Grace Co. v. Williams

96 F.2d 478, 2 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 628, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 3504
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedApril 22, 1938
Docket11026
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 96 F.2d 478 (Grace Co. v. Williams) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Grace Co. v. Williams, 96 F.2d 478, 2 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 628, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 3504 (8th Cir. 1938).

Opinion

GARDNER, Circuit Judge.

This is a suit in equity in which the appellant as plaintiff below sought a temporary and a permanent injunction enjoining defendants from committing certain alleged acts of violence which it is alleged interfered with the pursuit of plaintiffs’ business. On the filing of the complaint a temporary restraining order issued. Defendants’ motion to dissolve the temporary restraining order and dismiss the complaint having been sustained, plaintiff prosecutes this appeal. The parties will be referred to as they were designated in the court below;.”

No evidence was introduced in support of the application for temporary restraining order. It appears from the amended complaint that plaintiff is a Missouri corporation' engaged in the manufacture, sale, and distribution of garments for infants and children in Kansas City, Mo. Approximately 50 per cent, of the raw materials from which said garments are manufactured is purchased outside of the state of Missouri and is transported to plaintiff in interstate commerce. More than 80 per cent, of all the products manufactured by plaintiff is sold to customers outside of the state of Missouri and transported by plaintiff to points outside of the state in interstate commerce. Interruptions of the sale of the manufactured goods and merchandise of plaintiff by defendants materially burdens, obstructs, and interrupts interstate commerce and materially burdens, obstructs, and interrupts the free flow of the manufactured gopds from and into the channels of interstate commerce, and materially affects the cost of manufacture and *479 the price of materials and goods, and causes diminution of employment and wages in such volume as substantially to impair the market for goods flowing from and into the channels of commerce. Certain of the defendants are agents and organizers or officers of the United Garment Workers of America — Local Union No. 47. A majority of the employees of plaintiff have organized a union which they have designated “The Grace Company Workers’ Labor Union” and have selected seven representatives, designated as a union committee, from among their number, for the purpose of collective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, and other conditions of employment. The representatives of these employees have demanded and do demand the right to be recognized by the plaintiff as the exclusive representatives of all of the employees of plaintiff company for the purpose of collective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, and other conditions of employment. The representatives of the employees on their , behalf negotiated with plaintiff for a contract between plaintiff and the Grace Company Workers’ Labor Union, and on May 3, 1937, a contract between plaintiff and the Grace Company Workers’ Labor Union was duly executed. This contract makes provision, among other things, as to hours of labor per week, minimum wages, and the arbitration of disputes, and further provides that all plant employees of the company, with the exception of janitors and machinists, “shall become and remain members, in good standing, of the Plant Union, and all employees of the Company who have been employed in unions other than The Grace Company Workers’ Labor Union, shall become members of said Plant Union.” There is no dispute between plaintiff and any of its employees, or any group of its employees, in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment.

Since May 3, 1937, defendants, their agents and servants, have picketed the premises o-f plaintiff’s plant and have paraded in front of the plant with banners and have written upon space in front of plaintiff’s place of business the following: “Van Brunt Scab Shop Grace Company.”

Defendants have interfered with and molested plaintiff in the peaceful operation of its business, and have interfered with, molested, and intimidated employees of plaintiff between the time they leave their homes in the morning and enter the plant, and the time they leave the plant in the evening and reach their homes. During the times the employees are coming to and from the plant, defendants, their agents and servants, have, in numerous instances, resorted to physical violence against employees of plaintiff, and groups of defendants acting in concert and agreement among themselves and all the other defendants herein, and at remote points from the plant, waylaid employees of the plaintiff company on their way home from the plant and on their way from their homes to the plant, and in some instances have violently assaulted the employees of plaintiff and have intimidated numerous employees with threats of physical violence and have committed indignities upon them by throwing spoiled and rotten eggs at them, and by this conduct have produced in the minds of the employees a state of fear of serious personal injury at the hands of the defendants. The defendants, their agents and servants, committed all of these acts and threats of violence upon the plaintiff’s employees for the purpose of preventing these employees from continuing their regular work at plaintiff’s plant and for the further purpose of coercing these employees into withdrawing from the Grace Company Workers’ Labor Union and coercing them into joining the United Garment Workers of America — Local Union No. 47, and for the further purpose of forcing plaintiff to recognize the defendant United Garment Workers of America, Local Union No. 47, as the exclusive' bargaining agency for plaintiff’s said employees. Defendants have interfered with the delivery both to and from the plant of interstate and intrastate shipments of merchandise, and in numerous instances have intimidated drivers of trucks carrying such merchandise by threats of violence into taking it away without delivering it to the plant, and, in case of outgoing shipments, have intimidated, by violence and threats of violence, truck drivers calling for same to leave without picking up such shipments, and in some instances have forcibly torn boxes, cartons, and parcels of merchandise destined for interstate shipments from trucks loaded with outgoing shipments of merchandise. Defendants have interfered with the peaceful operation of plaintiff’s business by padlocking the entrance to the plant and thus attempting to prevent the free ingress and egress of plaintiff’s employees and other persons having business with the plaintiff. All of these acts were *480 performed and committed by defendants acting in a conspiracy among themselves, with the intent to interfere with the free flow of shipments of goods from points outside the state of Missouri to the plant of the plaintiff and shipments of goods from the plant of the plaintiff to points outside of the state of Missouri, and with the intent to interfere with the free flow of commerce among the states, and the defendants have actually interfered with the movements and shipments of goods and merchandise in interstate commerce.

Plaintiff is not permitted to deal with defendants, nor with any labor organization, or with representatives of labor, other than those representatives sélected by the majority group of employees of the plaintiff, who have organized themselves into what they have designated as “The Grace Company Workers’ Labor Union.” Plaintiff is dealing with the representatives of the Grace Company Workers’ Labor Union, and the dealings .between the plaintiff and these representatives are entirely satisfactory to all.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

DeCoamo v. ILGWU
First Circuit, 1994
Curtis v. Tozer
374 S.W.2d 557 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1964)
Usher v. Department of Industrial Relations
75 So. 2d 159 (Alabama Court of Appeals, 1952)
United Packing House Workers v. Wilson & Co.
80 F. Supp. 563 (N.D. Illinois, 1948)
J. J. Newberry Co. v. Retail Clerks' Union Local 655
67 F. Supp. 86 (E.D. Missouri, 1946)
Donnelly Garment Co. v. Dubinsky
154 F.2d 38 (Eighth Circuit, 1946)
Yoerg Brewing Co. v. Brennan
59 F. Supp. 625 (D. Minnesota, 1945)
Green v. Obergfell
121 F.2d 46 (D.C. Circuit, 1941)
Pauly Jail Bldg. Co. v. INTERNATIONAL ASS'N, ETC.
29 F. Supp. 15 (E.D. Missouri, 1939)
Rohde v. Dighton
27 F. Supp. 149 (W.D. Missouri, 1939)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
96 F.2d 478, 2 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 628, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 3504, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/grace-co-v-williams-ca8-1938.