Retail Clerks' Union v. Superior Court

339 P.2d 839, 52 Cal. 2d 222, 1959 Cal. LEXIS 196, 44 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2161

• Court: California Supreme Court
• Decided: May 19, 1959
• Docket: Sac. 6938
• Status: Published

Opinions

SCHAUER, J.

Petitioners (labor unions and organizers) seek a writ of prohibition (with mandatory as well as prohibitory effect) to compel respondent superior court of Trinity County (1) to desist from further proceedings in an action (hereinafter sometimes referred to as the basic or superior court action) brought against petitioners by the real parties in interest (employers who operate a retail market), (2) to dissolve an “order for preliminary injunction and preliminary injunction” entered in such basic action, and (3) to grant petitioners’ “motions to dismiss and vacate any judgment, order for preliminary injunction and preliminary injunction” entered in that action.

The complaint in the subject basic action alleges that defendants (petitioners here) are interfering with plaintiffs’ business by picketing to compel plaintiffs to execute collective bargaining agreements with the demanding unions; that the unions are not authorized to represent, or to negotiate for, any of plaintiffs’ employes; but that the agreements contain a provision that plaintiffs will require their employes to become and remain members of the unauthorized unions (and thereby choose and designate such unions as their bargaining representatives) as a condition of retaining their employment. Plaintiffs in the basic action seek injunctive relief and ask leave to amend to set forth damages when the amount of such damages becomes ascertainable. The complaint alleges the enactment of a county “right-to-work” ordinance which by its terms became effective on the date of the filing of the complaint. The provisions of the ordinance (No. 228) are in all material respects, including the definition of “labor organization” in section 1, identical with the provisions of the San Benito County ordinance quoted and summarized in Chavez v. Sargent, ante, p. 162 [339 P.2d 801], footnote 1. The facts in this case, however, are antithetical to those in Chavez. There all three interested entities—employer, employes (the majority of them), and the subject union—want to execute a union shop agreement. Here, neither employers nor employes want a contract with or membership in the demanding unions. The unions, nevertheless, seek by the pressures of picketing to induce the employers to compel their employes to join such unwanted unions and constitute them their bargaining agents.

Petitioners attack the validity of the ordinance on various grounds; also they urge that exclusive jurisdiction of this controversy is in the National Labor Relations Board and the federal courts. We have concluded that the record does not establish that exclusive jurisdiction is in the federal board and courts; that the ordinance is invalid for the reasons explained in Chavez v. Sargent, ante, p. 162 [339 P.2d 801]; but that since the subject superior court action seeks relief which conceivably can be afforded under the same state law which renders the ordinance void, the proceedings therein can continue on both the complaint and the defendants’ cross-complaint.

The preliminary injunction attacked by petitioners restrains them from “picketing, boycott, strike, or threats” for the purpose of inducing plaintiffs-employers to make an agreement that they will require their employes to become or remain members of any labor organization as a condition of employment, in violation of Ordinance Number 228. In support of this injunction the court found, among other things, that “Most of the employees of plaintiffs are not members of the defendant labor organizations and the employees of plaintiffs have not at any time demanded from plaintiffs a union shop or union recognition, nor have such employees participated at any time in the negotiations for collective bargaining agreements, nor have the employees of plaintiffs designated the defendants or any of them as their representatives for collective bargaining.” (Italics added.) All of the italicized portion of the quoted finding is material but, as explained in the Chavez case, ante, p. 162 [339 P.2d 801] that which is of paramount importance in bringing this case within the control of the statutes which declare the overriding state policy and which must govern disposition of this litigation (Lab. Code, §§ 920-923,1115-1122,1126, quoted in Chavez v. Sargent, ante, footnotes 6 through 8) is the fact that plaintiffs’ employes have not chosen or designated petitioners as their representatives.

The answer of petitioners (as defendants in the basic action) alleges “That the court has no jurisdiction of the subject matter of this action ... in this, that the exclusive jurisdiction thereof lies with the judicial and administrative agencies of the United States.” Petitioners also cross-complained, alleging that plaintiffs coerced their employes “to prevent the exercise of their right to full freedom of association, self-organization and designation of representatives of their own choosing.” Plaintiffs’ answer to the cross-complaint alleges “that the Court has no jurisdiction of the subject matter of the cross-complaint ... in that the exclusive jurisdiction thereof lies with the National Labor Relations Board.”

