Savoy Realty Co. v. McGee

19 Ohio Law. Abs. 682, 4 Ohio Op. 88, 1935 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1118
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 15, 1935
DocketNo 434407
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 19 Ohio Law. Abs. 682 (Savoy Realty Co. v. McGee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Savoy Realty Co. v. McGee, 19 Ohio Law. Abs. 682, 4 Ohio Op. 88, 1935 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1118 (Ohio Ct. App. 1935).

Opinion

[688]*688OPINION

By JOY SETH HURD, J.

Many cases have been cited by counsel in a most able argument to the general effect that the court may not enjoin free speech, the printing and proclaiming of the truth, freedom of assemblage and certain inalienable rights which are guaranteed under our constitution and laws and with which a beneficent creator has endowed us. With these cases and with these arguments the court is most fully and most completely in accord. But the court has not by its order issued herein denied any of these rights or Constitutional guaranties for the court finds that the Constitutional rights of plaintiff and its tenants have been invaded rather than any such rights of the defendants.

A former able and learned judge of this court, Judge Lawrence, said in the case of Staffer Company v Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Alliance, reported in Volume 19, Ohio Nisi Prius Reports, (n. s.), page 375, that “little aid is to be derived from an examination of the decisions of courts in other similar cases, for almost always the question comes to the application of old established principles to the facts of the particular case.” This same opinion had been voiced by learned counsel in argument in this case. After considering a wealth of material in decided cases in relation to this case, we are more than ever impressed with the correctness of the stateT ment of the learned jurist.

Another court has said “Each suit for injunction against picketing must be decided strictly on its own facts by balancing considerations of sound public policy.” A. S. Beck Shoe Corporation v Johnson, 274 N. Y. S. 946.

And in line with this doctrine so enunciated, this court must decide the issues in this case strictly on its own facts by balancing considerations of sound public policy, and by applying the great principles of equity, jurisprudence.

And here we make a very interesting discovery. It appears that in all the history of equity jurisprudence and of labor law there never has been a reported case that presents similar facts. An exhaustive •search of digest indices does not reveal a similar situation. Counsel have cited hundreds of cases involving labor disputes, but not one case similar to this case. This shows that this court has an entirely new set of facts presenting a new problem in equity jurisprudence for solution. The situation presented here is unique. Cases cited by counsel concern principally labor relations between employer and employee and this with one or two exceptions where there is a dispute between the employer and his striking workmen. We do not have such a situation here. The principles cited in these cases are undoubtedly sound as applied to the facts therein, but they do not have application here because the facts are not in any respects similar. It is in vain therefore that we look for precedent, be^ cause there is no precedent on the facts as they are here presented.

However this may be as to facts, we find that when wo make application of well established legal principles to the facts in the case the position of the defendants is untenable on many grounds.

One respect in which the position of the defendants is unsound is the fact that in addition to picketing the stores and theatre located on the ground floor of this building, they have also been laying siege to and carrying on a blockade against the residences of a great number of families residing in the apartment building with whom there exists no dispute whatsoever. In the absence of a legitimate trade dispute with the plaintiff in this case there exists no right or warrant in law for such an assumption of authoi'ity and power by the defendants. They have by their conduct stopped deliveries of the necessities of life to these families in their homes. Their position in this respect is fundamentally wrong, and brings to mind the familiar statement brought down from the early days of the English Common Law and that is “A man’s home is his castle.” All citizens have a right to be secure in their homes, free from unlawful molestation or interference. One thing present in the usual picketing case is entirely absent here and that is the presence of the employer or some officer or Shop of the employer on the premises picketed. All of this conduct is carried on because of one janitor who is satisfied with his position in all respects. Counsel" for defense bias a number of times in these hearings stated that the plaintiff in this case is not the real party in interest. Testimony was introduced in, these hearings with respect to a firm known as The Cuyahoga Estates Company, it being claimed that said company had refused to deal with the defendants. If any legitimate dispute exists between the defendants and that company, such a fact does not warrant or justify the defendants in their attitude and conduct against this plaintiff.

• The court in this case has held that the defendants were carrying on a secondary [689]*689boycott. The briefest definition the court has found as to a secondary boycott is in a Rhode Island case, where the court held:

•‘A secondary boycott is a combination to influence a party by exerting some economic or social pressure against persons dealing with -him.” Boomes v Providence Local, etc.. 155 R. I. App. 581.

In a recent New York case the court declared against 'secondary boycotts saying:

•‘Union threats to picket stores selling' plaintiff’s broad followed by truculent visitations, picketing and meetings in front of stores ignoring threats, -held, a ‘secondary boycott’ restrainable by injunction. Geo. F. Stuhmer & Co. v Kornman, 269 N. Y. S. 788.
•‘•The view nSw prevailing in most of the courts of this county is that secondary boycott may not lawfully be employed in a labor dispute, and this is the view adopted by a majority of the cases in Ohio.” 24 Ohio Jurisprudence, §61, page 676.

This proposition appears to be the law when the boycotting and picketing is done in furtherance of a legitimate trade, dispute. In the instant case the court has held that there did not exist between the plaintiff and the defendants a legitimate trade dispute at the time the picketing commenced.

The Supreme Court of the United States has held a secondary boycott illegal in two important cases. Duplex Printing Co. v Deering, 254 U. S. 443, and Bedford Cut Stone Co. v Journeymen Stone Cutters Assn., 274 U. S., 37.

In the Dunlex Printing case, supra, the court said:

“A secondary boycott is a combination not' merely to refrain from dealing with a person, or to advise or by peaceable means persuadé his customers to refrain, but to exercise coercive pressure upon such customers actually causing them' to withhold or withdraw their patronage, through fear of loss or damage to themselves should they deal with him.”

By the great weight of authority the secondary boycott has been declared illegal in the Federal Courts and by the courts of many states including Ohio. The following may be cited in support of this statement. • v

O’Brien v Fachenthal, 278 Fed. 827, 5 Fed. (2nd) 389 (C.C.A.)

Central Metal Products Co. v O'Brien, 278 Fed. 827.

Hitchman Coal Co. v Mitchell, 245 U. S., 249.

Hodge v Meyer, 252 Fed. 479.

American Malting Co. v Keitel, 209 Fed. 351.

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Related

Saltzman v. United Retail Employees' Local No. 112
25 Ohio Law. Abs. 354 (Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, 1937)
Mutual Benefit Life Ins v. McGee
19 Ohio Law. Abs. 691 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1935)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
19 Ohio Law. Abs. 682, 4 Ohio Op. 88, 1935 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1118, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/savoy-realty-co-v-mcgee-ohioctapp-1935.