p. 252LOCAL 20, TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS &
HELPERS UNION v. MORTON, doing
busi nes s as LESTER MORTON
TRUCKING CO.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT.
No. 485. Argued April 29, 1964.—Decided May 25, 1964.
During a strike petitioner labor union engaged in secondary activities
to induce customers and suppliers to cease dealing with the re-
spondent employer. The respondent filed suit in the Federal
District Court under § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act
of 1947 and state common law to recover for business losses caused
by the union’s unlawful conduct, and was awarded compensatory
damages for the union’s having encouraged employees of a cus-
tomer to force its employer to stop doing business with respondent
(in violation of § 303) ; for the union’s having persuaded the man-
agement of one of the respondent’s customers to cease doing busi-
ness with the respondent, and for its having caused loss of a
contract because there were not enough employees available dur-
ing the strike to perform it (both in violation of state law) ; and
punitive damages (also under state law), although it was held that
the strike was free of violence. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held:
1. The action of the union in encouraging the employees of a
customer to force their employer to stop doing business with the
respondent was a clear violation of § 303. P. 256.
2. State law has been displaced by § 303 in private damage
actions based on peaceful union secondary activities. Pp. 256-261.
(a) The union’s request to the management of one of respond-
ent’s customers to cease doing business with respondent is not
prohibited by §303 (a). Pp. 259-260.
(b) Punitive damages are not provided for in § 303 (b), which
is limited to compensatory damages. Pp. 260-261.
3. Peaceful primary strike activity does not violate § 303 (a)
even though petitioner may have contemporaneously engaged in
unlawful activities elsewhere. Pp. 261-262.
320 F. 2d 505, judgment vacated and case remanded.
p. 253David Previant argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs were David Leo Uelmen and Hugh
Hajer.
M. J. Stauffer argued the cause and filed a brief for
respondent.
Mr . Justic e Stew art delivered the opinion of the
Court.
The petitioner is a labor organization. The respondent
is a company engaged in the business of providing dump
trucks and drivers, as a subcontractor on highway con-
struction, with its principal place of business at Tiffin,
Ohio. The petitioner represented the respondent’s em-
ployees from 1950 until 1956 under an oral agreement.
In 1956 the parties engaged in negotiations for a written
agreement. An impasse in bargaining precipitated a
strike which lasted from August to October of that year.
During the strike the petitioner engaged in secondary ac-
tivities involving some of the respondent’s customers and
suppliers, for the purpose of inducing them to cease doing
business with the respondent. Claiming that these activ-
ities were unlawful both under § 303 of the Labor Man-
agement Relations Act of 1947, 29 U. S. C. § 187,1 and
p. 254under the common law of Ohio, the respondent sued the
petitioner in the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Ohio, claiming damages for business
losses caused by the petitioner’s allegedly unlawful
conduct during the strike.
dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manu-
facturer, or to cease doing business with any other person;
“(2) forcing or requiring any other employer to recognize or bar-
gain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees
unless such labor organization has been certified as the representative
of such employees under the provisions of section 159 of this title;
“(3) forcing or requiring any employer to recognize or bargain
with a particular labor organization as the representative of his em-
ployees if another labor organization has been certified as the rep-
resentative of such employees under the provisions of section 159 of
this title;
“(4) forcing or requiring any employer to assign particular work
to employees in a particular labor organization or in a particular
trade, craft, or class rather than to employees in another labor
organization or in another trade, craft, or class unless such employer
is failing to conform to an order or certification of the National Labor
Relations Board determining the bargaining representative for em-
ployees performing such work. Nothing contained in this subsection
shall be construed to make unlawful a refusal by any person to enter
upon the premises of any employer (other than his own employer),
if the employees of such employer are engaged in a strike ratified or
approved by a representative of such employees whom such employer
is required to recognize under subchapter II of this chapter.
“(b) Whoever shall be injured in his business or property by
reason of any violation of subsection (a) of this section may sue
therefor in any district court of the United States subject to the
limitations and provisions of section 185 of this title without respect
to the amount in controversy, or in any other court having jurisdic-
tion of the parties, and shall recover the damages by him sustained
and the cost of the suit.” 61 Stat. 158, 29 U. S. C. §
187.
Certain amendments to § 303 were made by the Labor-Manage-
ment Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 545, 29 U. S. C.
