Tyne Co. v. National Labor Relations Board

125 F.2d 832, 10 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 356, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 4480
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedFebruary 20, 1942
DocketNo. 7803
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 125 F.2d 832 (Tyne Co. v. National Labor Relations Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tyne Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 125 F.2d 832, 10 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 356, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 4480 (7th Cir. 1942).

Opinion

SPARKS, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner here seeks to set aside an order of the National Labor Relations Board, which the latter in turn seeks to enforce. The order resulted from a charge made [834]*834against petitioner before the Board by the Steamfitters Protective Association, Local 597, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. The charge alleged that petitioner had violated Section 8 (1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(1, 3), by interfering with, restraining,, and coercing its employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157, and by discriminatively discharging séven employees because they applied for union membership. The Board found the. charges to be true and ordered petitioner to cease and desist from such unfair labor practices, to reinstate with back pay the seven employees discharged, and to post the usual notices.

Petitioner was engaged in the wholesale plumbing supply business in Chicago. It manufactured no products, and it had no exclusive agency. It dealt in manufactured products of others, which could be had in Chicago from many other wholesale dealers. However, it did cut pipe to desired lengths and thread them, and occasionally bent pipe to order. During the year 1940 it imported, from points outside Illinois, about fifty per cent of the $500,000 worth of materials purchased by it. In the same year it sold of its goods and wares about $750,000 worth, of which seventy-five per cent were shipped to points in Illinois, and the remaining amount was shipped to outside points.

Petitioner contends that it is not engaged in interstate commerce as contemplated by the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq. It points to the following admonition in National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 621, 81 L.Ed. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352: “The authority of the federal government may not be pushed to such an extreme as to destroy the distinction, which the commerce clause itself establishes, between commerce ‘among the several States’ and the internal concerns of a State. That distinction between what is national and what is local in the activities of commerce is vital to the maintenance of our federal system.” It further calls our attention to Superior Coal Co. v. Department of Finance, 377 Ill. 282, 36 N.E.2d 354, 361, wherein the Court said: “We are not unmindful of the fact that recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States have changed the concept of ‘interstate commerce’ as reflected in earlier decisions. The result is, in effect, that many transactions long deemed to have been wholly intrastate are now held to partake of an interstate character. The pendulum has swung far and perhaps it is now swinging back to center.”

Petitioner’s argument is that we should be apprehensive of the danger that, under the pretext that interstate commerce is burdened, the Labor Board will, by taking jurisdiction of such business as that of the Tyne Company, extend the jurisdiction of the federal authority to local matters beyond that contemplated by our Constitution, and by such usurpation of the state right extinguish the distinction between what is national and what is local:

We do not minimize .the necessity for such apprehension, nor.do. yve disregard the logic of petitioner’s argument in this respect. However, we are governed by the rulings of the Supreme Court. It would serve no good purpose to analyze the many cases on this subject. It- is sufficient to say that under the Jones & Laughlin case, supra, and the more recent cases of National Labor Relations Board v. Bradford Dyeing Association, 310 U.S. 318, 60 S.Ct. 918, 84 L.Ed. 1226, and National Labor Relations Board v. Henry Levaur, Inc., 1 Cir., 115 F.2d 105, certiorari denied, 312 U.S. 682, 61 S.Ct. 550, 85 L.Ed. 1120, the Board did not err in holding that the Act' was applicable to petitioner. It may be true that danger to our Constitution lurks in such construction, but with that ultimate result we are not here concerned, and we are not its authors. It is true that the precise state of facts presented here has not been before the Supreme Court, but so many cases of analogous’nature have been before that Court and decided adversely to the contention here made that we feel it would be a violation of our duty not to follow them, even though based upon analogies. It may be that the pendulum is swinging back, as noted by our brothers of -the Illinois Supreme Court, but if so, the swing has not been of such momentum as to attract our attention. Moreover, we are not the actuating force which governs the movement of the pendulum.

Petitioner further contends that the Board’s findings as to its unfair labor practices are not supported by substantial evidence. There is no doubt that in some instances the Board’s findings and its brief misquote testimony, and in those instances' the Board’s findings as to those facts are-not supported by any evidence, substantial or otherwise. But aside from those instances, there is uncontroverted as well as [835]*835controverted evidence of petitioner’s active belligerency to'this particular Union, which under the rulings in National Labor Relations Board v. Link-Belt Co., 311 U.S. 584, 61 S.Ct. 358, 85 L.Ed. 368, and Heinz Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 311 U.S. 514, 61 S.Ct. 320, 85 L.Ed. 309, and analogous cases, constitutes substantial evidence to support the findings of unfair labor practices. Where different and unanalogous facts from those previously passed, upon by the Supreme Court are presented to us for determination as 'to substantiality, we have no hesitancy in giving our views; but where, as here, the facts are almost identical or closely' analogous, to those heretofore ruled' upon by the Supreme Court, our views,' if' contrary, are neither helpful nor ponderous. See National Labor Relations Board v. Chicago Apparatus Company, 7 Cir., 116 F.2d 753; New York Handkerchief Mfg. Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 7 Cir., 114 F.2d 144; and analogous cases.

What -we have said applies with equal force to the discharge of the seven employees. There was substantial evidence supporting petitioner’s contention that the discharges were in good faith and for valid causes. On the other hand there was contradicted . and uncontradicted evidence, which, under the decisions of the Supreme Court above referred to, supported the Board’s findings. Under these circumstances we are not' permitted to question the integrity of those findings.

Petitioner further urges that the Examiner erroneously refused to admit competént and relevant evidence offered by it.

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

Related

Fleming v. Taylor
70 F. Supp. 222 (N.D. Texas, 1947)
Porter v. Hirahara
69 F. Supp. 441 (D. Hawaii, 1947)
National Labor Relations Board v. J. L. Hudson Co.
135 F.2d 380 (Sixth Circuit, 1943)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
125 F.2d 832, 10 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 356, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 4480, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tyne-co-v-national-labor-relations-board-ca7-1942.