Street v. Shipowners' Ass'n of The Pacific Coast

299 F. 5, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 2498, 1924 A.M.C. 1081
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedJune 9, 1924
DocketNo. 4173
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 299 F. 5 (Street v. Shipowners' Ass'n of The Pacific Coast) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Street v. Shipowners' Ass'n of The Pacific Coast, 299 F. 5, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 2498, 1924 A.M.C. 1081 (9th Cir. 1924).

Opinion

MORROW, Circuit Judge.

Appellant (plaintiff below) alleges in his complaint that he is a citizen of the United States, residing in -the state of California, and a seaman employed upon vessels carrying passengers and cargo between ports on the Pacific Coast and between such, ports and foreign ports; that plaintiff is associated by and through an unincorporated association of persons called International Seamen’s Union of America, with over 10,000 pex-sons working as seamen on such vessels; that the number of his associates is so large that it is impossible to join them all as plaintiffs in his complaint, so he brings this action on his own behalf and in behalf of all such seamen.

It is alleged that appellees (defendants below) are the Shipowners’ Association of the Pacific Coast and the Pacific American Steamship Association; that the Shipowners’ Association of the Pacific Coast is a California corporation, having its place of business in San Francisco ; that it is a membership corporation, composed of every person, firm, corporation, or association owning or acting as managing owner [6]*6of every vessel engaged in interstate and foreign commerce, documented in the different offices of the different collectors of United States customs on the Pacific Coast ;• that the Pacific American Steamship Association also has its place of business in San Francisco, and is a voluntary unincorporated association of individuals and corporations owning and operating vessels flying the American flag and engaged in the merchant service between Pacific Coast ports and foreign ports; that these two corporations collectively operate or control every vessel engaged in the merchant service between such ports, and collectively employ all seamen engaged in that service.

It is further alleged that on January 1, 1922, defendants combined to restrain the freedom of this plaintiff and all other seamen engaged in such interstate and foreign trade, and to that end established and now maintain an office in San Francisco and other ports and places on the Pacific Coast, and as a condition of employment compel all seamen to register and take a number, and take turns for employment.according to such number, and to take and carry a registration number, and this is, in effect, a certificate of registration. This certificate the seaman, according to the complaint, is required to deliver to the master when he signs the shipping articles. Upon his discharge he receives it back, so that it operates as a certificate of discharge as well. In the book is also written the man’s place of birth, age, height, weight, the color of his hair and eyes, his complexion, his rating, his previous experience, his previous employment, and in it also appears his photograph.

Plaintiff claims that these regulations prevent seamen of good qualifications who are well known from obtaining employment at once; that the said matters are regulations of commerce among the several states and of foreign nations, in violation of the provisions of subdivision 3 of section 8, article 1, of the Constitution of the United States, and have been fully provided for by the Congress of the United States and the Act of Congress of June 7, 1872 (17 Stat. 262), commonly known as the Shipping Commissioners Act, and the acts amendatory thereto; that plaintiff refuses to engage in such commerce thereunder, and is suffering loss and damage because he cannot obtain employment without obeying such rules and regulations, and defendants threaten to, and will continue to, enforce said rules and regulations, unless restrained by the court.

The defendants interposed a motion to dismiss the bill of complaint on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The motion was granted by the court on the grounds stated in its opinion, in substance that: (1) The Shipping Commissioners Act neither provides nor contemplates compulsory service or employment. (2) The case as pleaded does not fall within the reach of the prohibitions of the Anti-Trust Law. (3) The plaintiff is not shown to have any standing entitling him to seek in court the general relief for which he prays. (4) Nor does he connect himself with the rule of practice of which he complains.

The‘plaintiff thereupon took an appeal direct to the Supreme Court of the United States. 263 U. S. 334, 44 Sup. Ct. 119, 68 L[7]*7Ed. - — . In the petition for the order allowing the appeal he stated that the questions arising-upon said appeal involved both the construction and the application of the Constitution of thé United States. In the assignment of errors he specified, among other particulars, that the court erred in not finding and deciding that plaintiff’s constitutional rights were violated by defendants’ rules of employment, the compliancé with which by him was a prerequisite to his engaging in interstate and foreign commerce; that the court erred in not holding that the rules prescribed by the defendants, the compliance with which by plaintiff waS necessary_ to enable him to sell his labor and engage in interstate and foreign commerce, were a taking of plaintiff’s labor, to wit, his prop* erty, without due process of law; and that the rules were in violation of the Constitution of the United States.

The Supreme Court, after stating the case as set out in the bill of complaint, referred to section 238 of the Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1215), providing:

“That appeals and writs of error may be taken from the District Courts * * ® direct to the Supreme Court” in certain enumerated cases, namely, when “the jurisdiction of the [District] Court is in issue; * * * in prize causes; in any case that involves the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States; in any case in which the constitutionality of any law of the United States or the validity or construction of any treaty made under its authority is drawn in question; and in any case in which the constitution or law of a state is claimed to be in contravention of the Constitution of the United States.”

The court held that this case falls within none of the enumerated cases, with the explanation that this elimination of constitutional questions applied, “whether the regulations of the associations be regarded as an exercise of the power which, it is contended,. Congress alone possesses, or which has been conferred upon the Shipping Commission, or be regarded as violations of the Anti-Trust Law.” The court, in Williamson v. United States, 207 U. S. 425, 432, 28 Sup. Ct. 163, 165 (52 L. Ed. 278), had held:

“If there be a constitutional question adequate to the exercise of jurisdiCT tion, the duty exists to review the whole case.”

The court thus disposes of all questions in this case relating to the construction and application of the Constitution of the United States in the various relations in which it has been brought into this controversy by the bill "of complaint. This decision is the law of the case; and a judgment binding upon this court.

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

Related

Imapizza, LLC v. at Pizza Limited
District of Columbia, 2018
Hazi v. Bank Melli Iran
Second Circuit, 2010
Anderson v. Shipowners' Ass'n of Pacific Coast
10 F.2d 96 (Ninth Circuit, 1926)
Tilbury v. Oregon Stevedoring Co.
8 F.2d 898 (D. Oregon, 1925)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
299 F. 5, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 2498, 1924 A.M.C. 1081, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/street-v-shipowners-assn-of-the-pacific-coast-ca9-1924.