Court Opinion

ID: 9444735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:10:22.398224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:59.119973
License: Public Domain

HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
As my brothers say, § 142(3) of Chapter 29, U.S.Code, which is part of Sub-chapter I of the “Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947,” defines the term, “representative,” by reference to its use in Subchapter II — the National Labor Relations Act. It also defines “labor organizations” in the same way. Although the word, “representative,” is repeatedly used in Subchapter II, I can find no definition of it anywhere except that § 1Í52 (4) says that it includes “any individual or labor organization”; from which it follows that the Act understands that *425“representatives” of employees may be other than a “labor organization.” Section 152(5) defines a “labor organization” as “any organization of any kind” (which I take to require a group of individuals) “or any agency or employee representation committee or plan, in which employees participate and which exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions of work.” I should suppose that, read as it should be as in contrast to “any organization of any kind,” this last language would include an individual to whom employees give authority to deal with their employer. Therefore I cannot see any escape from saying that a single person may be a “labor organization” ; and, if so, then there may be “individuals” who are “representatives” of employees and yet who are not authorized to negotiate with employers. Hence, I can see no reason for denying what to me is the natural meaning of “representative,” which would cover any official, or at any rate the president, of a union. Of course § 186 might still be confined to payments made into the union treasury, but that must be for other reasons than that they are payments to a “representative.” I of course agree that the section does cover payments into the union treasury (subsections (c) (4) and (c) (5) prove that), but the accused must go further, and does; for he argues that the section covers no payments but those made in the course of negotiation and to a bargaining agent of the union for the union. But I start with the premise, that, so far as concerns definitions, there is no reason why we should not understand the word in its ordinary sense; and it is certainly irrelevant that the Act uses it in most instances — for example, in § 158(d) — in a limited sense.
However, I go further, because I find evidence in subsection (c) that it does not exclude union officials, though they are not engaged in bargaining. That subsection is the provision that excepts payments which without it would fall within subsections (a) and (b). Subsections (c) (4) and (c) (5) are indeed confined to payments made to a union, and I think that the same is true of subsection (c) (2), although that is not quite so certain. On the other hand subsections (c) (1) and (e) (3) presuppose that § 186 covers payments into the pocket of a union official for his own use; because, since, as I have just said, the purpose of subsection (c) is to state exceptions to the preceding subsections (a) and (b), the payments that subsection (c) covers would fall within (a) and (b) except for the exception. Hence, subsections (a) and (b) do cover payments not made into the union treasury, but directly to a “representative,” who need not himself have any authority whatever to negotiate for the union. The accused answers that these subsections are only to protect those, who may be negotiating for the union, when they take their wages or have an ordinary market transaction with the employer. So far as the “representatives” are only the bargaining agents of a union, that construction makes the subsections only cautionary, and does not answer the objection that, not only are they called exceptions, but they are indiscriminately mixed with indubitable exceptions. On the other hand, if they are treated as true exceptions (as they may be if confined to cases where the individual negotiators are themselves the union) although the formal difficulty is avoided, the occasions on which the subsections would apply are so much reduced that it is most unlikely that Congress would have thought it worth while to provide for them. It must very rarely be true that one or two or three individuals are in fact a “labor organization” ; and it is substantially impossible, I submit, that Congress would have deemed the possible accumulation of the union funds of such “labor organizations” an appreciable evil. For the foregoing reasons I do not think that there is the least textual reason to confine § 186 to payments made to union “repre*426sentatives”- into-the union treasury as a result of bargaining negotiations.
As I have said, that was indeed one of the objects of the Act, and it was particularly present in the mind of Congress at the time, for in 1947 the “Mine Workers Union” was attempting to collect a large “war chest.” But that does not mean .that prevention of such accumulations was the only object of the Act. Moreover, in order to affirm the conviction it is not necessary to suppose that § 186 was directed against the bribery of union officials, although, if I am right, it certainly does cover bribery. (Incidentally, if bribery had been the target, the penalty would, almost certainly have been more than a year’s imprisonment.) An altogether adequate purpose, and one which does not involve the textual difficulties I have-discussed, is that in addition to preventing employers from helping to fill a union’s “war chest,” Congress wished to prevent employers from tampering with the loyalty of union officials, and disloyal union officials from levying tribute upon employers. The first was the situation at bar; the employer did not bribe the accused; it did what has been done, time out of mind, when one person, knowing that he is likely to have continuous dealing with another, in which the second person will be acting as a fiduciary, wishes to insure a friendly approach to the fiduciary; and makes him presents or does him favors, or in other and less palpable forms tries to turn the edge of his allegiance. Although § 186 deals only with the grosser forms of this evil, it presupposes a more than ordinary fiduciary defection. A union official has a double loyalty: first, he owes it to the members of his union, who have chosen him to represent them; next, he owes it to those employees, who are not members, but in favor of whom the law has nevertheless imposed on him an equal duty.' Surely, it was altogether likely that Congress should wish to put ah end to such abuses by both parties— the unions and the employers.
Last is the question of the history of the section’s • passage through Congress. The principal discussion was indeed about contributions to a union’s treasury; and that was true as well of the “Case Bill,” — the predecessor of the Act before us — as of the Act' itself. The absence of much discussion about preventing the kind of offence here prosecuted, seems to me not at all surprising; there could have been no opposition to it, except that in fact made: it might cover innocent payments. Besides, the question here at issue did not wholly escape notice. Take, for example, what Senator Taft said about § 186(a): “That is, it may be said, in a case where the union representative is shaking down the employer.” Or consider Senator Ives’s inquiry whether § 186(b) “could be construed in any way as affecting Christmas presents, birthday presents or anything of that type.” Both he and Senator Pepper voted against the bill, presumably because they thought that for this reason it went too far. I do not forget that the section defining “representative,” was at that time more specific than § 142(3), which .eventually supplanted it in conference; but the amendment makes rather against the accused than in his favor, if we treat subsections (4) and (5) of § 152 as incorporated in § 142(3). For, although the supplanted -section did contain the word “individual,” as well as “labor organization," it limited it to an “individual” who was, or claimed to be, authorized to deal with an ' employer; and § 152(4) does not do so, as I have said.
However, even if the debates threw more light than they do on the meaning of the words, I should hesitate to accept them as an authoritative gloss. It is one thing to look for that purpose to the reports of one or both of the Houses of Congress; for it is not unreasonable to believe that those members, who are not content to let the words speak for themselves, may have relied upon the report as authoritative; and in any event that *427is well settled law.1 On the other hand, although it is true that courts have repeatedly mentioned the debates that attended the passage of a bill as relevant to its interpretation, the decisions are so much at variance that I find it impossible to extract any safe principle. The words of the sponsor of a bill are presumptively entitled to be considered,2 although it is impossible to know how far those who voted for it may have acted on the faith of them; but the remarks made in general debate are not to count.3
There does indeed remain the question raised by Senator Ives and Senator Pepper : i. e., whether § 186 forbids a Christmas present to a union official who chances to be a friend, or even a relative, of the employer. To draw lines is always difficult; and the one sure way to miss the meaning of a statute is to read the words out of their context and as you find them in the dictionary. Nearly every statute has its penumbra, and this one is not an exception; but it would be most unreasonable to defeat a part of its purpose, because there is no a priori rule for deciding when a payment was purely donative, and when it was actuated by the prospect of possible benefits to come.
As my view is not to prevail, I shall not discuss the other objections that the accused raises, except to say that I have considered them, and that they have not convinced me that any error was committed that would justify a reversal. I would affirm the conviction.

