Court Opinion

ID: 9640253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:01:54.632957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:28.662145
License: Public Domain

HANEY, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur.
I believe Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238, 56 S.Ct. 855, 80 L.Ed. 1160, was in effect overruled by Nat. Labor Rel. Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. —, 108 A.L.R. 1352, decided by the Supreme Court April 12, 1937, though it is true that no words are contained in the opinion in the latter case which indicates that the Carter Case was formally considered to be overruled. It is merely stated that the Carter Case is “not controlling.”
What then is the controlling factor to be considered in connection with the jurisdiction of the Board? In the Jones Case, the Supreme Court quoted section 10(a) of the act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(a) conferring jurisdiction on the Board, and then stated: “The critical words of this provision, prescribing the limits of the Board’s authority in dealing with the labor practices, are ‘affecting commerce.’ ” The definition of “commerce” in section 2(6) of the act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 152(6) makes no attempt to define interstate or foreign commerce. The word “definition” as applied to commerce in said section is a misnomer in a sense. The only part thereof which may be called a definition, is the portion that restricts the broad meaning to “interstate and foreign commerce in the constitutional sense”; but the section makes no effort to determine or define such commerce in that sense. I am unable to find anything in the Jones Case which defines anew “interstate commerce.” Were it necessary to make such a definition, I believe the inference which might properly be taken from the Jones Case is that anything which either starts or aids the flow of the stream is interstate or foreign commerce. As applied here, the beginning of the flow would be traceable to the planting of the seed. Successive stages would consist of the planting and growing, sale and delivery to respondent, the canning, the shipment-in interstate commerce, and each step thereafter until the product reached the hands of the consumer and was consumed by him. Each step would be a part of the stream. Such an interpretation is what I believe to be the intent of the words as used in the Constitution.
However, I do not believe the Supreme Court made such a definition, because under its construction of the act, a new definition is unnecessary. The Board, by the act, is given jurisdiction over an unfair labor practice “affecting commerce” as defined in section 2(7), 29 U.S.C.A. § 152(7). The cases depend on this provision. The Supreme Court construed this provision, as follows: “This definition is one of exclusion as well as inclusion. The grant of authority to the Board does not purport to extend to the relationship beween all industrial employees and employers. Its terms do not impose collective bargaining upon all industry regardless of effects upon interstate or foreign commerce. It purports to reach only what may be deemed to burden or obstruct that commerce and, thus qualified, it must be construed as contemplating the exercise of control within constitutional bounds. It is a familiar principle that acts which directly burden or obstruct interstate or foreign commerce, or its free *796flow, are within the reach of the congressional power. Acts having that effect are not rendered immune because they grow out of labor disputes. * * * It is the effect upon commerce, not the source of the injury, which is the criterion. * * * Whether or not particular action does affect commerce in such a close and intimate fashion as to be subject to federal control, and hence to lie within the authority conferred upon the Board, is left by the statute to be determined as individual cases arise.” (Italics supplied.)
Thus it is quite plain that we are to consider only one thing, i. e., the effect of the unfair labor practice on interstate commerce. But it is pointed out in the Jones Case that the effect on interstate commerce, of the unfair labor practice, must be direct and immediate and not indirect and remote; the court saying: “Undoubtedly the scope of this power must be considered in the light of our dual system of government and may not be extended so as to embrace effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and remote that to embrace them, in view of our complex society, would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government.. * * * The question is necessarily one of degree.” The rule is like the ones relating to a state tax on an instrumentality of the federal government or on an instrumentality of interstate commerce, and a federal tax on an instrumentality of state government. I believe all of them are based on the modification of the rule in McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 4 L.Ed. 579, by Bank of New York v. Supervisors, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 26, 29, 19 L.Ed. 60, and in First National Bank of Louisville v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 353, 361, 19 L.Ed. 701. All of these rules, although theoretically sound, are unwise in a practical sense. No gauge has ever been made by which a given effect may be determined to be either direct or remote. As a result we have speculation and uncertainty. Compare the dissenting opinion in Brush v. Commissioner, 300 U.S. 352, 57 S.Ct. 495, 81 L.Ed. 691, 108 A.L.R. 1428, decided by the Supreme Court on March 15, 1937.
However, in the instant case applying that rule, it is plain to see that interstate commerce is obstructed, because production of goods was halted by the unfair labor practice. I do not believe that it is important whether 98 per cent, of respondent’s production or only 1 per cent, of it, actually moved in interstate commerce. So long as 1 per cent, of the goods so moved, the unfair labor practice obstructed the movement to that extent. The effect would therefore be direct and immediate.