Petitioners urge that by the above quoted allegation of the answer they have alleged, and by the above quoted averment of the answer to the cross-complaint plaintiffs have admitted, that the plaintiffs’ business affects interstate commerce within the meaning of the federal Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, as amended (the Taft-IIartley Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 141 et seq.); that under the national act the state court has no jurisdiction to grant relief on account of the conduct here in question; and that therefore (as in Calise v. Superior Court (1958), 159 Cal.App.2d 126, 133, 135 [3] [323 P.2d 859]) prohibition should issue. We are not prepared to hold that the allegations of bare conclusions of law as to jurisdiction establish any facts as to the effect of any alleged labor practice upon interstate commerce (see Brown v. Aguilar (1927), 202 Cal. 143, 149 [259 P. 735]; Kidwell v. Ketler (1905), 146 Cal. 12, 17, 18 [79 P. 514] [pleader is not bound by allegation or admission of conclusion of law]; Faulkner v. California Toll Bridge Authority (1953), 40 Cal.2d 317, 329 [9], 330 [12] [253 P.2d 659] [conclusions of law are not admitted by demurrer]; Wheeler v. Oppenheimer (1956), 140 Cal.App.2d 497, 501 [3] [295 P.2d 128] [conclusion of law “tendered no issue”]); rather, we agree with the superior court that in the present state of the record there is an unresolved “factual question” (in addition to questions of law) upon which determination of its jurisdiction may eventually depend. At the present time the allegations as to jurisdiction show at most that upon further proceedings in the basic action questions of federal preemption may be presented; but they show also that no such issue is ripe for resolution in this proceeding.

Here, as in the Chavez case, ante, p. 162 [339 P.2d 801] the ordinance contravenes the state-wide statutory policy as to the freedom of employes to organize, select representatives, and through them bargain collectively for the traditional objectives of organized labor, subject only to such regulations and proscriptions as are set forth in the statutes or otherwise imposed by law (Lab. Code, §§ 920-923, 1115-1122, 1126; see by way of examples of “regulations and proscriptions . . . otherwise imposed,” the decisional law of James v. Marinship Corp. (1944), 25 Cal.2d 721 [155 P.2d 329, 160 A.L.R. 900]; Hughes v. Superior Court (1948), 32 Cal.2d 850 [198 P.2d 885], affirmed Hughes v. Superior Court (1950), 339 U.S. 460 [70 S.Ct. 718, 94 L.Ed. 985]); likewise, the ordinance partially duplicates state-wide statutory policy insofar as it prohibits jurisdiction-organizational assaults on established employe-employer relationships; and its conflict with general law cannot be eliminated by mechanical separation of its language. The basic superior court action, therefore, cannot continue insofar as it seeks relief under the ordinance.

The subject action, however, can continue both on the complaint and on the cross-complaint in respect to any relevant relief which is not, on the facts, precluded by federal law and which is provided under state law as declared in sections 921 through 923, sections 1115 through 1122, and section 1126 of the Labor Code. (Chavez v. Sargent, ante, p. 162 [339 P.2d 801].) If it develops that plaintiffs’ business does not affect interstate commerce within the meaning of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, and that defendants are picketing to compel plaintiffs (the employers) to violate state law by coercing their employes to designate the defendants as their exclusive bargaining representatives, and to accept terms and conditions of employment dictated by defendants, without authorization by plaintiffs’ employes, then plaintiffs may be entitled to both injunctive relief and damages. If it develops that the subject dispute interferes with the flow of interstate commerce (see the TaftHartley declaration of policy and purpose, 29 U.S.C.A. § 141), then the alleged conduct of defendants, tortious but peaceful within the federal concept, cannot be restrained or redressed by the state. This conclusion follows because no facts are alleged or found which tend to exclude plaintiffs from the class segregated by the federal authority¹ for nonaccess to the courts. (San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon (1959), 359 U.S. 236 [79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775] ; San Diego Bldg. Trades Council v. Garmon (1957), 353 U.S. 26 [77 S.Ct. 607, 609, 1 L.Ed.2d 618].)

The preliminary injunction enjoins “any picketing, boycott, strike, or threat for the purpose of forcing and inducing plaintiffs to make an agreement requiring plaintiffs’ employees to become or remain members of . . . any . . . labor organization, in order to obtain, retain or continue in employment with plaintiffs which in any way is in violation of Ordinance No. 228 of the County of Trinity, which became effective on September 18, 1957.” (Italics added.) The unitalicized portion of the preliminary injunction is proper, for it enjoins conduct which under the circumstances found is tortious under the above referred to sections of the Labor Code and which has not been shown to affect interstate commerce so as to bring it within the purview of the national act. The emphasized portion of the preliminary injunction, characterizing the enjoined conduct as violative of the invalid ordinance, is mere descriptive surplusage, utterly void in any application.

For the reasons above stated, the alternative writ is discharged and the peremptory writ is denied.

Shenk, J., and Spence, J., concurred.

1 The National Labor Relations Board, according to its present self-imposed limitation of jurisdiction, will not act in cases of alleged unfair labor practices where the employer is a retailer with a gross annual business of less than $500,000.