. Binns v. United States, 194 U.S. 486, 495, 24 S.Ct. 816, 48 L.Ed. 1087; Lapina v. Williams, 232 U.S. 78, 90, 34 S.Ct. 196, 58 L.Ed. 515; United States v. St. Paul, M. & M. Ry., 247 U.S. 310, 318, 38 S.Ct. 525, 62 L.Ed. 1130; Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U.S. 443, 474, 475, 41 S.Ct. 172, 65 L.Ed. 349; Wright v. Vinton Branch, etc., 300 U.S. 440, 463, 464, 57 S.Ct. 556, 81 L.Ed. 736; Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U.S. 384, 394, 395, 71 S.Ct. 745, 95 L.Ed. 1035.

. United States v. St. Paul, M. & M. Ry., supra, 247 U.S. 310, 318, 38 S.Ct. 525; Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, supra, 254 U.S. 443, 474, 475, 41 S.Ct. 172; McCaughn v. Hershey Chocolate Co., 283 U.S. 488, 493, 494, 51 S.Ct. 510, 75 L.Ed. 1183; United States v. Great Northern Ry., 287 U.S. 144, 154, 155, 53 S.Ct. 28, 77 L.Ed. 223; Wright v. Vinton Branch, supra, 300 U.S. 440, 463, 464, 57 S.Ct. 556; Schwegmann Brothers v. Calvert Distillers Corp., supra, 341 U.S. 384, 394, 395, 71 S.Ct. 745.

. United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association, 166 U.S. 290, 318, 319, 17 S.Ct. 540, 41 L.Ed. 1007; Dunlap v. United States, 173 U.S. 65, 75, 19 S.Ct. 319, 43 L.Ed. 616; Lapina v. Williams, supra, 232 U.S. 78, 90, 34 S.Ct. 196.