Court Opinion

ID: 9470688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:13:12.936502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:03.165167
License: Public Domain

BOYCE F. MARTIN, Jr.,
concurring.
Given both the obvious interdependence between Judge Brown’s opinion in this case and United States v. Cusmano, 659 F.2d 714 (6th Cir.1981), an opinion which I authored, and the thorny issue at stake in each, I feel a special concurrence is in order. As the Cusmano opinion implies, the panel considered and resolved affirmatively the question of whether the Hobbs Act applies to employer activity of the character proven here. I continue to believe that Cusmano was decided correctly.
I should add that I agree with Judge Holschuh’s analysis of United States v. En-mons, 410 U.S. 396, 93 S.Ct. 1007, 35 L.Ed.2d 379 (1973). We part company, however, over its application to the facts of this case. In Enmons, in the context of a lawful strike by a union in pursuit of a collective bargaining agreement, the Court held that the utilization of wrongful means in pursuit of legitimate labor objectives, although punishable by other laws, did not violate the Hobbs Act. The distinguishing factor in this case, it seems to me, is the objective. Here the employer, outside the collective bargaining context, attempted to obtain by wrongful means and under the guise of “service charge” an objective which the parties’ own contract specified would be “unlawful and illegal” — the shifting of responsibility for welfare and pension fund payments to the employees. It seems to me that under these circumstances Enmons is no bar to application of the Act.