American Dredging Co. v. Local 25, Marine Division, International Union of Operating Engineers
Opinions
The District Court here1 denied the plaintiff’s motion to remand to the state court from which it had been removed, a suit, based solely on a state-created right, to enjoin the defendant union’s violation, in the course of a labor dispute, of the “no-strike” provision of its collective bargaining agreement, and subsequently denied the plaintiff’s motion for injunctive relief.2 It premised its denial of remand on the ground that it had original jurisdiction under § 301(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act,3,4 of a suit for violation of a labor contract, and § 1441 of the Removal Statute 5 per[839] mits the removal to a federal district court of a civil action of which it has original jurisdiction under a law of the United States. It based its denial of plaintiff’s motion for an injunction on the ground that it was “without power to grant injunctive relief because of § 4 of Norris-LaGuardia [Norris LaGuardia Act],6 since this is a 'case involving or growing out of a labor dispute,’7 within the meaning of the Act. Sinclair Refining Co. v. Atkinson, 370 U.S. 195, 182 S. Ct. 1328, 8 L.Ed.2d 440 (1962).”
The sum of the District Court’s view 8 is that the Norris-LaGuardia limitations on jurisdiction of federal district courts, [840] which the Supreme Court held in Sinclair extends to § 301 in cases growing out of labor disputes, do not divest these courts of subject matter jurisdiction of such cases, viz., the capacity to take cognizance of, or to entertain, but merely strip them of power to grant injunctive relief.
The view stated disregards the critical fact that in Sinclair, the Supreme Court, in holding that the jurisdiction conferred by § 301 was subject to the jurisdictional limitations enacted by the earlier NorrisLaGuardia Act, expressly ruled at page 215, 82 S.Ct. at page 1339:
“The District Court was correct in dismissing Count 3 of petitioner’s complaint for lack of jurisdiction under the Norris-LaGuardia Act.” 9 (emphasis supplied)
We can only construe the phrase “lack of jurisdiction” as embracing within its ambit subject matter jurisdiction and accordingly hold that the District Court erred in failing to grant the motion to remand in the instant case on its reasoning that it had subject matter jurisdiction under § 301 within the “original jurisdiction” provisions of § 1441. It merits observation that the background factual situation which constituted the basis of the injunctive action in Sinclair was on all fours with that existing here, as appears in Note 9.
It may be pointed out anent the holding in Sinclair, that the Supreme Court, some 36 years earlier, in General Investment Company v. New York Central Railroad Company, 271 U.S. 228, p. 230, 46 S.Ct. 496, p. 497, 70 L.Ed. 920 (1926) succinctly defined jurisdiction as follows:
“By jurisdiction we mean power to entertain the suit, consider the merits and render a binding decision thereon * * *.” (emphasis supplied)
It is fair to assume that Congress in its use of the word “jurisdiction” in the Norris-LaGuardia Act in 1932 was aware of the Supreme Court’s definition of [841] “jurisdiction” six years earlier, in the foregoing case.
The Norris-LaGuardia Act in its title declared that it was:
“AN ACT
“To amend the Judicial Code and to define and limit the jurisdiction of courts sitting in equity, and for other purposes.”Footnotes
338 F.2d 837 (American Dredging Co. v. Local 25, Marine Division, International Union of Operating Engineers) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.
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