Court Opinion

ID: 9475110
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:17:42.467939+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:30.872270
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
At the outset, I should call attention to the fact that the setting in which the majority places this case is copied from the remarks of the district judge during argument and an affidavit filed in the district court, both of which are to the effect that although RF & P appeared to be a neutral it was not completely disinterested in the underlying labor dispute in that it has an association and does some business with Maine Central and Portland Terminal, which of course are in the same industry.
The problem with this fact finding on which the majority bases its opinion is that it leaves the impression that this case is a sort of substantial alignment case, though not expressed in words.
The majority does not take into account, however, and ignores two separate fact findings of the district court made in its orders of April 4, 1986 (concerning the Potomac yard) and April 10, 1986 (concerning RF & P’s Richmond facility). The April 4th order finds that RF & P is “a neutral,” and the April 10th order also finds that RF & P is “a neutral,” and “there is no showing that any such picketing will result in any economic impact on the ... [union].” This fact finding in an order of the court must be accepted rather than the remarks of the judge and the affidavit filed in the district court. We have addressed this subject on two occasions and held in each that a court speaks through its judgments and orders. If the order of the court is contrary to an observation made by the judge in the transcript, and of course that would apply to the affidavit in this case also, it is the order which controls. Murdaugh Volkswagen v. First Nat. Bank of S.C., 741 F.2d 41 (4th Cir.1984); Segars v. Atlantic Coastline RR Co., 286 F.2d 767 (4th Cir.1961).
Far from arguing, as does the majority, that there may be some kind of tangential substantial alignment, the union embraces the district court’s fact finding and takes the position that it may picket any railroad in the United States whether or not the picketed railway has any connection with the union or with the strike in Maine or with the parties to the strike in Maine. In other words, the union insists on its right to picket a neutral, as RF & P has been found to be.
I believe that the substantial alignment test of Ashley, Drew1 should be applied in this case to give a federal court jurisdiction to enjoin BMWE’s picketing of the RF & P’s railroad yards. I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that Jacksonville Bulk Terminals requires that we ignore the public interest of avoiding interruption of commerce. Under the majority’s interpretation of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. § 104, et seq., BMWE can engage in picketing of any railroad facility in the country regardless of its complete disassociation from the underlying strike in Maine. I believe that such an overly broad construction of the Norris-LaGuardia Act fails to properly accommodate with the Norris-LaGuardia Act the purposes of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. 151, et seq., and the Interstate Commerce Act, Title 49 U.S.C., esp. Ch. 111.
I disagree with the majority’s broad reading of Jacksonville Bulk Terminals.1
2 *1168In that case, the Supreme Court was asked to decide the power of a federal court to enjoin a labor dispute based upon a politically motivated work stoppage. The fact there was that the union refused to provide labor to the employer to handle cargo bound to, or coming from, the Soviet Union, or carried on Russian ships. The cause of the union’s action was the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The Court held that a federal court did not have jurisdiction under the Norris-LaGuardia Act to enjoin the work stoppage because the underlying dispute was not arbitrable under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. The Court was concerned only with the reach of those anti-injunction provisions as they related to what was obviously and in fact a labor dispute but which was based on political motives. The Court was not called upon to rule on Norris-LaGuardia’s applicability absent a labor dispute. Nor was it called upon to consider any accommodation between Norris-LaGuardia and the Railway Labor Act. See Trainmen v. Chicago R & I R Co., 353 U.S. 30, 40, 77 S.Ct. 635, 640, 1 L.Ed.2d 622 (1957). Jacksonville Bulk Terminal did, however, recognize that exceptions to Norris-LaGuardia can exist “where necessary to accommodate [that] Act to specific federal legislation or paramount congressional policy.” Id. 457 U.S. at 708, 102 S.Ct. at 2678. “There must be an accommodation of ... [the Norris-LaGuardia Act] and the Railway Labor Act so that the obvious purpose in the enactment of each is preserved.” Trainmen 353 U.S. at 40, 77 S.Ct. at 640.
Such congressional policy is found in the Interstate Commerce Act and the Railway Labor Act itself as expressed policy against interference with the flow of interstate commerce.
I believe that Railroad Trainmen v. Terminal Co., 394 U.S. 369, 89 S.Ct. 1109, 22 L.Ed.2d 344 (1969), is more nearly on point to the issues at hand than is Jacksonville Bulk Terminals because Railroad Trainmen dealt directly with the Railway Labor Act and its relation to the Norris-La-Guardia Act which, as I have noted, Jacksonville Bulk Terminals did not. In Railroad Trainmen, the Court concluded that state law was preempted and that the Railway Labor Act permitted unions to employ a range of peacefully economic power, “so long as its use conflicts with no other obligation imposed by federal law.” Id. at 392, 89 S.Ct. at 1123. That federal law is the prohibition against interference with interstate commerce. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that such a broad congressional policy is not enough to support accommodation between the Railway Labor Act, the Interstate Commerce Act and the Norris-LaGuardia Act. At 1165. By rejecting the basic principles governing the free flow of commerce, the majority allows the BMWE to bring the nation’s entire rail system to a halt because of a labor dispute it has with a small railroad in New England.
I believe that the Eighth Circuit’s approach in Ashley, Drew is a far more reasonable method in striking harmony in this area of the law. Also in accord is Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Atlantic Coastline Co., 362 F.2d 649 (5th Cir.), affirmed by an equally divided court, 385 U.S. 20, 87 S.Ct. 226, 17 L.Ed.2d 20 (1966). Ashley, Drew teaches that Norris-LaGuar-dia’s anti-injunction provisions cannot be reasonably applied without looking at both the character of the parties and the subject matter of the dispute. Id. at 1365. After reviewing a long line of precedents, the Eighth Circuit concluded that
it is reasonable to conclude that Section 13(a) [of Norris-LaGuardia, 29 U.S.C. 113(a) ] was meant to preclude injunctive interference with bargaining or organizing on an industry-wide or craft-wide basis. It was not meant to extend an anti-injunctive shield to union activities beyond the place where the union’s interest in a labor dispute ceases.”
Ashley, Drew at 1366.
*1169In order to fall within the scope of Norris-LaGuardia’s anti-injunction provisions, the union must show that the picketed company is substantially aligned with the company involved in the underlying labor dispute. In the case before us, BMWE has shown no substantial alignment between RF & P and the Maine Central. The district court twice found that the RF & P is “a neutral.” I would adopt the reasoning of Ashley, Drew and would allow federal court intervention under the facts of this case. I think application of the Norris-La-Guardia Act is inappropriate here because the picketing of RF & P’s yards does not involve or arise out of the only possible labor dispute in this record: the dispute between the BMWE and the Maine Central in Maine.
Because the RF & P is not substantially aligned with the Maine Central and has no dispute with Maine Central, labor or otherwise, I would reverse the order of the district court declining to enjoin picketing at railway facilities having no connection whatsoever with the labor dispute in Maine.
The requirements of time (this dissent is transmitted by facsimile to our clerk’s office for filing) prevent a more extended discussion of this most interesting and close question. In this respect, I should add that I especially rely upon the reasoning, as did Ashley, Drew to some extent, in the treatise Labor and the Law, Gregory & Katz (3d ed.) Ch. VII, especially p. 184, et seq.

. Ashley, Drew & Northern Ry. v. United Transportation Union, 625 F.2d 1357 (8th Cir.1980).

. Jacksonville Bulk Terminals, Inc. v. International Longshoremen’s Assoc., 457 U.S. 702, 102 S.Ct. 2672, 73 L.Ed.2d 327 (1982).