corollary of the Court’s reasoning” in its opinion today is that state-court jurisdiction is preempted forthwith upon the filing of a charge by the union. I would not join the Court’s opinion if I thought it fairly could be read to that effect.
436 U.S. at 212-14, 98 S.Ct. at 1765-66 (Powell, J., concurring).2 Justice Powell noted that under the Court decisions, state courts were not precluded from providing relief against actual or threatened violence, but that such relief may come too late, in light of the danger of violence inherent in sustained trespassory picketing.
There are, with regard to the jurisdictional no-man’s land, a number of possibilities, of which today’s majority has miraculously chosen the worst. The first possibility, of course, is for the employer to go out and hire some very large and very mean lads to persuade the picketers in the good old-fashioned way that they had made a mistake coming on private property. Justice Powell referred to this as “self-help”, and labor lawyers sometimes refer to it as the “un-good” way of handling picketers. In fact, nine out of ten labor lawyers of my acquaintance advise their business clients that beating up picketers with baseball bats, particularly when the Union reciprocates by dynamiting the employer’s premises, can create the mother of all labor disputes.
Now, assuming that the employer rejects the “ungood” way, what should it do? The majority implies — but does not say — that perhaps the employer should go to the notoriously glacial and incompetent NLRB and file an unfair labor practice charge. Unfortunately, (even forgetting the NLRB’s limited sense of urgency) the Union has committed no unfair labor practice, anymore than the Union would have committed an unfair labor practice if every male member of the local had paraded naked around a convent shouting four letter expletives. The majority opinion in Sears unequivocally says at least that much.3
*22Indeed, one can read the LMRA with the attentiveness of a scholastic monk or the free-wheeling imagination of a deconstructionist yet find not one colorable ground for the employer’s invocation of NLRB jurisdiction. This is so because the Union has not engaged in an unfair labor practice enumerated in 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(1) — (7) (1990), [LMRA, § 8(b)(l)-(7) ]. (1) The Union has not restrained its members or any other “employees” in the exercise of rights guaranteed in 29 U.S.C. § 157, nor has it coerced the employer in the selection of labor representatives or the adjustment of grievances. (2) The Union has not engaged in prohibited discrimination. (3) The Union has not refused to bargain collectively with the employer. (4) The Union has not engaged in a third party boycott. (5) The Union has not charged excessive membership dues. (6) The Union has not attempted to exact anything of value from the employer. (7) The Union has not engaged in improper recognitional picketing. However, there is at least arguably a trespass to private property, and this issue must be decided by someone someplace or the “un-good” method of baseball bats and dynamite will take over, faute de mieux.
Therefore, unless the employer wishes to avail itself of a pleasure akin to listening to the sound of one hand clapping, it must either repair to the “ungood” method or solicit the intervention of the state court. At that point, the state court is under an obligation to decide whether the property rights of the employer and the shopping center owner are being violated. Nothing in the cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States or the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit indicates that the state court shouldn’t make the call, including most notably Sears, supra, which actually indicates that the state court should make the call.
We know that if the employer selects the “ungood” method of ejecting the pieketers, then the Union may go to the National Labor Relations Board. Logically, then, if the employer goes to state court for a chap in a black robe instead of going over to Steubenville for a chap with a baseball bat, the Union still ought to be able to go to the National Labor Relations Board. The' big question is: Between the time the employer gets the injunction from the state court and the NLRB issues an order, can the Union continue to trespass and picket? Logically, the answer to that question is “no.” And, nothing in Sears implies to the contrary.
The majority misreads the undeniably confusing Sears language. In Sears, Justice Stevens, writing for the majority, said:
Nevertheless, several considerations persuade us that the mere fact that the Union’s trespass was arguably protected is insufficient to deprive the state court of jurisdiction in this case.
436 U.S. at 200, 98 S.Ct. at 1759. The Sears situation was similar to the case before us. In the Sears case, the Union picketed Sears in order to “secure work for union members and to publicize Sears’ undercutting of the prevailing area standards for the employment of carpenters.” 436 U.S. at 184, 98 S.Ct. at 1751. Sears wanted the Union off its property. The Court said:
Because the assertion of state jurisdiction in a case of this kind does not create a significant risk of prohibition of protected conduct, we are unwilling to presume that Congress intended the arguably protected character of the Union’s conduct to deprive the California courts of jurisdiction to entertain Sears’ trespass action.
Id. at 207, 98 S.Ct. at 1762. Likewise, I believe that the arguably protected character of the Union’s picketing of Riesbeck does not deprive this State’s circuit court of jurisdiction in the first instance.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (a court with at least a passing acquaintance with federal labor law) reads Sears the way I do. In the recent case of Rum Creek Coal Sales v. Caperton, 926 F.2d 353 (1991), the Fourth Circuit said:
*23In Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. San Diego County Dist. Council of Carpenters, 436 U.S. 180, 98 S.Ct. 1745, 56 L.Ed.2d 209 (1978), the Court considered whether the NLRA deprived a “state court of the power to entertain an action by an employer to enforce state trespass laws against picketing which is arguably — but not definitely — prohibited or protected by federal law.” Id. at 182, 98 S.Ct. at 1749. In an opinion by Justice Stevens, the Court concluded that, under the Gar-mon doctrine, neither the arguably protected character of the picketing, nor the arguable illegality of it, deprived the state courts of jurisdiction. Id. at 198, 207, 98 S.Ct. at 1758, 1762-63. The pick-. eting at issue was peaceful, orderly, and nonobstructive.
Of course, should the NLRB conclude that the employer has committed an unfair labor practice by unreasonably restricting the right of the Union peacefully to picket and disseminate information, the NLRB can say so and then its decision preempts the state court injunction.4 Furthermore, this allocation of authority between state and federal authorities gives the Union much opportunity to seek a favorable ruling on the merits without the baseball bats and the dynamite. Indeed, the Union gets two bites at the apple: (1) it can argue in state court that it has a federally-created right to picket on the public areas of shopping centers, and hope that the state judge (elected as he is by Union voters) agrees; and (2) the Union can file an unfair labor ■ practice complaint with the NLRB. If the Union loses in front of the circuit judge, it should then cease picketing until such time as the NLRB renders a decision. If, then, the NLRB renders a decision that is at variance with the state court injunction, the state court injunction becomes a nullity and the Union may proceed to do whatever the NLRB says that it may do.

