220 Miss. 317 | Miss. | 1954
The appellee union is the bargaining agent for approximately 400 employees of appellant company. On July 21, 1952, a collective bargaining agreement between these parties expired, and, negotiations for a renewal thereof having been unsuccessful, the employees went on strike and the plant was closed and picketed. On November 3, 1952, no new agreement having been made between the parties, the company filed its bill of complaint against the union and ten of its individual members, including its officers and members of its bargaining committee, charging mass picketing, intimidation and threats of violence against the employees who desired to return to work without a collective bargaining contract, and also charging that the defendants had by threats, coercion and intimidation prevented common carriers from removing from the company’s plant shipments of its products which had been billed out for transportation in interstate commerce, and that as a result thereof the company’s business was being irreparably damaged. The bill prayed for a temporary injunction restraining the defendants from mass picketing and from coercion, intimidation and violence or abuse of the company’s employees who might desire to enter its plant and also from threatening, intimidating, coercing, abusing and
On the day of the filing of the .bill of complaint a hearing was had before the chancellor without notice, at which hearing sworn testimony was given to support the allegations .of the bill, and an order was entered directing the issuance of the injunction as prayed .for upon the giving of bond in the sum of $7,500.00. Bond was given and approved and the injunction was issued on the same daté, returnable to the December, 1952, rules. No answer was filed at the regular February, 1953, term of the chancery court, the strike being still in progress. On March 27, 1953, a new collective bargaining contract was entered into, the pickets were removed from'the plant, and the employees returned to work. At the April, 1953, regular term of court the defendants filed an answer to the bill, which was twenty days after the strike had ended and the employees had returned to work. Two days thereafter, the defendants filed a motion to dissolve the temporary injunction, together with a suggestion of damages. A hearing was had on the motion about a week later, at which hearing the special chancellor then acting entered an order dissolving the injunction and awarding damages against the company and the sureties on its injunction bond in the amount of $3,075.12, from which action this appeal is prosecuted.
The court reporter’s transcript shows all that transpired when the motion to dissolve was called up for hearing, and, since counsel are not agreed as to what did occur, we shall set. out briefly what the transcript shows. The special chancellor stated that it is his understanding that when a temporary injunction has been granted and an answer has been filed denying the material allegations of the bill of complaint, that the answer, plus the motion,' requires the complainant to prove by evidence the truthfulness of the allegations
There is considerable argument in the briefs, - each party contending that the other should have gone forward at the hearing with proof as to the allegations of the bill. The bill states good cause for the issuance of the temporary injunction and it is undisputed that the regular chancellor heard sworn testimony in support of those allegations before directing the clerk to issue the injunction.
Our own Court has followed the rule for which appellants contend in the case of Rickets v. Rickets, 152 Miss. 792, 806-807, 119 So. 194, wherein we said: “On the hearing of a motion to dissolve, the burden of proof is on the movant to establish the grounds for dissolution. 32 C. J. 426, Section 731. Appellant seems to concede that to be the general rule,.but-contends that it does not apply here, because the injunction granted in this case was on the ex parte application by appellee. Appellant’s position is that, where the injunction has been granted on a hearing of both parties, there is sound reason for the application of the rule that the burden of proof is on the movant to dissolve his injunction, because, in such a case, the complainant has the
At the time of the hearing in April, 1953, the cause for issuance of the injunction had been' removed by subsequent events. In such a situation, the general rule is stated in 43 C. J. S., p. 1056, Injunctions, Section 281 b, as follows: “To authorize the recovery of damages, the issuance of the injunction must have been wrongful in its inception, or at least it must have been continued owing to some wrong on the part of the plaintiff. If rightfully awarded, but afterward properly dissolved, because of matters done or arising subsequent to its issuance, there can be no recovery of damages.” To the same effect is 32 C. J., p. 435, note 99.
The decree will therefore be affirmed insofar as the temporary injunction was thereby dissolved, but it will be reversed insofar as it awarded damages upon such dissolution, and judgment will be here entered denying the recovery of damages.
Affirmed in part, and reversed in part and judgment here.