The evidence warranted the finding of the following facts, many of which were not in dispute. The plaintiff was engaged in a profitable business in quarrying granite and selling the same to granite workers in Quincy and vicinity. About January, 1899, his customers left him, and his business was ruined through the action of the defendants and their associates.
The defendants were all members of a voluntary association known as the Granite Manufacturers’ Association of Quincy, Massachusetts, and some of them were on the executive committee. The association was composed of “ such individuals, firms, or corporations as are, or are about to become manufacturers, quarriers, or polishers of granite.” There was no constitution and, while there were by-laws, still, except as hereinafter stated,
Acting under the by-laws, the association investigated charges which were made against several of its members that they had purchased granite from a party “ not a member ” of the association. The charges were proved, and under the section above quoted it .was voted that the offending parties should respectively “ contribute to the funds of the association ” the sums named in the votes. These sums ranged from $10 to $100. Only the contribution of $100 has been paid, but it is a fair inference that the proceedings to collect the others have been delayed only by reason of this suit. The party “ not a member ” was the present plaintiff, and the members of the association knew it. • Most of the customers of the plaintiff were members of the association, and after these proceedings they declined to deal with him. This action on their part was due to the course of the association in compelling them _ to contribute as above stated, and to their fear that a similar vote for contribution would be passed should they continue to trade with the plaintiff.
The jury might properly have found also that the euphemistic expression “ shall . . . contribute ” to the funds of the association contained an idea which could be more tersely and accurately expressed by the phrase “ shall pay a fine,” or, in other words, that the plain intent of the section was to provide for the imposition upon those who came within its provisions of a penalty in the nature of a substantial fine. The bill of exceptions recites that “ there was no evidence of threats or intimidation
Here, then, is a clear and deliberate interference with the business of a person with the intention of causing damage to him and ending in that result. The defendants combined and conspired together to ruin the plaintiff in his business, and they accomplished their purpose. In all this have they kept within lawful bounds ?
It is elemental that the unlawfulness of a conspiracy may be found either in the end sought or the means to be used. If either is unlawful within the meaning of the term as applied to the subject, then the conspiracy is unlawful. It becomes necessary, therefore, to examine into the nature of the conspiracy in this case, both as to the object sought and the means used.
The case presents one phase of a general subject which gravely concerns the interests of the business world and indeed those of all organized society, and which in recent years has demanded and received great consideration in the courts and elsewhere. Much remains to be done to clear the atmosphere, but some things at least appear to have been settled, and certainly at this stage of the judicial inquiry it cannot be necessary to enter upon a course of reasoning or to cite authorities in support of the proposition that while a person must submit to competition he has the right to be protected from malicious interference with his business. The rule is well stated in Walker v. Cronin,
In a case like this, where the injury is intentionally inflicted, the crucial question is whether there is justifiable cause for the act. If the injury be inflicted without just cause or excuse, then it is actionable. Bowen, L. J. in Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, 23 Q. B. D. 598, 613. Plant v. Woods, 176 Mass. 492. The justification must be as broad as the act and must cover not only the motive and the purpose, or in other words the object sought, but also the means used.
The defendants contend that both as to object and means they are justified by the law applicable to business competition. In considering this defence it is to be remembered, as was said by Bowen, L. J. in Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, 23 Q. B. D. 598, 611, that there is presented “ an apparent conflict or antinomy between two rights that are equally regarded by the ]aw — the right of the plaintiffs to be protected in the legitimate exercise of their trade, and the right of the defendants to carry on their business as seems best to them, provided they commit no wrong to others.” Here, as in most cases where there is a conflict between two important principles, either of which is sound and to be sustained within proper bounds, but each of which must finally yield to some extent to the other, it frequently is not possible by a general formula to mark out the dividing line with reference to every conceivable case, and it is not wise to attempt it. The best and only practicable course is to consider the cases as they arise, and, bearing in mind the grounds upon which the soundness of each principle is supposed to rest, by a process of elimination and comparison to establish points through
While the purpose to injure the plaintiff appears clearly enough, the object or motive is left somewhat obscure upon the evidence. The association had no written constitution, and the by-laws do not expressly set forth its objects. It is true that from the by-laws it appears that none but persons engaged in the granite business can be members, and that a member transacting any business of this kind with a person not a member is liable to a fine; from which it may be inferred that it is the idea of the members that for the protection of their business it would be well to confine it to transactions among themselves, and that one at least of the objects of the association is to advance the interests of the members in that way. The oral testimony tends to show that one object of the association is to see that agreements made between its members and their employees and between this association and similar associations in the same line of business be kept and “ lived up to.” Whether this failure to set out fully in writing the objects is due to any reluctance to have them clearly appear, or to some other cause, is of course not material to this case. The result, however, is that its objects do not so clearly appear as might be desired ; but in view of the conclusion to which we have come as to the means used, it is not necessary to inquire more closely as to the objects. It may be assumed that one of the objects was to enable the members to compete more successfully with others in the same business, and that the acts of which the plaintiff complains were,, done for the ultimate protection and advancement of their own business interests, with no intention or desire to injure the plaintiff except so far as such injury was the necessary result of measures taken for their own interests. If that was true, then so far as respects the end sought the conspiracy does not seem to have been illegal.
