NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. DEENA ARTWARE, INC., ET AL.
No. 46
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Argued December 8, 1959.—Decided February 23, 1960.
361 U.S. 398
James G. Wheeler argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Mervin N. Bachman, Thomas J. Marshall, Jr. and Sidney R. Zatz.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
This litigation has been long and drawn out and the present case is merely a small segment of it. In 1949 petitioner found that respondent Deena Artware, Inc. (Artware), had violated the National Labor Relations Act, 61 Stat. 136,
It appears that Weiner, one of the respondents, created a series of corporations, at the top of which was Deena Products, Inc. (Products), an Illinois corporation. Beneath it was a group of subsidiaries—formed under Kentucky law—Artware, Deena of Arlington, Inc., Sippi Products Co., Inc., and Industrial Realty Co., Inc.—all of whose shares, except for qualifying shares, were owned
Artware in 1949 gave Products a promissory note secured by a mortgage on Artware‘s property, allegedly for advances made. In 1952 Artware made an assignment to Products in partial satisfaction of its indebtedness. In 1953 the Board applied to the Court of Appeals for an order restraining that assignment. It also asked for an order of discovery, alleging that the affairs of Products and Artware were being conducted in such a way as to dissipate Artware‘s assets and to avoid making the back wage payments. The court denied these motions, holding that, until the amount of back pay was liquidated and payment of the fixed sum refused, there was no warrant for granting that relief (207 F. 2d 798), the court adding that if upon liquidation of Artware “any financial inability” on its part to pay the awards was shown to be “the result of improper actions on its part in the meantime, appropriate contempt action can then be taken.” Id., at 802.
At that time, the Board had not issued an order determining the specific amounts of back pay owed the individual employees. In 1955—nearly two years later—it made that determination and entered an order, directing payment of back pay totaling about $300,000; and the Court of Appeals ordered Artware, “its officers, agents, successors and assigns” to pay that amount to specified employees. 228 F. 2d 871. That was on December 16, 1955.
In 1957 the Board moved the Court of Appeals for discovery, inspection, and depositions, naming Artware, Weiner, Products, and the other subsidiaries of Products.
On August 20, 1958, the Board petitioned the Court of Appeals to hold Artware, Weiner, Products and the other subsidiaries in civil contempt for failure to pay the amounts due employees under the back pay order. On October 11, 1958, the Board renewed its motion for discovery, inspection, and the taking of depositions from Artware, the affiliated corporations, and Weiner and other officers of these corporations.
In its petition the Board made charges of dealings between these corporations and between them and Weiner occurring from 1949 to 1955 which, it maintained, showed both (1) fraud and wrongdoing for the purpose of frustrating the back pay order and (2) the operation of these various corporations “as a single enterprise,” each of the corporations performing “a particular function, as a department or division of the one enterprise in the manufacture, sale and distribution of the common product.” The allegations (which are summarized in the opinion below, 261 F. 2d 503, 506-507) need not be repeated here, as the Court of Appeals merely held that, although the enforcement order was entered July 30, 1952, it was not made specific as to amounts owed until December 16, 1955. It, therefore, concluded that prior to the latter date the decree was “not sufficiently definite and mandatory to serve as the basis for contempt proceedings.” Id., at 510. It, therefore, dismissed the Board‘s petition for adjudication in civil contempt. It also denied the Board‘s motion for discovery, inspection, and depositions. 261 F. 2d 503, 510. The case is here on a petition for certiorari, 359 U. S. 983, which we granted in order to consider the
The Court of Appeals dismissed the petition without considering the second group of allegations made by the Board, viz., that these various corporations were in fact “a single enterprise.” And it denied the motion for discovery even as it pertained to that alternative theory of liability. It may have done so because it thought that the issues tendered in the petition related solely to intercompany transactions alleged to be conveyances in fraud of creditors or preferences in favor of some creditors. That seemed to be its preoccupation, as is evident by its references to possible causes of action under Kentucky law to set those transactions aside. Id., at 509.
We do not stop to consider what would be a proper formulation of a rule of law governing liability in contempt for frustration of a decree. The Court of Appeals may have considered the transactions and assignments as if they were made between separate and distinct corporations. If they are viewed in that light, we cannot say they are so colorable as to warrant us in reversing the Court of Appeals. But we think the Board is entitled to show that these separate corporations are not what they appear to be, that in truth they are but divisions or departments of a “single enterprise.” That is the alternative theory of liability which the Court of Appeals did not consider. We think that the Board is entitled to a hearing on that alternative theory and to discovery in aid of it.
The question whether the corporations under Weiner‘s ownership were only departments or divisions in one single enterprise is in a different category than those that arise under either 13 Eliz. or the modern law of preferences. Whether one corporation is liable for the obligations of an affiliate turns on other considerations. The insulation of
We do not intimate an opinion on the merits of this alternative theory of liability. The authorities we have cited merely indicate the range of inquiry which the petition of the Board presented. Discovery is useful in determining what the facts are. It is, indeed, necessary to determine whether the decree of the court enforcing the Board‘s order should run to any of the affiliated corporations or their stockholders. When the facts are resolved, it will be time enough to consider what further enforcement decree, if any, would be appropriate.6
The petition should be reinstated insofar as it charges the existence of “a single enterprise,” and the motion for discovery should be granted so that the Board will have an opportunity to prove those allegations.
