Court Opinion

ID: 9467570
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:51:49.009364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:24.893808
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge
(concurring and dissenting).
While I agree with part of the court’s thorough opinion, and with the conclusion that plaintiff is entitled to relief, I feel more comfortable with a different route. For the reasons given by the court I agree that this is not a Sherman Act case. I have doubts, however, whether relief is within the reach of the NLRA.
By my reading, the Benz line of cases cited by the court establishes the general proposition that the NLRA does not reach, directly or indirectly, labor controversies in which the “primary” dispute relates to the internal affairs of a foreign entity (in those cases, foreign shipowners). See American Radio Ass’n v. Mobile Steamship Ass’n, 1974, 419 U.S. 215, 221-26 (Mobile); Windward Shipping (London) Ltd. v. American Radio Ass’n, 1974, 415 U.S. 104, 109-13, 94 S.Ct. 959, 962-964, 39 L.Ed.2d 195 (Windward) and cases cited. The one exception is where the primary dispute centers around the foreign entity’s employment relations with American labor. See ILA, Local 1416 v. Ariadne Shipping Co., 1970, 397 U.S. 195, 90 S.Ct. 872, 25 L.Ed.2d 218. This distinction, while couched in terms of whether or not the dispute is “in” or “affecting commerce,” stems more basically from the recognition that Congress, in passing legislation to govern domestic labor relations, “simply did not intend ... to erase longstanding principles of comity and accommodation in international maritime trade.” Windward, ante, 415 U.S. at 112-13, 94 S.Ct. at 964.
If I understand it correctly, the court is willing to extend the NLRA to cover the present, secondary, dispute because the result reached “would portend no interference in the management or affairs of foreign companies, workers, or labor organization;” indeed, will doubtless avert it. With due respect, I cannot agree. Either an act of Congress covers a particular dispute or it does not; the determination should not depend on the desirability of the ultimate result reached. It is, moreover, happenstance that the court can take this approach. Prior to the Taft-Hartley Act, the labor laws were held to protect secondary boycotts. United States v. Hutcheson, 1941, 312 U.S. 219, 61 S.Ct. 463, 85 L.Ed. 788. To say that defendants’ conduct is a labor matter would then have meant it protected, with the inevitable effect upon the primary dispute. I cannot believe that we would then, given the proposition that the primary dispute involved longstanding principles of comity and accommodation in international maritime trade that Congress did not intend to erase, Windward, ante, have extended the act’s protection to a secondary boycott designed very significantly to affect it. Equally, I do not believe that the fact that Congress came to have a broader general view of the labor injunction should be taken to evince an intent for the NLRA to partake in international decisions.
Continuing with Windward and Mobile, these cases arose out of picketing of foreign-flag vessels by six American maritime unions in order to draw attention to the low wages paid by the vessels to their (foreign) crews—and the consequent competitive disadvantage of American shipping, which had to pay union scale. Longshoremen and other dock workers refused to cross the picket lines to load and unload the ships. Suit was brought, in the state courts,1 by the foreign owners of two of the ships (Windward) and by American stevedores and an American shipper whose crops were waiting to be loaded (Mobile). In each case the unions sought to defeat the state court’s jurisdic*1383tion as preempted by the NLRA. In Windward, the Supreme Court rejected the unions’ contention that their activity was covered by the Act, and protected by section 7. In Mobile, the unions argued that whatever the case in a suit by the foreign shipowners, their activities vis-a-vis the American stevedores and shipper were governed by the NLRA, since they were arguably a secondary boycott prohibited by section 8(b)(4), which declares it an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents
“(1) to engage in, or to induce or encourage any individual employed by any person engaged in commerce ... to engage in, ... a refusal in the course of his employment to ... handle ... any goods .. . where ... an object thereof is—
“(B) forcing or requiring any person ... to cease doing business with any other person .... ”
