Service Wood Heel Co. v. Mackesy

199 N.E. 400, 293 Mass. 183, 1936 Mass. LEXIS 960
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedJanuary 11, 1936
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 199 N.E. 400 (Service Wood Heel Co. v. Mackesy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Service Wood Heel Co. v. Mackesy, 199 N.E. 400, 293 Mass. 183, 1936 Mass. LEXIS 960 (Mass. 1936).

Opinion

Rugg, C.J.

This is a suit by a manufacturer of wood heels to enjoin the defendants, officers and members of the United Shoe and Leather Workers Union, from doing acts to prevent sales by the plaintiff to shoe manufacturers. The case was referred to a master, whose report contains the facts. No appeal was taken from an interlocutory decree confirming the report. The bill was filed July 18, 1934, and the master's report was dated August 1, 1934. The case is here on appeal from a final decree entered October 6, 1934, dismissing the bill with costs. The pertinent facts as found by the master are these: Early in March, 1934, there was a general strike by the defendant union involving virtually all the shoe manufacturers in Haverhill. After many conferences, the strike was terminated on April 9, 1934, by written agreements between the several manufacturers and the defendant union. These agreements provided for closed shops and fixed wages and hours of employment, and contained a clause that. after June 1, 1934, all “wood heels placed on shoes of all types must be [185]*185made by Union heel makers.” The principal inducements motivating the defendant union in entering into these agreements were to secure for its members the labor included in the actual shoe manufacturing operations and also the work of manufacturing the wood heels supplied to the shoe manufacturers. One of the locals of the defendant union in Haverhill comprised those engaged in making wood heels. One of the shoe manufacturers signing such agreements with the defendant union was a co-partnership known as the Simon Shoe Company. In accordance with such agreement, that company employs only operatives who are members of the defendant union. That company, during nearly all of the seven years it had been in business, had purchased its finished wood heels from the plaintiff, a corporation engaged in Lawrence in the manufacture and finishing of such heels. It had been customary for the plaintiff to agree orally with the Simon Shoe Company, at first annually and more recently semiannually, on terms for the sale and delivery of wood heels. Early in 1934, they had made such an agreement for the manufacture by the plaintiff and purchase by the Simon Shoe Company, for the ensuing six months, of a specified number of cases of wood heels. The strike reduced production by the Simon Shoe Company during the first part of 1934, and it was therefore agreed that the plaintiff would sell and the Simon Shoe Company purchase, after the expiration of the six months’ period, until the agreed number of heels had been delivered.

The plaintiff employs about one hundred thirty persons; they have no connection with the defendant union. In the spring of 1934, the officers and employees of the plaintiff, fearing loss of business arising from the Haverhill agreements, organized a company union having no affiliation with the defendant union. The plaintiff’s officers and the Haverhill manufacturers knew that the defendant union would not recognize heels made by members of a company union as made by union heel makers within the meaning of the agreement of April 9, 1934. The master found that this organization was a bona fide company union. In June, [186]*1861934, an officer of the defendant union told the Simon Shoe Company in substance that it would have to get another heel manufacturer, that its contract for the purchase of heels from the plaintiff would not be recognized and that it must secure union made heels. In the following month, the union made it clear to the Simon Shoe Company that, unless it secured and used at its factory union made heels, there would be a strike or walkout. Thereupon, the Simon Shoe Company ceased to do business with the plaintiff and has since bought heels of another manufacturer. The Simon Shoe Company signed the agreement of April 9, 1934, with the defendant union freely and voluntarily. The arrangements between the plaintiff and the Simon Shoe Company for the sale and purchase of wood heels were voluntarily made and mutually satisfactory, and but for the interference of the defendant union the plaintiff would still be making and delivering wood heels to the Simon Shoe Company. That company acted reasonably in supposing that, if it continued to deal with the plaintiff, the defendant union would by strike or walkout compel the cessation of its business with the plaintiff. The unexpired agreement between the plaintiff and the Simon Shoe Company under which sales of wood heels were made by the plaintiff to that company was entered into before the agreement of April 9, 1934, between the defendant union and the Simon Shoe Company. The officers of the union, before the execution of the agreement of April 9, 1934, and ever since up to the time the Simon Shoe Company ceased to buy of the plaintiff, knew that the plaintiff was supplying all the wood heels used by that manufacturer under some arrangement although they did not know its details or its duration in time. The final essential findings of the master are to the effect that the members of the defendant ‘1 union are acting in concert to deprive the plaintiff of selling its goods to the Simon Shoe Company and that as a result of the action” of the defendant union the shoe company has ceased taking any more heels from the plaintiff; that the shoe company was satisfied to continue its business arrangements with the plaintiff and the plaintiff was satisfied to [187]*187continue selling heels to the shoe company, and “that these two concerns would still be operating under their oral agreement made early in 1934 but for the acts of the respondent union, which have caused this shoe company to breach its agreement with the plaintiff and to cease taking the plaintiff’s goods.”

On the facts, the plaintiff has suffered a wrong and appears to be entitled to some relief. The plaintiff had a contract for the manufacture and sale to the Simon Shoe Company of a certain number of cases of shoe heels. That contract had not expired when the contract of April 9, 1934, between the defendant union and the Simon Shoe Company was made. It was in force in July, 1934, when the coercive force of the defendant union was put forth which caused that “shoe company to breach its agreement with the plaintiff and to cease taking the plaintiff’s goods.” The agreement of April 9, 1934, between the defendant union and the Simon Shoe Company, having been made voluntarily, was legal between the parties. Hoban v. Dempsey, 217 Mass. 166, 169. Shinsky v. O’Neil, 232 Mass. 99, 102. Pickett v. Walsh, 192 Mass. 572, 584. That agreement, however, does not justify the defendants in putting forth their power to compel the Simon Shoe Company to break its existing contract with the plaintiff by ceasing to do business with the plaintiff. This point is explicitly covered by the decision in A. T. Stearns Lumber Co. v. Howlett, 260 Mass. 45. One question involved in that case was whether a strike was lawful to enforce an agreement made by an employer with a union to furnish its employees with union made materials by compelling the employer to break an existing contract for the purchase of material not made by the union. It was not expressly found as a fact in that case that such agreement between the employer and the union was entered into voluntarily, but for the purposes of that decision it was assumed that such agreement was entered into voluntarily. It was decided (at pages 66, 67) that “it is clear that such an agreement could not affect existing contracts for the purchase of nonunion made material,” and that “the rights to which the plaintiffs [188]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
199 N.E. 400, 293 Mass. 183, 1936 Mass. LEXIS 960, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/service-wood-heel-co-v-mackesy-mass-1936.