(Supp. IV) §
187, but these amendments are not germane to the
questions presented in this case.
p. 255After a trial without a jury, the District Court found
that the petitioner had encouraged the employees of
France Stone Co., a supplier of the respondent, and the
employees of C. A. Schoen, Inc., and O’Connel Coal Co.,
customers of respondent, to force their employers to cease
doing business with the respondent, in violation of § 303
of the federal Act.2 The court awarded the respondent
some $1,600 damages for business losses caused by this
violation of federal law.3 The court also determined that
during the strike the petitioner had persuaded the man-
agement of Launder & Son, Inc., another of the respond-
ent’s customers, to refrain from doing business with the
respondent. Since there had been no approach to
Launder’s employees, the court held that the request to
Launder management was permissible activity under fed-
eral law, but ruled that this conduct violated the common
law of Ohio, which, the court said, prohibits “making
direct appeals to a struck employer’s customers or sup-
pliers to stop doing business with the struck em-
ployer . . . .” The respondent was accordingly awarded
almost $9,000 as compensatory damages for this viola-
tion of Ohio law.4 In addition, the court awarded the
respondent more than $9,000 for the loss of a contract to
haul sand for the Wilson Sand & Gravel Co., which loss
had resulted from an insufficient number of drivers avail-
able during the strike to perform the contract. This
award was based upon the court’s reasoning that the
respondent was entitled to recover damages measured by
all of the profits lost as a result of the petitioner’s total
strike activity, so long as some of that activity was unlaw-
ful.5 Finally, the court awarded punitive damages of
$15,000, although expressly finding that the petitioner’s
2 200 F. Supp. 653, 658-659.
p. 256conduct during the strike had at all times been free of
any violence.6
The Court of Appeals affirmed the award in all respects.7
Relying on the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction, Hum v.
Oursler,
289 U. S. 238, and cases involving union violence,
e. g., Flame Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers,
303 F. 2d
39, the appellate court concluded that “[a] nonfederal
cause of action is not extinguished because a state court
is pre-empted by federal law from providing relief,” 8
and that “punitive damages are recoverable for unlaw-
ful secondary boycott activities . ...” 9 Certiorari was
granted to consider the issues of federal labor law which
this case presents.
375 U. S. 939.
At the outset we affirm the award of compensatory
damages for the violation of § 303 of the federal Act.
The District Court found that “the defendant encouraged
the employees of the O’Connel Company to stop using
plaintiff’s trucks for the purpose of forcing or requiring
the O’Connel Company to cease doing business with the
plaintiff . . . .” 10 11 This finding of a clear violation of
§ 303 was supported by the evidence, as was the amount
of damages awarded therefor.11
With respect to the remaining components of the
money judgment recovered by the respondent, the cen-
tral question to be decided is whether a court, state or
federal, is free to apply state law in awarding damages
resulting from a union’s peaceful strike conduct vis-à-vis a
secondary employer, or is confined in the field of damage
actions brought for union secondary activities to the spe-
p. 257cifically limited provisions of § 303 of the federal Act.
We disagree with the Court of Appeals that this question
can be resolved either by reference to the doctrine of
pendent jurisdiction or by reference to the line of prece-
dents which have permitted state law to be applied in
situations where union activities involving violence were
present.
If the provisions of § 303 mark the limits beyond
which a court, state or federal, may not go in award-
ing damages for a union’s secondary activities, then the
doctrine of pendent jurisdiction can be of no service.
Pendent jurisdiction permits a federal court under some
circumstances to determine a state cause of action which
otherwise would have to be heard in the state court.
Hum v. Oursler, supra. But if the state court would be
without authority to award damages under state law,
then the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction can give “the
District Court ... no greater power to do so.” Lauf v.
Shinner & Co.,
303 U. S. 323, 328.
And in cases involving union violence, state law has
been permitted to prevail by reason of controlling con-
siderations which are entirely absent in the present case.
“[W]e have allowed the States to grant compensation for
the consequences, as defined by the traditional law of
torts, of conduct marked by violence and imminent
threats to the public order. United Automobile Workers
v. Russell,
356 U. S. 634; United Construction Workers
v. Laburnum Corp.,
347 U. S. 656. . . . State jurisdic-
tion has prevailed in these situations because the com-
pelling state interest, in the scheme of our federalism, in
the maintenance of domestic peace is not overridden
in the absence of clearly expressed congressional direc-
tion. ... In the present case there is no such com-
pelling state interest.” San Diego Bldg. Trades v.
Garmon,
359 U. S. 236, 247-248.
p. 258It is the respondent’s contention, however, that since the
petitioner union’s peaceful conduct was neither arguably
protected under § 7 nor arguably prohibited under § 8 of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the trial
