Capital Service, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board

204 F.2d 848
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMay 12, 1953
Docket13416
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 204 F.2d 848 (Capital Service, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Capital Service, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 204 F.2d 848 (9th Cir. 1953).

Opinions

DENMAN, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal by Brashears and Capital Service, Inc., hereafter Service, manufacturers of bakery products in non-union plants, and selling them to retail dealers merchandising such products in and around Los Angeles, California. The appeal is from a preliminary injunction of the district court1 granted on the complaint of the National Labor Relations Board, hereafter called the Board, enjoining Service from “Enforcing or seeking to enforce or in any other manner giving continued effect to or availing themselves of the benefits of, the preliminary injunction issued on April 7, 1952, by the Superior Court of California, Los Angeles County, in Case No. 595892; and from taking or applying for any further proceedings in said Superior Court the effect of which would be to enjoin or restrain the defendant labor organizations in Superior Court Case No. 595892 from engaging in peaceful picketing or other concerted activities affecting the customers of Capital Service, Inc., and their suppliers, and which are carried on pursuant to a labor dispute with Capital Service, Inc.”

Service had filed a charge with the Regional Director of the Board alleging the acts of the unions hereafter described and the Board has issued a complaint against the unions. The purpose of the preliminary injunction sought for the granted below is to hold the situation in the status quo until the Board determines whether it will consider Service’s charge.

The complaint below for a preliminary injunction alleges a cause under Section 8(b) (4) (A) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158 (b) (4) (A); and describes the conduct of the labor unions in picketing the stores in which the goods manufactured by Serviced employees were sold, hereafter considered, and states as a conclusion of law that the picketing and other activities of this labor organization at the retail stores, insofar as it was limited to acquainting ultimate consumers with defendant’s nonunion working conditions, was not an unfair labor practice.

As will be seen, the acts alleged and proved show that the unions did much more than acquaint the ultimate consumers [851]*851of the goods manufactured by Service’s employees of the latter’s non-union status. They urged a boycott by the public of the employee-manufactured goods and successfully persuaded the retail sellers to cease selling such goods.

The Board assumes that the successful boycott of the goods manufactured by Service’s employees, thus to a large extent restraining them from such manufacture and tending to coerce them to abandon their non-union status, is not an unfair labor practice within Section 7 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157. It nevertheless contends that the Act pre-empts to the federal government this field of consumer boycott to the exclusion of any rights of the states to regulate in that field.

We find it unnecessary to consider this contention of the Board since we regard the Board as having the power to consider the instant consumer boycott and on the facts hereafter shown to issue its cease and desist order, if in its discretion, it determines so to act.

A. Jurisdiction by effect on interstate commerce.

The reduction by the consumers’ boycott and other acts of the unions of the amount of goods manufactured by Service’s employees necessarily reduces substantially the amount of materials used in such manufacture. The findings of fact by the court below show that during 1951 Service made purchases totaling approximately $500,000. Of this amount, $30,000 was received directly from sources outside California and $175,000 was received indirectly from such sources. See Wickard v. Filburn, infra, on indirect effect on interstate commerce. Thus, if Service were to be put out of business, approximately $205,000 worth of goods would cease flowing in interstate commerce. This is a substantial amount and not so slight as to bring into play the maxim of de minimis. See N. L. R. B. v. Fainblatt, 306 U.S. 601, 606, 307 U.S. 609, 59 S.Ct. 668, 83 L.Ed. 1014; Santa Cruz Fruit Packing Co. v. N. L. R. B., 303 U.S. 453, 467, 58 S.Ct. 656, 82 L.Ed. 954; N. L. R. B. v. Townsend, 9 Cir., 185 F.2d 378, 383.

Nor does it matter that Service is essentially a local business, supplying bakery goods for stores in the Los Angeles area. In Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 124— 125, 63 S.Ct. 82, 89, 87 L.Ed. 122, the Court stated:

“But even if appellee’s activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as ‘direct’ or ‘indirect.’ ”

Thus it is the factor of substantial economic effect upon interstate commerce and not the nature of the business that determines federal jurisdiction. As has been shown, there is such substantial economic effect effect present here. See N. L. R. B. v. Denver Building & Construction Trades Council, 341 U.S. 675, 683-685, 71 S.Ct. 943, 95. L.Ed. 1284.

B. The boycott of the product of Service’s bakers to restrain their opposition to and to compel their unionisation is prohibited by Section 8(b) (1) of the Taft-llart-ley Act.

One of the labor unions is the Bakery and Confectionery Workers International Union of America, Local No. 37, hereafter called the Bakery Union. This, union is seeking to force the workers in Service’s bakery manufacturing to join the Bakery Union. In this effort it was joined by a union organization, the Los Angeles Food Council and the Los Angeles Central Labor Council.

Their method of enforcing their demand for unionization of the Service’s bakery workers was to persuade the public not to buy the products manufactured by Service’s bakers by a secondary boycott of the sale of these products by retail food stores to which they were sold by Service. They established picket lines at the retail customers’ [852]*852entrances of the.stores displaying placards stating:

“To The Public Danish Maid Bakery Products Sold Here Are Made And Delivered By A Bakery That Is Non - Union And On The
We Do Not Patronize List Of The
Los Angeles Central Labor Council Los Angeles Food Council Joint Council Of Teamsters’ Union 42 Bakery Drivers’ Local 276 Bakers’ Local Number 37”

Against this the Superior Court in a suit brought by Service made its preliminary injunction enjoining all the unions from:

“1. Inducing o-r seeking or attempting to induce any person to refrain from purchasing plaintiff’s merchandise by picketing plaintiff’s customers or prospective customers.”

We think Congress has pre-empted this function to the National Labor Relations Board and that the state court is without jurisdiction to issue such an injunction.

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204 F.2d 848, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/capital-service-inc-v-national-labor-relations-board-ca9-1953.