The defendants contend that these acts were justifiable, because they were only seeking to secure better wages for themselves by compelling the plaintiff to accept their schedule of wages. This motive or purpose does not justify maintaining a patrol in front of the plaintiff’s premises, as a means of carrying out their conspiracy. A combination among persons merely to regulate their own conduct is within allowable competition, and is lawful, although others may be indirectly affected thereby. But a combination to do injurious acts expressly directed to another, by way of intimidation or constraint either of himself or of persons employed or seeking to be employed by him, is outside of allowable competition, and is unlawful. Various decided cases fall within the former class, for example: Worthington v. Waring, 157 Mass. 421; Snow v. Wheeler, 113 Mass. 179; Bowen v. Matheson, 14 Allen, 499; Commonwealth v. Hunt, 4 Met. 111; Heywood v. Tillson, 75 Maine, 225; Cote v. Murphy, 159 Penn. St. 420; Bohn Manuf. Co. v. Hollis, 54 Minn. 223; Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, [1892] A. C. 25; Curran v. Treleaven, [1891] 2 Q. B. 545, 561. The present case falls within the latter class.
Nor does the fact that the defendants’ acts might subject them to an indictment prevent a court of equity from issuing an injunction. It is true that ordinarily a court of equity will decline to issue an injunction to restrain the commission of a crime; but a continuing injury to property or business may be enjoined, although it may also be punishable as a nuisance or other crime. Sherry v. Perkins, 147 Mass. 212; In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 593, 599; Baltimore & Potomac Railroad v. Fifth Baptist Church, 108 U. S. 317, 329; Cranford v. Tyrell, 128 N. Y. 341, 344; Gilbert v. Mickle, 4 Sandf. Ch. 357; Mobile v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad, 84 Ala. 115, 126; Arthur v. Oakes, 63 Fed. Rep. 310; Toledo, Ann Arbor, & North Michigan Railway v. Pennsylvania Co., 54 Fed. Rep. 730, 744; Emperor of Austria v. Day, 3 DeG., F. & J. 217, 239, 240, 253; Hermann Loog v. Bean, 26 Ch. D. 306, 314, 316, 317; Monson v. Tussaud, [1894] 1 Q. B. 671, 689, 690, 698.
A question is also presented whether the court should enjoin such interference with persons in the employment of the plaintiff who are not bound by contract to remain with him, or with persons who are not under any existing contract, but who are seeking or intending to enter into his employment. A conspiracy to interfere with the plaintiff’s business by means of threats and intimidation, and by maintaining a patrol in front of his premises in order to prevent persons from entering his employment, or in order to prevent persons who are in his employment from continuing therein, is unlawful, even though such persons are not bound by contract to enter into or to continue in his employment; and the injunction should not be so limited as to relate only to persons who are bound by existing contracts. Walker v. Cronin, 107 Mass. 555, 565; Carew v. Rutherford, 106 Mass. 1; Sherry v. Perkins, 147 Mass. 212; Temperton v. Russell, [1893] 1 Q. B. 715, 728, 731; Flood v. Jackson, 11 L. T. R. 276.
In the opinion of a majority of the court the injunction should be in the form originally issued.
So ordered.
[The opinion of Field, C. J., is omitted. His conclusion was, “that the decree entered by Mr. Justice Holmes should be affirmed without modification.”]
Holmes, J. In a case like the present, it seems to me that, whatever the true result may be, it will be of advantage to sound thinking to have the less popular view of the law stated, and therefore, although when I have been unable to bring my brethren to share my convictions my almost invariable practice is to defer to them in silence, I depart from that practice in this case, notwithstanding my unwillingness to do so in support of an already rendered judgment of my own.
In the first place, a word or two should be said as to the meaning of the report. I assume that my brethren construe it as I meant it to be construed, and that, if they were not prepared to do so, they would give an opportunity to the defendants to have it amended in accordance with what I state my meaning to be. There was no proof of any threat or danger of a patrol exceeding two men, and as of course an injunction is not granted except with reference to what there is reason to expect in its absence, the question on that point is whether a patrol of two men should be enjoined. Again, the defendants are enjoined by the final decree from intimidating by threats, express or implied, of physical harm to body or property, any person who may be desirous of entering into the employment of the plaintiff so far as to prevent him from entering the same. In order to test the correctness of the refusal to go further, it must be assumed that the defendants obey the express prohibition of the decree. If they do not, they fall within the injunction as it now stands, and are liable to summary punishment. The important difference between the preliminary and the final injunction is that the former goes further, and forbids the defendants to interfere with the plaintiff’s business “by any scheme ... organized for the purpose of ... preventing any person or persons who now are or may hereafter be ... desirous of entering the [plaintiff’s employment] from entering it.” I quote only a part, and the part which seems to me most objectionable. This includes refusal of social intercourse, and even organized persuasion or argument, although free from any threat of violence, either express or implied. And this is with reference to persons who have a legal right to contract or not to contract with the plaintiff, as they may see fit. Interference with existing contracts is forbidden by the final decree. I wish to insist a little that the only point of difference which involves a difference of principle between the final decree and the preliminary injunction which it is proposed to restore, is what I have mentioned, in order that it may be seen exactly what we are to discuss. It appears to me that the judgment of the majority turns in part on the assumption that the patrol necessarily carries with it a threat of bodily harm. That assumption I think unwarranted, for the reasons which I have given. Furthermore, it cannot be said, I think, that two men walking together up and down a sidewalk and speaking to those who enter a certain shop do necessarily and always thereby convey a threat of force. I do not think it possible to discriminate and to say that two workmen, or even two representatives of an organization of workmen, do,—especially when they are, and are known to be, under the injunction of this court not to do so. See Stimson, Handbook to Labor Law, § 60, esp. pp. 290, 298, 299, 300; Regina v. Shepherd, 11 Cox C. C. 325. I may add, that I think the more intelligent workingmen believe as fully as I do that they no more can be permitted to usurp the State’s prerogative of force than can their opponents in their controversies. But if I am wrong, then the decree as it stands reaches the patrol, since it applies to all threats of force. With this I pass to the real difference between the interlocutory and the final decree.
I agree, whatever may be the law in the case of a single defendant, Rice v. Albee, 164 Mass. 88, that when a plaintiff proves that several persons have combined and conspired to injure his business, and have done acts producing that effect, he shows temporal damage and a cause of action, unless the facts disclose, or the defendants prove, some ground of excuse or justification. And I take it to be settled, and rightly settled, that doing that damage by combined persuasion is actionable, as well as doing it by falsehood or by force. Walker v. Cronin, 107 Mass. 555; Morasse v. Brochu, 151 Mass. 567; Tasker v. Stanley, 153 Mass. 148.
Nevertheless, in numberless instances the law warrants the intentional infliction of temporal damage because it regards it as justified. It is on the question of what shall amount to a justification, and more especially on the nature of the considerations which really determine or ought to determine the answer to that question, that judicial reasoning seems to me often to be inadequate. The true grounds of decision are considerations of policy and of social advantage, and it is vain to suppose that solutions can be attained merely by logic and the general propositions of law which nobody disputes. Propositions as to public policy rarely are unanimously accepted, and still more rarely, if ever, are capable of unanswerable proof. They require a special training to enable any one even to form an intelligent opinion about them. In the early stages of law, at least, they generally are acted on rather as inarticulate instincts than as definite ideas for which a rational defence is ready.