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, whom MR. JUSTICE HARLAN joins, concurring in reversal on the grounds herein stated.
Due regard for the controlling facts in this case will lay bare their legal significance. This requires that the facts, and the procedural setting in which they are to be considered, be stated with particularity.
The respondents are an individual and several corporations. The individual respondent, one Weiner, is the sole stockholder, except for qualifying shares, of Deena Products (Products), an Illinois corporation engaged in the
Artware was organized by Products in 1946, and shortly thereafter acquired a factory for the production of lamp bases at Paducah, Kentucky. In 1947 construction was undertaken, allegedly by Products, of a lamp assembly plant adjacent to the Artware plant at Paducah. At about the same time the labor dispute arose which led to the Labor Board orders underlying this proceeding. On October 25, 1949, Artware was found by the Board to have violated
The Board then petitioned the Court of Appeals for an injunction against payment of a part of the judgment Artware had recovered against the union, alleging that Artware had undertaken to render itself unable to pay any back pay in the amounts which the Board was authorized to fix by virtue of the court‘s order of July 30, 1952. The Court of Appeals refused the injunction primarily upon the ground that the definite amount of back pay owing under its order had not yet been determined by the Board. The court noted that if, after such determination, it appeared that Artware had acted improperly, the court could deal with the matter in contempt proceedings. 207 F. 2d 798.
As a result of the proceedings to fix the amount of back pay, the Board, by an order of April 21, 1955, directed Artware to pay the back pay it owed various employees in specified amounts totaling about $300,000. 112 N. L. R. B. 371. This order was sustained by the Court of Appeals. 228 F. 2d 871. On a showing that Artware was entirely without assets, had ceased operations on April 24, 1953, and had, on November 24, 1954, transferred all its assets to Products, purportedly in satisfaction of a mortgage, the Board sought a discovery order in the Court of Appeals to inquire into the disposition of Artware‘s assets. The Board proceeded on the assumption that discovery would reveal facts requiring payment of Artware‘s back-pay debt by the companies affiliated with it. Discovery was denied (one judge dissenting). 251 F. 2d 183. The court‘s ground for denying discovery was, surprisingly enough, that the Board should first test the legal sufficiency of a complaint charg-
The Board‘s petition charged that pursuant to a plan to frustrate the award of back pay against Deena Artware, conceived by Weiner during or shortly after the dispute with the union and carried out by him through exercise of his control of Products and all its subsidiaries, all of the assets of Artware were systematically transferred to Products and its other subsidiaries for the purpose of rendering Artware unable to pay any back-pay order that might thereafter be enforced against it. It alleged that acts in pursuance of that plan occurred after, and therefore in contempt of, the decree of the Court of Appeals which was entered on July 30, 1952. All of the acts alleged in pursuance of the plan occurred before the entry of the 1955 decree affirming the Board‘s order to pay specific amounts. The Board charged that Weiner and Products prevented Artware from showing any operating profits and thereby from accumulating assets in the ordinary course of its business, by causing Artware to lower the price at which it sold urns to Products, so that Artware showed losses while Products made substantial profits; and that Weiner and Products caused Artware to issue notes, secured by mortgages on all of its assets, to Products, for which Artware received nothing in return, in order that Artware‘s assets could be, as they were, transferred to Products after Artware was adjudicated liable to pay back pay. The Board alleged the following:
1. Early in 1948, after Artware, under Weiner‘s direction, had committed the unfair labor practices so found by the Board, Products began to treat the new assembly plant construction at Paducah adjacent to Artware‘s plant as if it had been undertaken by Artware, and not, as was
2. Products thereafter made further use of its purported shift of the Paducah construction to Deena Artware. About October 31, 1949, a few days after the Board issued its order directing, inter alia, that Artware pay back pay, Products and Weiner caused Artware to execute a note to Products in the amount of $75,459.65, payable within five years, and secured by a mortgage on all the real and personal property of Artware, purportedly in return for advances by Products for the construction at Paducah, despite the fact that the construction had been abandoned more than a year before, and had been undertaken not by Artware, but by Products. A second note, similarly secured, was issued about September 19, 1952, in the amount of $5,797.74. On November 24, 1954, after the Court of Appeals’ first enforcement order of July 30, 1952, but before the Board‘s fixation of the amounts due on April 21, 1955, Weiner and Products caused Artware to transfer to Products all of its assets in satisfaction of these mortgages. In December 1952 Products and Weiner also caused Artware to assign to Products part of the proceeds of the judgment Artware had recovered against the union, as additional security for its obligations to Products. In January 1954, $19,320.97 of Artware‘s recovery was received by Products, the remainder having been assigned to Artware‘s counsel in payment of attorney‘s fees.