In rejecting this argument, the Court referred to its earlier holding in Windward that the picketing, insofar as it was designed to influence the foreign shippers’ internal affairs, was not activity “affecting commerce,” and stated
“it would be wholly inconsistent to now hold, insofar as concerns Board jurisdiction over a complaint by respondents, that the employer of the longshoremen who honored the picket line, or the shipper whose goods they did not handle, was in or affecting commerce.” 419 U.S. at 224, 95 S.Ct. at 415.
Stating it differently, the Court rejected “the proposition that a secondary employer’s domestic business activities may be the basis for Board jurisdiction where the primary dispute is beyond its statutory authority over unfair labor practices ‘affecting commerce,’ ” (emphasis in orig.) 419 U.S. at 226, 95 S.Ct. at 416, and held the propriety, vel non, of the picketing not an NLRA matter.
Mobile, then, looks to the primary dispute: if this is beyond the Board’s reach as not “affecting commerce,” then so are secondary activities designed to influence its outcome. While this last may be semantically troublesome, it is fully consistent with the notion that the internal management or affairs of foreign entities are none of the Board’s business, directly or indirectly. I therefore ascribe less importance than does the court to the Mobile Court’s dictum that its holding “need cast no doubt on” the Madden and Grain Elevator Workers cases. 419 U.S. at 225 n.10, 95 S.Ct. at 415 n.10. To my mind, Mobile casts considerable doubt on them. The only analytically significant distinction between these two cases and Mobile is that the former involved an actual work stoppage to force the secondary employer not to deal with the primary, while the Mobile defendants induced such action by their secondary picketing. Where section 8(b)(4)(i) applies, it declares unlawful the engaging in, or the inducement or encouragement of, a secondary boycott. It is difficult to see how one affects “commerce” more than the other.
To summarize, it seems to me that in looking at the Act clause by clause, instead of as a whole, the court has adopted the approach of the Mobile dissent where, again, it was said that “following the literal language of § 8(b)(4)(B) and recognizing the Board’s exclusive jurisdiction over the dispute would not in any way undermine the principles of comity emphasized in our decision in Windward Shipping.” 419 U.S., ante, at 241-42, 95 S.Ct. at 423. That approach did not prevail in Mobile, and I would not follow it here. Accordingly I would hold that just as state court, rather than NLRA, jurisdiction existed in Mobile, plaintiff must look to our admiralty jurisdiction in the case at bar.
Nor do I find that wanting; the facts in the present case bear an intimate “relationship ... to traditional maritime activity.” Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. Cleveland, 1972, 409 U.S. 249, 261, 93 S.Ct. 493, 501, 34 L.Ed.2d 454. See Pino v. Protection Maritime Ins. Co., 1 Cir., 1979, 599 F.2d 10, 12-13, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 900, 100 S.Ct. 210, 62 L.Ed.2d 136; Carroll v. Protection Maritime Ins. Co., 1 Cir., 1975, 512 F.2d 4, 6-9 and cases cited, particularly O’Connor & Co. v. Pascagoula, S.D.Miss., 1969, 304 *1384F.Supp. 681; Orient Mid-East Lines, Inc. v. Albert E. Bowen, Inc., S.D.N.Y., 1966, 255 F.Supp. 627; Upper Lakes Shipping, Ltd. v. ILA, S.D.N.Y., 1963, 33 F.R.D. 348. Having concluded that this action is not preempted by the NLRA, I would hold that Allied has properly alleged the elements of maritime tort for interference with its contractual relations.
Section 766A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts reads:
“§ 766A. Intentional Interference With Another’s Performance of His Own Contract
One who intentionally and improperly interferes with the performance of a contract (except a contract to marry) between another and a third person, by preventing the other from performing the contract or causing his performance to be more expensive or burdensome, is subject to liability to the other for the pecuniary loss resulting to him.
Most of the requisite elements are easily found in the case at bar and require little discussion. Contrary to ILA’s assertion, malice in the sense of ill will need not be shown; intent (knowledge to a substantial certainty) is ordinarily enough. In the case of a remote interference, see post, the “motive or purpose” to interfere may be required. See Restatement, ante, § 766 comments j, r, s; § 766A comment e; § 767 comment d. However, it is reasonably clear that the ILA’s purpose here was to prevent the loading and unloading of Russian and Russia-bound cargos—stated differently, to disrupt Soviet-American trade, of which Allied’s contract represented a portion—and while the only ill will may have been directed toward the Soviet Union, the target of the boycott was this trade and, necessarily, this and other contracts. Allied has credibly alleged that it was prevented from or burdened in performing its contract,2 and has suffered pecuniary loss.3
