A Selection of Cases on the Law of Torts

by Unknown

Some of the expressions which I have used, and which are commonly used, in relation to this subject seem to me to be misleading. Union workmen who inform their employer that they will strike if he refuses to discharge all non-union workmen in his employ are acting within their absolute right, and, in fact, are merely dictating the terms upon which they will be employed. All such terms necessarily relate both to “how the employer shall conduct his business” and how the employes shall conduct their business.

The doctrine of the old cases, of which we have in New Jersey an interesting example in State v. Donaldson, 3 Vr. 151, which placed the employe, when acting in combination with his fellow-workmen, at a tremendous disadvantage as compared with his employer, I think may be regarded as entirely exploded. The authority of the deliverances of the supreme court in State v. Donaldson was largely, if not entirely, abolished by statute in 1883.

The principles which I have endeavored to state are all recognized in the restraining order in this case, and are so plainly recognized that the intelligent and industrious counsel for the defendants is unable to point out any respect wherein the terms of the order should be modified. The things which the restraining order interdicts are things which, for the purposes of this argument, it is practically conceded the defendants have no right to do.

In this situation of the case it would seem to be unnecessary to further consider the legal propriety of the restraining order, much less to take it up clause by clause. I have, however, pointed out what conduct on the part of the defendants is excluded from the operation of this order, and I think that it is fair to all the parties to this suit who are concerned in the maintenance of the restraining order to explain, at least in a general way, what conduct is included within its prohibition. This can be most conveniently done by making plain the most important principles embodied in the order—principles which practically have been developed by the courts of this country and England during the last five or ten years.

The injunction in strike and boycott cases is of very recent use. Already a wide difference of opinion has been developed among judges in regard to the liability of a combination of workmen to actions at law for damages and suits in equity for an injunction.

It is only very recently, I think, that one of the most important rights which now are vindicated by the injunction in a strike case has been differentiated; in many cases it has been apparently half recognized or indirectly enforced.

That the interest of an employer or an employe in a contract for services is property is conceded. Where defendants, in combination or individually, undertake to interfere with and disrupt existing contract relations between the employer and the employe, it is plain that a property right is directly invaded. The effect is the same whether the means employed to cause the workman to break his contract, and thus injure the employer, are violence or threats of violence against the employe or mere molestation, annoyance, or persuasions. In all these cases, whatever the means may be, they constitute the cause of the breaking of a contract, and consequently they constitute the natural and proximate cause of damage. The intentional doing of anything by a third party which is the natural and proximate cause of the disruption of a contract relation, to the injury of one of the contracting parties, is now very generally recognized as actionable, in the absence of a sufficient justification, and the question, in every case, seems to turn upon justification alone.

Where the tangible property of an employer is seized or directly injured by violence, with intent to interfere with the carrying on of his business, the case, also is free from embarrassment.

In the case of Frank v. Herold, 18 Dick. Ch. Rep. 443, Vice-Chancellor Pitney amply discussed the whole subject of the unlawfulness of molestation and annoyance of employes, with intent and with the effect to induce them to abandon their employment, to the injury of their employer’s business.

But the difficult case presents itself when the workmen in combination undertake to interfere with the freedom of action on the part of other workmen who naturally would seek employment where they (the workmen in combination) desire and intend that no man shall be employed excepting upon their terms.