Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. Local 456, of International Union of Electrical & Radio, Machine Workers

135 F. Supp. 499, 37 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2414, 1955 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2606
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Jersey
DecidedNovember 7, 1955
DocketCiv. A. No. 1018-55
StatusPublished

This text of 135 F. Supp. 499 (Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. Local 456, of International Union of Electrical & Radio, Machine Workers) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. Local 456, of International Union of Electrical & Radio, Machine Workers, 135 F. Supp. 499, 37 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2414, 1955 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2606 (D.N.J. 1955).

Opinion

MODARELLI, District Judge.

A complaint :was filed on October 24, 1955, by Westinghouse Electric Corporation in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Hudson County. Defendants are two local electrical unions. The state court set for a hearing on October 28, 1955, plaintiff’s application for an interlocutory injunction. On that day, defendants complied with the formal, procedural requirements of the federal removal statute, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1441 et seq. That statute clearly provides that when its requirements have been met “* * * the State court shall proceed .no further unless and until the ease is remanded.” 28 U.S.C.A. § 1446. Despite that provision, the state court scheduled a hearing on the complaint for October 31, 1955. On that day, defendants appeared in this federal court and obtained a temporary restraining order prohibiting the plaintiff from proceeding with the scheduled hearing; the court also granted an order directing plaintiff to show cause why a temporary injunction should not issue enjoining it from proceeding with the state court hearing.

On November 1, 1955, plaintiff filed a motion for an order to strike from the records of this court the purported petition for removal on the grounds that it was frivolous and a sham on its face; and also moved -for an order that the case be remanded to the state court.

Despite the several orders to show cause, motions and petitions filed in this action, the court really has before it the question of whether the case should be remanded to the state court.

In support of their alleged right to removal of the action to this court, defendants argue that the conduct complained of is “within the scope of conduct defined as unfair labor practices prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act, U.S.C. 29, sec. 158(b) (1) [29 U.S.C.A. § 158,(b) (1)].” It is argued that the Act vests the National Labor Relations Board and the federal court with jurisdiction to determine the existence of unfair labor practices and to prevent such practice affecting commerce, and that plaintiff has not exhausted the procedure set forth in § 160, designed to prevent the acts complained of.

In support of its motion to remand, plaintiff argues that in its state court action- it has complained of defendants’ mass picketing, which is not an “unfair labor practice”; that only the state court has the power to enjoin mass picketing based on an employer’s complaint and that therefore there is no power in this federal court to hear and determine the issues raised by the complaint. In sup.port of its argument, plaintiff cites Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 1955, 348 U.S. 468, 75 S.Ct. 480; United Construction Workers, affiliated with United Mine Workers of America v. Laburnum Const. Corp., 1954, 347 U.S. 656, 74 S.Ct. 833, 98 L.Ed. 1025; Garner v. Teamsters, etc., Union, 1953, 346 U.S. 485, 74 S.Ct. 161, 98 L.Ed. 228; Johnston v. Colonial Provision Co., D.C.Mass.1954, 128 F.Supp. 954.

At the outset, the court must construe the complaint filed in the state court and decide exactly what conduct is complained of. This is the threshold duty of the court because under the cases cited by plaintiff and because of defendants’ contention, if there is express federal power to prevent the alleged injurious conduct, then the removal was proper. In other words, the two general problems now before this court are: . (-1) What is the conduct .complained of, and ,(2.) has Congress expressly set 'forth a preventive procedure against that conduct when an employer complains.

(1) Paragraph 16 of the complaint sets forth “* ■* •* the specific acts of the defendants * * * of which the Plaintiff complains”-: (a) mass picketing, consisting of assembling, collecting, violently crowding, congregating, kicking, and massing pickets at the entrances of the plaintiff’s plant in Jersey City in such manner as to completely prevent persons from access'to the plant; (b) maintaining large picket lines containing at times in excess of 100 persons moving in close formation; (c) massing [501]*501large crowds of persons at the entrance to the plant and the public highway adjacent thereto at such times as nonstriking employees or others desire to enter the plant; (d) grabbing hold of and standing in front of motor vehicles in which persons seeking to enter or leave the plant were riding so as to prevent the entrance and exit of such vehicles; (e) threatening violence; (f) intimidating plaintiff’s employees and threatening them with physical injury; (g) frightening persons desiring to enter the plant; (h) blocking automobiles seeking to enter the plant. Fairly read, the complaint relates to defendants’ alleged mass picketing and obstructing the entrances and exits to plaintiff’s premises. During the oral argument, plaintiff’s attorney i in answer to the court’s question, said that the sole purpose of plaintiff’s complaint was to enjoin the alleged mass picketing and obstruction of the entrances to and exits from its plant premises.

(2) Under the circumstances of this case, has Congress provided- a federal remedy to an employér against the 'above-mentioned conduct? If it has, then this court would have jurisdiction of the subject matter of the action and the motion to remand would be denied.

The starting point in any labor-management case concerning the highly controversial state-federal jurisdiction problem is the Garner case, supra. At page 488 of 346 U.S., at page 164 of 74 S.Ct. of that case, the Supreme Court mentioned four types of conduct as to which the state may exercise its historic powers; mass picketing; threatening of employees; obstructing streets and highways ; picketing homes. These types of conduct 'the Court categorized as “traditionally local matter” involving public safety and order and the use of streets .and highways. But as this .court con.strues the Laburnum case, if Congress has expressly set forth a preventive procedure against the alleged conduct then the federal court has exclusive power to hear the complaint in this case. There is no doubt, under the Garner case, that the state court has power over the subject matter of this action. The problem under the removal statute is whether the federal court has concurrent power to enjoin, bn the basis of a complaint by an employer, the above-described alleged conduct. Thus, the specific issue for the court is: Whether any Congressional Act or case decided thereunder empowers this federal court, on the basis of a complaint by an employer, to enjoin the above-described conduct by the union. Plaintiff argues that it seeks only to enjoin mass picketing and blocking of its plant entrances and that such injunction power is exclusively in the state court. In opposition, defendants argue that there is concurrent jurisdiction in the federal courts to enjoin the above-described conduct. They cite Direct Transit Lines v. Local Union No. 406, 6 Cir., 1952, 199 F.2d 89; S. E. Overton Co. v. International Brotherhood, etc., D.C.Mich.1953, 115 F.Supp. 764; Pocahontas Terminal Corp. v. Portland Bldg. & Const. Trade Council, D.C.Maine 1950, 93 F.Supp. 217, and they argue that Sections 7 and 8 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C.A.

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135 F. Supp. 499, 37 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2414, 1955 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2606, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/westinghouse-electric-corp-v-local-456-of-international-union-of-njd-1955.