217 Mass. 351 | Mass. | 1914
If it appeared from this record that the defendants’ exceptions to the admission of evidence by the master had been taken at the hearing before the master, and that the objections made to the report by the defendants upon this ground and the exceptions filed by them in pursuance thereof had thus been based upon a proper foundation, it would not have been easy to justify the refusal to recommit the master’s report in order that the rulings made upon these points and excepted to by the defendants might be reviewed. But this is not the case. So far as appears, all the evidence to the admission of which objection afterwards was made was received originally without any objection. Nor does it appear that a motion afterwards was made to strike out any part of this evidence, if that would have been sufficient. Undoubtedly, if seasonable objections had been made by the defendants and had been overruled by the master, and this fact had been shown to the Superior Court, the motion to recommit would have been granted. As the case stands, the motion was addressed merely to the discretion of the judge who heard it, and there is no reason to suppose that his discretion was exercised wrongly. Cook v. Scheffreen, 215 Mass. 444, 447. Lee v. Methodist Episcopal Church, 193 Mass. 47.
We see no ground on which any of the exceptions to the master’s report can be sustained. Most of them relate to findings of fact, as to which the evidence is not before us. Others refer to the admission of evidence, and cannot be considered for the reasons already stated. The defendants have not argued separately any of these exceptions, although they have not been waived, and accordingly each one of them has been considered. But it is not necessary to discuss them in detail.
The leading material facts found by the master may be summarized as follows: The plaintiffs carry on a business which includes the selling at wholesale and retail of masons’ supplies. The defendants are members of a voluntary unincorporated association or labor, union in Holyoke, hereinafter called the union. It is the object and purpose of all the members of this union to
The defendants did not act from actual personal malice toward the plaintiffs; but their acts were done in pursuance of their union principles and purposes, as above stated, and without caring for the injurious consequences to the plaintiffs. Indeed these injurious consequences were anticipated and contemplated by the defendants. They did not attempt to declare or enforce any boycott against the plaintiffs, except as this is included in the acts that have been mentioned. During the period involved in this case, some of the defendants have bought for their own use small quantities of masons’ supplies from the plaintiffs, and others of the defendants during the same time have made purchases from the plaintiffs in other branches of the plaintiffs’ business.
We have examined with care all the decisions that have been referred to by the defendants. Some of them turn upon a different state of facts from that which here is presented. Some of them we should hesitate to follow to the conclusions toward which they logically tend. But the result which we have reached seems to us to be in accord with sound reason and supported by authority.
The defendants contend earnestly that each one of them has a perfect right to refrain from dealing himself, and to advise his friends and associates to refrain from dealing, with the plaintiffs, and that they have a right to do together and in concert what each one of them lawfully may do by himself. But that is not always so. It is especially true in dealing with such questions as these that the mere force of numbers may create a difference not only of degree, but also of kind. No doubt the defendants’ organization is a lawful one, and certainly some of the objects aimed at by the union thus formed are both legal and of high utility. But, as was pointed out by the Supreme Court of the United States in Gompers v. Buck’s Stove & Range Co. 221 U. S. 418, 439, “the very fact that it is lawful to form these bodies, with multitudes of members, means that they have thereby acquired a vast power, in the presence of which the individual may be helpless. This power, when unlawfully used against one, cannot be met, except by his purchasing peace at the cost of submitting to terms which involve the sacrifice of rights protected by the Constitution; or by standing on such rights and appealing to the preventive powers of a court of equity. When such appeal is made it is the duty of government to protect the one against the many as well as the many against the one.” To the same effect is what was said by this court, through Mr. Justice Hammond, in Martell v. White, 185 Mass. 255, 260, quoting the words of Lord Justice Bowen in Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, 23 Q. B. D. 598, 616: “Of the
In Worthington v. Waring, 157 Mass. 421, where the court refused to enjoin the defendants from putting the names of the plaintiffs upon a black list and thus making it impossible for them to obtain in that neighborhood employment in their trade, there was a misjoinder of plaintiffs. Apart from this technical difficulty, the decision was put upon the ground that while courts of equity may protect property from threatened injury when the property rights are equitable or when they cannot be protected adequately at law, yet equity has in general no jurisdiction to restrain the commission of crime or to assess damages for torts already committed, and the rights there alleged to have been violated were said to be merely personal rights and not rights of property. That case is not applicable here, for the rights now in question are distinctly property rights. Accordingly we need not consider whether the doctrine of that case can be reconciled with our later decisions, or whether it now would be followed if the same state of facts were again presented.
The result is that the plaintiffs are entitled to a decree enjoining the defendants from keeping the names of the plaintiffs upon their unfair list, from threatening to strike or to leave the work of any owner, builder or contractor by reason of such persons having purchased masons’ supplies from the plaintiffs or having dealt otherwise with the plaintiffs, and from ordering or inducing any strike against an owner, builder or contractor for such reason, and that the plaintiffs shall recover from the defendants the sum of $500 with interest from the date of the filing of the master’s report, and their costs of suit, and have execution therefor.
So ordered.