3. Beginning about March 1949, after the hearing on the Board‘s complaint against Artware, Products and Weiner caused Artware to lower its prices to Products,
4. About April 24, 1953, Products and Weiner caused Artware to cease all operations. From that time until November 24, 1954, Products and Sippi used Artware‘s plant premises, facilities and properties at Paducah, without payment to Artware, and Products obtained from Sippi the supplies it had formerly secured from Artware. On November 24, 1954, Products and Weiner caused Artware to transfer all its assets to Products in satisfaction of its obligations which then, with accrued interest (at 6% payable semi-annually, but not theretofore paid), totaled $105,000, leaving, as Artware‘s sole unsatisfied obligation, the back-pay order. Thereafter Sippi continued to use the Artware facilities, title to which, about May 4, 1955, Products caused to be transferred to the newly created subsidiary, Industrial. About November 17, 1955, Products and Weiner caused Industrial to lease the facilities formally to Sippi; and since December 1, 1955, Sippi has operated the Artware facilities in the same manner and to the same end as did Artware formerly.
The Court of Appeals, on respondents’ motion, dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cause of action, and denied the Board‘s accompanying motion for discovery. It held that since its order of July 30, 1952, in affirming the Board‘s determination of liability for back pay which the Board had not yet individualized, did not specify the exact monetary amount which Artware owed its various employees, it was “not sufficiently definite and mandatory” to sustain an adjudication of contempt. The basis of this conclusion was not a construction by the court of the special terms of its own decree. This was in terms the order entered by the Board. The court applied what it believed to be a general principle of law that an enforcement decree of a Board order determining liability for back pay, but leaving for a later stage
The respondents urge in support of the decision below that after the 1952 decree Artware was entitled to a further administrative hearing to determine whether the conduct of the named employees after their wrongful discharge disentitled them to recover, and that despite the 1952 decree it might therefore ultimately be determined that Artware was not in fact obligated to make any payment whatever. It follows, the argument runs, that since the Board‘s 1952 order did not purport to adjudicate a liability free of defenses to make back-pay payments, it could not, for purposes of such payments, be considered final. Accordingly, the 1952 decree which in terms enforced it could not embody a final mandate concerning the payments, disobedience of which could constitute contempt.2
The Board concedes that the 1952 decree having been entered before any determination of specific amounts owing, it did not direct present payment to be made, and that respondent Artware could not be held in contempt for failure to make payment before the entry of the 1955 decree. But it urges that the 1952 decree could and did impose an immediate and definite obligation upon Artware not to design and execute a plan for the very purpose of disabling itself from obeying the decree which had definitively adjudicated its obligation to pay whatever would be found to be the dollar-and-cents amount of its theretofore established liability. If the allegations in the petition for contempt are sustained by proof, there can
The vital question of the legal implications of enforcement of a Board order rendered in an unfair labor practice proceeding directing reinstatement and payment of back pay, was the sole question dealt with in the opinion below. It was the primary issue between the parties here. It is the issue for our decision. The Board‘s procedure in unfair labor practice cases is first to hold a hearing to determine whether an unfair labor practice was committed, and, if it was, whether it would “effectuate the policies” of the Act for the Board to order reinstatement with back pay of any employees who were discharged.
It will not do to hold that because the Board‘s determination of the duty to make back-pay payments does not result in fixed money judgments, no final order with regard to back pay is in fact entered or enforced. The Board is not, as respondents suggest, merely the statutory
It is plainly within that area of discretion for the Board to order an employer who is found to have violated
It is further urged, however, that even if power exists in the Board and the courts to enter and enforce such an order of liability for back pay in amounts to be ascertained, the 1952 decree contained no such direction. But the decree on its face is an exercise of the equity power to act in personam to direct a specific course of conduct. To fail to accord it at least the implied effect of a direction not to act solely for the purpose of defeating it, makes of the decree less than a brutum fulmen and transmutes it into a mockery. The Board‘s determinations are not merely administrative analogues of common-law judgments, and they do not purport to be. As here, they uniformly contain a specific direction to take “affirmative action.” In enforcing the Board‘s orders the Courts of Appeals similarly act not merely to review a common-law judgment, but to “effectuate the policies” of the National Labor Relations Act by enforcement orders directing that action be taken to remove the unfair labor practice found to exist. Every affirmative order in equity carries with it the implicit command to refrain from action designed to defeat it. Such an implication may arise from the mere assumption of jurisdiction as to specific property. See Merrimack River Savings Bank v. Clay Center, 219 U. S. 527, 535-536. Here, although specific property is not involved, the 1952 order was more than an assumption of jurisdiction. It adjudicated a liability to redress the consequences of a discriminatory discharge. Implicit in that adjudication, and the direction to pay in which it was embodied, was the command to the respondent Deena Artware not to conduct its business and transfer
On the Board‘s allegations there can be no doubt of the liability of some or all of the other respondents in contempt. Weiner, Products and the subsidiaries are alleged to have been active participants in a deliberate scheme to frustrate enforcement of Artware‘s liability established by the 1952 decree. The alleged “relations and behaviors” of the several respondents are sufficient to bring them within the terms of Rule 65 (d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See Regal Knitwear Co. v. Labor Board, 324 U. S. 9, 14-15.
Accordingly, the petition for contempt should have been sustained, and an appropriate motion for discovery