244 Pa. 559 | Pa. | 1914
Opinion by
The plaintiff in this case brought this action of trespass against the defendants, to recover from them damages, which he claims to have suffered, by reason of a conspiracy entered into by defendants, to have him discharged from his employment, as chief engineer of the Rettig Brewing Company of Pottsville, Pennsylvania. He had held that position for more than five years, when on July 18,1910, a committee of employees, presented to the manager of the brewery a paper which was signed by all the defendants, which was as follows:
“Pottsville, Pa., July 17, 1910.
“We the undersigned do hereby declare that we refuse to work after twenty-four hours notice to the employers of the Rettig Brewing Company as long as George Bausbach is employed at same plant.”
Upon the trial, plaintiff offered testimony showing that he was discharged by the brewing company in consequence of the threats contained in the paper and repeated orally by the committee, and that the reason the defendants, the signers of the paper, demanded his discharge, was that he had a short time before reported to the manager of the brewing company, the conduct of a night watchman, whom he had detected in stealing goods
The trial resulted in a verdict for defendants. Plaintiff has appealed, and his counsel have filed twenty-one assignments of error, chiefly to the charge of the court below, and to its answers to points, and to rulings on offers of evidence. The third assignment is to the following language in the charge to the jury: “If you find, of course, that these men were justified in requesting the dismissal of this man Bausbach, the plaintiff, on account of his making it so unpleasant for them that they did not care to work with him, that is the end of this case; your verdict should be in favor of the defendants.” The first, second, twelfth and thirteenth assignments are to language used in the charge and in answering points, with respect to which, substantially the same question is raised, and that is, whether employees, to whom a fellow workman is for any reason disagreeable, may lawfully combine for the purpose of procuring his discharge, by notifying the employer, that they will refuse to work, if the workman to whom they object, is retained. In Erdman v. Mitchell, 207 Pa. 79, this court said, speaking by Mr. Justice Dean (p. 91) : “A conspiracy is the combination of two or more persons by some concerted action to accomplish an unlawful purpose. It is unlawful to deprive a mechanic or workman of work by force, threats or intimidation of any kind; a combination of two or more to do the same thing by the same means is a conspiracy. That by the legislation referred to such conspiracy is no longer criminal, does not render it lawful. At common law the courts held that such combination was so prejudicial to the public interests and so opposed to public policy as rendered it punishable
In DeMinico v. Craig, 207 Mass. 593, it is said in the syllabus, (p. 594) : “A labor strike to get rid of a foreman because some of the workmen undér him have a dislike for him is not a strike for a legal purpose.” Boring, J., said (p. 599) : “The plaintiff had a right to work and that right of his could not be taken away from him or interfered with by the defendants unless it came into conflict with an equal or superior right of theirs. The defendants’ right to better their condition is such an equal right. But to humor their personal objections, their likes and dislikes, or to escape from what ‘is distasteful’ to some of them, is not in our opinion a superior or an equal right.......One who betters his condition only by escaping from what he merely dislikes, and by securing what he likes, does not better his condition within the meaning of those words in the rule, that employees can strike to better their condition.” In the light of these authorities, which point out a sound distinction, between what a single individual may lawfully do, and that which a combination of individuals may do, the instructions of the trial judge which are the subject of the first three assignments of error, were inadequate and erroneous. The united action of the defendants was put upon the same basis as that of any single one of them, the trial judge using by way of illustration a supposed act by Reiff, the first defendant named. It does not appear that the jury were instructed that an act which might be lawful if done by one person, might become unlawful if a number of persons combined to do it. The only fair interpretation which could be placed upon the instructions given, was that, “if Frank G. Reiff or any other one of these defendants” had the right to threaten to stop work if plaintiff was not discharged, the entire twenty-eight men who signed the paper, might lawfully combine to do the same thing. This was not a
In the sixteenth assignment, it is alleged that the trial judge erred in striking out of the testimony a paper which had been previously offered in evidence by plaintiff and had been admitted by the court. W. B. Shugars testified that on July 18, 1910, the committee handed him the written notification from the defendants, which was dated the previous day. That night another man was put to work by the brewery, in the place of plaintiff. The plaintiff had already testified that Shugars had said to him that it would be best to let him go for the benefit of both sides, and had added, “I will give you a recom
We do not deem it necessary to consider in detail the ■remaining assignments of error. For the reasons which we have indicated, the judgment is reversed with a venire facias de novo.