NOTES OF RECENT CASES
NOTES OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RECENT CASES COMPILED BY THE EDITORS OF THE NATIONAL REPORTER SYSTEM AND ANNOTATED BY SPECIALISTS IN THE SEVERAL SUBJECTS (Copies of the pamphlet Reporters containing full reports of any of these decisions may be secured from the West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 35 cents each. In ordering, the title of the desired case should be given as well as the citation of volume and page of the Reporter in which it is printed.)
BOYCOTT (Conspiracy — Labor Unions). Pa. — In Purvis v. Local No. 500, United Brother hood of Carpenters & Joiners, 63 Atlantic Re porter, 585, the right of a labor union to take concerted action to injure, and if possible, ruin a manufacturing establishment which refuses to employ union labor, is denied. After plaintiffs had refused to " unionize " their mill at the re quest of the defendant labor union, the latter, acting with the intention of compelling plain tiffs to either accede to their demands or quit business, refused to allow any union carpenters to work with- material coming from plaintiffs' mill, and at various times called strikes upon jobs which it was urgently necessary to complete, and where it was sought to use material manu factured by plaintiffs. In view of these facts the court says: "The rights of mechanics and laborers, and of labor organizations and unions, as recognized in innumerable cases, are not affected by the decree, and need not, therefore, be considered here. The question is the unlaw fulness of the conspiracy of the appellants to injure and destroy the property of others, if their demands as to the employment of workmen are not complied with. The question is not as to the unlawfulness of the demands which they make, but is as to their conduct upon learning that these demands are ignored by the appellees. The demands in themselves can do no harm to the latter; it results from the means employed to coerce compliance with them. The appellants contend that they seek only to persuade, and not to coerce; but their means of persuasion are the destruction of the property of those whom they would persuade. As well might it be said that the sight of the club or gun of the highway man without actual violence simply persuades. No violence was used by the appellants, and it does not appear that any was contemplated or threatened; but coercion may be accomplished without threats or violence, and the attempt to so accomplish it was made in this case. Putting one in actual fear of loss of his property or of in jury to his business, unless he submits to demands
made upon him, is often no less potent in coer cing than fear of violence to his person. "Restraint of the mind, provided it would be such as would be likely to force a man against his will to grant the thing demanded, and actually has that effect, is sufficient in cases like this" Plant v. Woods, 176 Mass. 492, 57 N. E. ion, 51 L. R. A. 339, 79 Am. St. Rep. 330. Of the conduct of the appellants the words of our late Brother Dean, in Erdman v. Mitchell, 207 Pa. 79, 56 Atl. 327, 63 L. R. A. 534, 99 Am. St. Rep. 783. may well be repeated: " How absurd is it to call this peaceable persuasion, and how absurd to argue that if the law attempts to prevent it the right of the workmen to organize for their com mon benefit is frustrated." In addition to this injunction, damages to the extent of $1770 are assessed against the union by the decree. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Freedom of Con tract). N. Y. — In People v. Marcus, 77 N. E. 1073, the provision of the New York Penal Code, which declares that any person who shall coerce or compel any employee, laborer, or mechanic to entei^into an agreement not to join or become a member of any labor organization, as a condition of securing employment, shall be guilty of a mis demeanor, is held to be in conflict with the funda mental constitutional guaranties against the de nial of the equal protection of the laws. Subject to the proper exercise of the police power, the court declares that an employer and employee may enforce such contracts relating to labor as they may mutually desire. The statute is then construed, and it is held that the words " coerce" or "compel" do not refer to physical violence, but that the statute was intended to prohibit all contracts making employment or the continuance of employment conditional on an agreement by the employee not to join a labor organization. As so construed, it is declared that the statute interferes with and restricts the constitutional right of the parties to make such contracts as they may see fit, and is void. The previous