The next question is whether there is anything unlawful or wrongful in the means used as applied to the acts in question. Nothing need be said in support of the general right to compete. To what extent combination may be allowed in competition is a matter about, which there is as yet much conflict, but it is possible that in a more advanced stage of the discussion the day
ItTs a right, however, which is to be exercised with reference to the existence of a similar right on the part of others. The trader has not a free lance. Fight he may, but as a soldier, not as a guerilla. The right of competition rests upon the doctrine that the interests of the great public are best subserved by permitting the general and natural laws of business to have their full and free operation, and that this end is best attained when
But from the very nature of the case it is manifest that the right of competition furnishes no justification for an act done by the use of means which in their nature are in violation of the principle upon which it rests. The weapons used by the trader who relies upon this right for justification must be those furnished by the laws of trade, or at least must not be inconsistent with their free operation. Ho man can justify an interference with another man’s business through fraud or misrepresentation, nor by intimidation, obstruction or molestation. In the case before us the members of the association were to be held to the policy of refusing to trade with the plaintiff by the imposition of heavy fines, or in other words they were coerced by actual or threatened injury to their property. It is true that one may leave the association if he desires, but if he stays in it he is subjected to the coercive effect of a fine to be determined and enforced by the majority. This method of procedure is arbitrary and- artificial, and is based in no respect upon the grounds upon which competition in business is permitted, but on the contrary it creates a motive for business action inconsistent with that freedom of choice out of which springs the benefit of competition to the public, and has no natural or logical relation to the grounds upon which the right to compete is based. Such a method of influencing a person may be coercive and illegal. Carew v. Rutherford, 106 Mass. 1.
Hor is the nature of the coercion changed by the fact that the persons fined were members of the association. The words of Munson, J. in Boutwell v. Marr, 71 Vt. 1, 9, are applicable here : “ The law cannot be compelled by any initial agreement
In view of the considerations upon which the right of competition is based, we are of opinion that as against the plaintiff the defendants have failed to show that the coercion or intimidation of the plaintiff’s customers by means of a fine is justified by the law of competition. The ground of the justification is not broad enough to cover the acts of interference in their entirety, and the interference, being injurious and unjustifiable, is unlawful.
We do not mean to be understood as saying that a fine is of itself necessarily, or even generally, an illegal instrument. In many cases it is so slight as not to be coercive in its nature ; in many it serves a useful purpose to call the attention of a member of an organization to the fact of the infraction of some innocent regulation; and in many it serves as an extra incentive to the performance of some absolute duty or the assertion of some absolute right. But where, as in the case before us, the fine is so large as to amount to moral intimidation or coercion, and is used as a means to enforce a right not absolute in its nature but conditional, and is inconsistent with the conditions upon which the right rests, then the coercion becomes unjustifiable and taints with illegality the act.
The defendants strongly rely upon Bowen v. Matheson, 14 Allen, 499, Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, [1892] A. C. 25, Bohn Manuf. Co. v. Hollis, 54 Minn. 223, Macauley Brothers v.
For the reasons above stated, a majority of the court are of opinion that the case should have been submitted to the jury.
Exceptions sustained.