court was free to award damages on the basis of state law
for injuries caused by this conduct. But even though it
may be assumed that at least some of the secondary
activity here involved was neither protected nor pro-
hibited, it is still necessary to determine whether by
enacting § 303, “Congress occupied this field and closed
it to state regulation.” Automobile Workers v. O’Brien,
339 U. S. 454, 457. The basic question, in other words,
is whether “in a case such as this, incompatible doctrines
of local law must give way to principles of federal labor
law.” Teamsters Local 17 v. Lucas Flour Co.,
369 U. S.
95, 102. The answer to that question ultimately de-
pends upon whether the application of state law in this
kind of case would operate to frustrate the purpose of
the federal legislation. Colorado Anti-Discrimination
Comm’n v. Continental Air Lines,
372 U. S. 714, 722.
Section 303 (b) of the Labor Management Relations
Act expressly authorizes state and federal courts to award
damages to any person injured by certain secondary boy-
cott activities described in § 303 (a).12 The type of con-
duct to be made the subject of a private damage action
was considered by Congress, and § 303 (a) comprehen-
sively and with great particularity “describes and con-
demns specific union conduct directed to specific objec-
tives.” Carpenters Local 1976 v. Labor Board,
357 U. S.
93, 98.13 In selecting which forms of economic pressure
p. 259should be prohibited by § 303, Congress struck the “bal-
ance . . . between the uncontrolled power of manage-
ment and labor to further their respective interests,”
id.,
at 100, by “preserving the right of labor organizations to
bring pressure to bear on offending employers in primary
labor disputes and [by] shielding unoffending employers
and others from pressures in controversies not their own.”
Labor Board v. Denver Bldg. & Construction Trades
Council,
341 U. S. 675, 692.
In this case, the petitioner’s request to Launder’s man-
agement to cease doing business with the respondent was
not proscribed by the Act. “[A] union is free to
approach an employer to persuade him to engage in a
boycott, so long as it refrains from the specifically pro-
hibited means of coercion through inducement of em-
ployees.” Carpenters Local 1976 v. Labor Board, supra.
at 99. This weapon of self-help, permitted by federal
law, formed an integral part of the petitioner’s effort to
achieve its bargaining goals during negotiations with the
respondent.* 14 Allowing its use is a part of the balance
struck by Congress between the conflicting interests of
the union, the employees, the employer and the commu-
nity. Electrical Workers Local 761 v. Labor Board,
366
U. S. 667, 672. If the Ohio law of secondary boycott can
be applied to proscribe the same type of conduct which
Congress focused upon but did not proscribe when it
labor practice for which an administrative remedy is afforded. The
same conduct under § 303 also gives rise to a claim for damages
cognizable in either state or federal courts. As a consequence of the
1959 amendments to the Act, § 303 now incorporates by reference
the prohibitions embodied in §8 (b)(4).
p. 260enacted § 303, the inevitable result would be to frustrate
the congressional determination to leave this weapon of
self-help available, and to upset the balance of power
between labor and management expressed in our national
labor policy. “For a state to impinge on the area of labor
combat designed to be free is quite as much an obstruc-
tion of federal policy as if the state were to declare picket-
ing free for purposes or by methods which the federal
Act prohibits.” Garner v. Teamsters Union,
346 U. S.
485, 500. We hold, therefore, that the damages awarded
against the petitioner based upon its peaceful persuasion
of Launder’s management not to do business with the
respondent during the strike cannot stand.
The same considerations require reversal of the award
of punitive damages. Punitive damages for violations of
§ 303 conflict with the congressional judgment, reflected
both in the language of the federal statute 15 and in its
legislative history,16 that recovery for an employer’s busi-
ness losses caused by a union’s peaceful secondary activ-
ities proscribed by § 303 should be limited to actual, com-
pensatory damages. And insofar as punitive damages in
this case were based on secondary activities which vio-
lated only state law, they cannot stand, because, as we
p. 261have held, substantive state law in this area must yield to
federal limitations. In short, this is an area “of judicial
decision within which the policy of the law is so dom-
inated by the sweep of federal statutes that legal relations
which they affect must be deemed governed by federal law
having its source in those statutes, rather than by local
law.”
Sola Electric Co. v. Jefferson Electric Co., 317
U. S. 173, 176. Accordingly, we hold that since state law
has been displaced by § 303 in private damage actions
based on peaceful union secondary activities, the District
Court in this case was without authority to award punitive
damages.17
There remains for consideration only the question of
the damage award for the respondent’s loss of the Wilson
account. The respondent conceded at trial that there
was “no evidence of unlawful activity in connection with
this [the Wilson] job,” and the record makes clear
that the respondent lost the Wilson account because his
drivers were discouraged from working during the strike
by the petitioner’s primary strike activity.18 Since
§ 303 (b) authorizes an award of damages only in the
event of injury “by reason of any violation of subsec-
tion (a)” and peaceful primary strike activity does not
violate § 303 (a), Electrical Workers Local 761 v. Labor
Board,
366 U. S. 667, 672, the District Court was without
power to award damages proximately caused by lawful,
p. 262Gol db er g, J., concurring. 377 U. S.
primary activities, even though the petitioner may have
contemporaneously engaged in unlawful acts elsewhere.
See Chauffeurs Local 175 v. Labor Board, 294 F. 2d 261.
The judgment is vacated and the case remanded to the
District Court for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr . Justi ce Goldber g , concurring.
My concurrence in the Court’s opinion and judgment
does not indicate approval of the Court’s holdings in
United Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634, and
United Construction Workers v. Laburnum Corp., 347
U. S. 656.