United Automobile Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board/Dissent Douglas

by William O. Douglas

United States Supreme Court

351 U.S. 266

United Automobile Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America  v.  Wisconsin Employment Relations Board

 Argued: April 24, 25, 1956. --- Decided: June 4, 1956

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom the CHIEF JUSTICE andMr. Justice BLACK concur, dissenting.

There are instances where we have sustained identical regulations of the same act by both a State and the Federal Government. People of State of California v. Zook, 336 U.S. 725, 69 S.Ct. 841, 93 L.Ed. 1005, is an example. But the instances are few and far between.

Of course, where the States and the Federal Government regulate the same act, but each with a different sanction, both often survive. United Construction Workers, affiliated with United Mine Workers of America v. Laburnum Const. Corp., 347 U.S. 656, 74 S.Ct. 833, 93 L.Ed. 1025, is a recent example. We there allowed a common-law tort action for damages to be enforced in a state court for the same acts that could have been the basis for administrative relief under the federal Act. But the present case is not that case. Here the State has prescribed an administrative remedy that duplicates the administrative remedy prescribed by Congress. Each reaches the same identical conduct. We disallowed that duplication of remedy in Garner v. Teamsters, etc., Union, 346 U.S. 485, 74 S.Ct. 161, 98 L.Ed. 228. In that case we held that a state court could not enjoin action which was subject to an unfair labor proceeding under the federal Act. And see Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U.S. 468, 75 S.Ct. 480, 99 L.Ed. 546. Today we depart from Garner and allow a state board to enjoin action which is subject to an unfair labor proceeding before the federal board. We sanction a precise duplication of remedies which is pregnant with potentialities of clashes and conflicts.

Of course the States may control violence. They may make arrests and invoke their criminal law to the hilt. They transgress only when they allow their administrative agencies or their courts to enjoin the conduct that Congress has authorized the federal agency to enjoin. We retreat from Garner and open the door to unseemly conflicts between state and federal agencies when we sustain what Wisconsin has done here.

Notes