Herket & Meisel Trunk Co. v. United Leatherworkers' International Union

268 F. 662, 1920 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 918
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Missouri
DecidedNovember 26, 1920
DocketNo. 5353
StatusPublished

This text of 268 F. 662 (Herket & Meisel Trunk Co. v. United Leatherworkers' International Union) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Herket & Meisel Trunk Co. v. United Leatherworkers' International Union, 268 F. 662, 1920 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 918 (E.D. Mo. 1920).

Opinion

FARIS, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, and each of them, are engaged in the manufacture of trunks, valises, handbags, and similar articles, which they sell on orders in the state of Missouri, and in divers other states of the Union. Some of the plaintiffs sell in foreign countries a part of their output. By far the larger proportion of plaintiffs’ business consists in sales, on orders for their products, in other states than the state of Missouri.

[663]*663Pi'ior to, and at the time of, the issuance of the temporary restraining order herein, each of the plaintiffs had on file many unfilled orders from states other than the state of Missouri, for goods, which goods, when manufactured, were to be shipped in interstate commerce. A strike was called by the defendants, which are local labor unions, or officers and members of such unions, pursuant to a vote taken by the unions and in the regular way under the rules and by-laws of the unions. This strike was called after a fruitless effort to agree upon wages and upon a contract embracing the terms and conditions of future employment, which seems to have had therein the phase of collective bargaining.

Upon the calling of the strike, which followed immediately after the failure to agree on a new contract, practically all of the employees of the plaintiffs quit plaintiffs’ employment. Thereafter, and until the temporary restraining order was issued herein, the several shops of plaintiffs were picketed by striking employees; in many cases there were from 3 to 20, or more, pickets employed around and about the shops of plaintiffs, or some of them. During this picketing many unlawful and unpeaceful acts were committed by the pickets, such as calling the various potential employees, and divers employees who continued in the employment of plaintiffs, vile and opprobrious names; there were instances of domiciliary visits, accompanied by threats, and various other things of a like nature too numerous to mention.

These unlawful acts prevented plaintiffs fi;om employing other workmen to take the places of the strikers, so that plaintiffs were unable to manufacture the goods necessary to nil both the interstate and intrastate orders which they had on hand. Many of the goods — in fact, the larger proportion thereof — -which plaintiffs would have made, but were in the mode above mentioned prevented from making, would have been shipped, when manufactured, to other states, to fill what is called in the record “interstate orders.” There was no actual interference with, or hindrance of, any interstate movement, or shipment, of any goods made by plaintiffs, or by either of them, for the very simple reason that the goods designed for interstate shipment have never come into existence, on account of the interference mentioned; for, as forecast, these goods could not be manufactured, because the plaintiffs’ former workmen struck and quit, and other workmen could not be obtained to manufacture them, these potential workmen being kept away by a too numerous picketing and by threats and intimidation. Such goods as were actually made by plaintiffs have been shipped in interstate commerce (when such was their destination) without let or hindrance. The methods used by defendants in preventing plaintiffs from obtaining other workmen have been, as stated, in numerous proven instances, unpeaccful and unlawful.

Barring the questions of jurisdiction, and the existence of a conspiracy, plaintiffs are unquestionably entitled to the relief by injunction for which they prayed. Indeed, counsel for defendants seemingly concede this in a tacit way, because the burden of counsel’s contention is bottomed solely upon the alleged phases of jurisdiction and absence of a conspiracy. There is no diversity of citizenship involved in the [664]*664case. If this court has jurisdiction at all, it gets it solely perforce the provisions of section 1 of the so-called Sherman Anti-Trust Act (26 Stat. 209 [Comp. St. §' 8820]).

[1] Upon this point it is urged that, since the goods of plaintiffs, which they intended to ship in interstate commerce when they came into existence, were not in existence at the time defendants unlawfully interfered with plaintiffs’ business, the case does not fall either within the purview or protection of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, supra, and therefore this court has no jurisdiction. Confessedly the point urged is at least, on principle, a close and difficult one. So much of the language of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, supra, as seems pertinent to this question, reads thus:

“Every contract, combination, in the form of a trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among tlife several states, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal.” Section 1, Act July 2, 1890, c. 647, 26 Stat. 209.

Pursuant to the provisions of section 4 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (Comp. St. § 8823), supra, jurisdiction to enforce compliance with the provisions of the act by injunction is conferred upon the federal District Courts, sitting as courts of equity. When we read sections 1 and 4 together, and convert the definitions of section 1 into plain and concise language, it is simply provided that every conspiracy in restraint of interstate commerce may be enjoined in a federal court, subject, of course, in a labor dispute to the qualifications set out in the Clayton Act. It is strenuously contended by learned counsel for defendants that, when Congress referred in the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to restraints of interstate commerce, it held in mind the usual and ordinary definition of such commerce, and that the questions of when such commerce begins and when it ends are referable to the well-known definitions of this commerce, which have long been well settled in the federal courts.

Illustrating this view, and this contention, it was held in the fairly early case of In re Greene (C. C.) 52 Fed. loc. cit. 113, in an .opinion rendered by Judge (afterwards Mr. Justice) Jackson, that:

“When the [interstate] commerce begins is determined, not by the character of the commodity, nor by the intention of the owner to transfer it to another state for sale, nor by his preparation of it for transportation, but by its actual delivery to a common carrier for transportation, or the actual commencement, of its transfer to another stat,e. * * * Neither the production or manufacture of articles or commodities which constitute subjects of commerce, and which are intended for trade and traffic with citizens of other states, nor the preparation for their transportation from the state where produced or manufactured, prior to the commencement of the actual transfer or transmission thereof to another state, constitutes that interstate commerce which comes within the regulating power of Congress.”

This definition of interstate commerce, with reference to when it begins, learned counsel for defendants urge, has been very lately affirmed and followed by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. loc. cit. 272, 38 Sup. Ct. 529, 531 (62 L. Ed. 1101, 3 A. L. R. 649, Ann. Cas. 1918E, 724), where it was said:

[665]*665“Over interstate transportation, or its incidents, the regulatory power of Congress is ample, but the production of articles, intended for interstate commerce, is a matter of local regulation.

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Bluebook (online)
268 F. 662, 1920 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 918, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/herket-meisel-trunk-co-v-united-leatherworkers-international-union-moed-1920.