A number of factors persuade me that the ILA’s interference was “improper” within the meaning of section 766A.4 Labor unions, under the protective wing of federal law, have achieved tremendous social and economic power. This is balanced, in labor controversies “in commerce,” by protections given management and others— notably, the prohibitions of section 8(b). My conclusion that the secondary boycott provisions of section 8(b)(4) do not apply in no way detracts from the soundness of the general policy, embodied therein, of “shielding unoffending employers and others from pressures in controversies not their own.” NLRB v. Denver Building & Constr. Trades Council, 1951, 341 U.S. 675, 692, 71 S.Ct. 943, 953, 95 L.Ed. 1284. As the court observes, a labor organization’s secondary activity in pursuit of a political goal in no way related to the labor interests of its members may be thought doubly objectionable.
I am further influenced by the same “considerations of comity and accommodation in international trade” which argue against NLRA coverage. The ILA has sought ultimately to involve itself in the affairs of a foreign nation—a matter, in my opinion, better entrusted to the State Department than to labor unions. Union activity which unduly interferes with the non-“commerce” policies of a foreign entity is *1385denied the protections of the NLRA, because such an intervention would be “likely to ‘raise considerable disturbance not only in the field of maritime law but in our international relations as well.’ ” Ariadne, ante, 397 U.S. at 198, 90 S.Ct. at 873, quoting McCulloch v. Sociedad Nacional de Marineros, 1963, 372 U.S. 10, 19, 83 S.Ct. 671, 676, 9 L.Ed.2d 547. The protection of this interest alone might strain the limits of Allied’s standing and this court’s power. However, where we are asked to consider the propriety or impropriety of an injury done to a plaintiff properly before us, this concern diminishes “the social interest in protecting the freedom of action of the actor.” Restatement, ante, § 767(c).
The ILA’s argument that its boycott is too remote in its effect on Allied to be actionable is undercut by the fact that disruption of Soviet-American trade, of which Allied’s business was a part, was not only a predictable and intended consequence of the boycott; it was the primary purpose behind it.5 In such a case, “remoteness” of the type here is not a bar to recovery. See Restatement, ante, § 767 comment h.
Finally, I agree with the court’s assessment of the ILA’s First Amendment claim. While action may in some cases speak louder than words and receive similar protection, see Spence v. Washington, 1974, 418 U.S. 405, 409-10, 94 S.Ct. 2727, 2730, 41 L.Ed.2d 842 (per curiam), at some point the concrete injury inflicted on others overshadows the expressive content inherent in the act. If the First Amendment does not protect the inducement of a secondary boycott by picketing, NLRB v. Retail Store Employees Union, Local 1001, 447 U.S. 607, 612-616, 100 S.Ct. 2372, 2376-2378, 65 L.Ed.2d 377 (1980), I do not see how it protects the boycott itself.
I would affirm the district court’s dismissal of the NLRA and Sherman Act claims, and reverse its dismissal of the tort claim.

. The complaint recites that the contract under which the February shipment was made ran out on December 31, 1979, and that a new contract was under negotiation. If Allied has been hampered in the latter, Restatement § 766B (intentional interference with prospective contractual relation) might become relevant.

. Damages may include lost profits as well as consequential losses. Restatement, ante, § 774A.

. Restatement § 767 presents a (nonexhaustive, see comment b) list of factors to be considered:
“(a) the nature of the actor’s conduct,
(b) the actor’s motive,
(c) the interests of the other with which the actor’s conduct interferes,
(d) the interests sought to be advanced by the actor,
(e) the social interests in protecting the freedom of action of the actor and the contractual interests of the other,
(f) the proximity or remoteness of the actor’s conduct to the interference and
(g) the relations between the parties.”

. This fact adequately distinguishes the ILA’s cited cases of Isbrandtsen Co. v. Local 1291, ILA, 3 Cir., 1953, 204 F.2d 495 and R. J. Caldwell Co. v. Fisk Rubber Co., 1 Cir., 1933, 62 F.2d 475.