Eagle-Picher Co. v. Sperry

227 F. Supp. 153, 55 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2763, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7461
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Missouri
DecidedMarch 9, 1964
DocketNo. 14842-1
StatusPublished

This text of 227 F. Supp. 153 (Eagle-Picher Co. v. Sperry) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Eagle-Picher Co. v. Sperry, 227 F. Supp. 153, 55 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2763, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7461 (W.D. Mo. 1964).

Opinion

JOHN W. OLIVER, District Judge.

This case pends on plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment and on defendant’s alternative motion to dismiss, or,, pursuant to Rule 12(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for summary judgment, should it be determined that, we have jurisdiction. Defendant’s motion to dismiss is well taken and will be-sustained. Both defendant’s alternative-motion for summary judgment and plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment will be denied because we are convinced that, we do not have jurisdiction over the subject matter of plaintiff’s complaint.

Plaintiff filed its complaint on February 19, 1964 seeking to invoke the general equity jurisdiction of this Court, conferred by § 1337 of Title 28, United States Code. That complaint alleged that, the National Labor Relations Board had’ set aside an election which the employer won by a vote of 218 to 210 votes, and had ordered that a second election be held on February 27, 1964 1; that “the-decision of the Board setting aside the election is illegal and unconstitutional in that the purported ground for the setting aside of the said election is laid in-certain statements made and circulated by the employer prior to the holding of the aforesaid election on June 13, 1963 that the matters relied upon by the Hearing Examiner and by the Board were-“lawful and permissible expressions of' opinion;” and that the “plaintiff has the-constitutional and statutory right to disseminate the views set forth” in the report of the Hearing Examiner and the-opinion of the Board.

In an effort to establish jurisdiction in what is unquestionably a narrow and exceptional area, plaintiff alleged that:

“The Board by its action [setting a second election] threatens to deprive the plaintiff of its rights under Article I of the Amendment to the-Constitution of the United States- [155]*155and under Section 8(c) of the National Labor Relations Act. The said ■decision and order of the Board therefore is a nullity and can not ■serve as the basis for the holding of a second election.”

The customary allegations of inadequacy of legal remedy were then made in .the complaint and plaintiff prayed for •an order of this Court that would find '“that the above described decision and or•der of the National Labor Relations Board is illegal and unconstitutional” and that we enter “such temporary and permanent injunctions as are necessary to prohibit the defendant from holding •or conducting or threatening to hold or ■conduct the [second] election.”

After several conferences with counsel, ■the parties agreed that an order be entered permitting the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, (U.A.W.), AFL-CIO, the union involved, to intervene. Such an order was entered March 4, 1964.

On February 23, 1964, the parties, pursuant to agreements made at an early pre-trial conference, filed a stipulation attaching a transcript of the hearing held before the Hearing Examiner on October 15, 1963; copies of all exhibits received in evidence at that hearing; a •copy of the Hearing Examiner’s report; .and a copy of the Decision and Order of the National Labor Relations Board dated January 23, 1964.

That stipulation also reflected the pre■trial agreement of the parties that the •exhibits attached to the stipulation “constitute all of the evidence necessary for .a decision in the case” and that “none of "the parties desires to introduce any or further evidence.” It is therefore apparent that if we had jurisdiction, the •case would be in proper posture to permit us to rule on the motions for summary .judgment.

Plaintiff’s brief in support of its summary judgment motion was filed February 28, 1964. Defendant filed its brief •on March 6, 1964. We received inter-■venor’s brief early on Saturday morning, March 7, 1964. At four o’clock on the same day, plaintiff’s counsol indicated that they wanted to file a reply brief. Leave was granted until Monday noon. The tempo of decision of this case, requiring as it has weekend consideration by the Court, was accelerated by plaintiff’s expressed desire to have a decision well in advance of the presently established election date of March 13, 1964.

We have studied all of the exhibits attached to the stipulation and all briefs filed by the parties, including plaintiff’s reply brief filed Monday morning, March 9, 1964.

Plaintiff, on page 4 of its original brief, quite properly makes reference to “the Court’s questioning of the sufficiency of the jurisdictional statement as set forth in paragraph 2 of the complaint” at one of the pre-trial conferences. We then raised, as we must in every case, the question of our jurisdiction. The briefs of all the parties establish that the question of our jurisdiction is still the determinative question to be decided.

All of the cases cited by plaintiff under its Section 8(c) argument (pages 11 et seq. of its brief) demonstrate that the sort of question that plaintiff would have us pass upon is routinely passed upon by the various Courts of Appeals acting pursuant to specific statutory review sections contained in the National Labor Relations Act. Familiarity with that line of cases prompted our pre-trial inquiry.

Plaintiff made clear then, and again makes clear in its brief, that it seeks to invoke only our general equity jurisdiction. The authorities that we shall cite make clear that, by comprehensive and adequate provisions for judicial review, the Congress did not intend that a district court have or exercise jurisdiction over this type of case under the broad grant of Section 1337.

One of the more recent cases cited by plaintiff, Cone Brothers Contracting Co. v. National Labor Relations Bd., 5th Cir., 1956, 235 F.2d 37, provides a signpost to the long and almost unbroken line of de[156]*156cisions that establishes that plaintiff’s basic jurisdictional contention in this case is not tenable. The first sentence of Cone Brothers states that “the employer’s petition for review of the findings and Order of the Board, the principal attack, deferred of necessity to this time,” referring, of course, to the employer’s attack on the Board’s order in the Court of Appeals, as distinguished from a district court. Cone Brothers did not think it necessary to do any more than cite Volney Felt Mills, Inc. v. Le Bus, 5th Cir., 1952, 196 F.2d 497, to express the necessity involved.

In Volney Felt Mills, the Fifth Circuit distinguished both Fay v. Douds, 2nd Cir. 1949, 172 F.2d 720, and Worthington Pump & Machinery Corp. v. Douds, D.C. N.Y.1951, 97 F.Supp. 656, (both of which are relied upon by plaintiff in this case) and held that “exclusive initial jurisdiction over matters arising under the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 141 et seq., is vested, by Congressional enactment, in the National Labor Relations Board, and a district court has no jurisdiction to entertain actions based thereon or growing thereout.” That case involved an effort to have a district court enjoin the certification of the results of an election.

It was ten years ago that Volney Felt Mills definitively determined that:

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Bluebook (online)
227 F. Supp. 153, 55 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2763, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7461, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/eagle-picher-co-v-sperry-mowd-1964.