. The majority opinion in Sears was far from unanimous. Although six justices joined in the result, Justice Blackmun filed a concurring opinion in which he differed with Justice Powell on the central question before us today, and Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Marshall and Stewart, filed a dissenting opinion.
We find the same lack of consensus in the case of Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U.S. 507, 96 S.Ct. 1029, 47 L.Ed.2d 196 (1976), a case that bears on the merits of the case before us, although the merits were not argued on appeal. In Hudgens, the Court overruled prior cases, and held that there was no First Amendment right to picket in a private shopping center, but that a determination of whether a union may picket in a private shopping center was to be made under the Labor Management Relations Act. Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court. Justice Powell filed a concurring opinion, in which Chief Justice Burger joined. Justice White filed an opinion concurring in the result. Justice Marshall filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Brennan joined, and Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. This is the kind of clear, definite law that really helps lower courts and is like unto a full employment act for lawyers.

. The section 8(a)(1) to which Justice Powell referred can be found at 29 U.S.C. § 158. Old hands at labor law are apt to refer to labor law provisions by their location within the various labor Acts, rather than by their location in the United States Code. 29 U.S.C. § 141 indicates that the former National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and the later amendments should be referred to by the title of the Taft-Hartley amendments, that is — the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, yet many old hands still refer to the old National Labor Relations Act. In this opinion, I will give United States Code citations.

. The Court said, for instance:
In this case, Sears could not directly obtain a Board ruling on the question whether the Union’s trespass was federally protected. *22Such a Board determination could have been obtained only if the Union had filed an unfair labor practice charge alleging that Sears had interfered with the Union’s § 7 right to engage in peaceful picketing on Sears’ property.
436 U.S. at 201, 98 S.Ct. at 1759-60.

. Indeed, the NLRB has already decided a case factually identical to the case before us (only the names were different), and came out in favor of the Union. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit remanded the case on evi-dentiary grounds that make little sense unless one understands that the Sixth Circuit’s natural disposition to Unions was substantially less favorable than the NLRB’s in 1980. With the Party of Taft-Hartley firmly in power for sixteen out of the past twenty years, one might surmise that the position of the Sixth Circuit would not necessarily offend today’s NLRB. Giant Food Markets v. N.L.R.B., 633 F.2d 18 (6th Cir.1980).