112 P. 886 | Cal. | 1910
Lead Opinion
This action was brought by plaintiff against the named defendant and six other lumber companies, to obtain an injunction restraining and enjoining them from conspiring and combining together to vex, annoy, hinder, injure, and destroy the hospital business of plaintiff. The scheme of annoyance and destruction consisted in this: The defendants compelled every employee to consent to the deduction of one dollar from his monthly wage, twelve and one-half cents of which went into a contingent fund to help needy employees who might be injured and eighty-seven and a half cents of which went to a hospital for an employee's ticket. This ticket entitled the employee to medical and surgical care and attendance in case of injury. The hospital could be selected by the employee from a list of three or four presented to him, but the Union Labor Hospital was not mentioned and was not on the list. These facts form the foundation of the charge of malicious and willful conspiracy, combination, and boycott designed to vex, annoy, hinder, injure, and destroy the plaintiff's business, and coerce and intimidate its patrons and customers, to ruin its credit, and to prevent it from selling its bonds, etc. There was no issue over the question of what these defendants were doing. The court found, generally, in favor of the allegations of the complaint, found that the defendant companies derived a benefit from the existing hospital arrangement and the fund created by the twelve and a half cents taken out of the monthly hospital dues of each employee, since thus they were relieved of the burden of caring for indigent and injured employees. The court also found that the relations existing between the defendants and the agents of plaintiff were of such a nature that the defendants were justified in not entering into an agreement with the Union Labor *553 Hospital, such as existed between the defendants and the other hospitals upon their list. And the court also found that the defendants, in entering into the agreement with the other hospitals, were acting solely for the purpose and with the intent to subserve their own (defendants') interests.
The defendants were all companies engaged in lumbering and milling in Humboldt County. The occupations of their men were dangerous. That provision should be made for the medical and surgical care of the men injured was most proper. No objection is made to this, nor to the means adopted to effectuate it, saving that plaintiff contends that because its hospital was not upon the list and because the employees were compelled to take out hospital tickets in one or another of the enumerated hospitals, a species of unlawful discrimination by the defendants against the plaintiff was thus established, a discrimination which it is urged and which the court found was an illegal boycott, against the continuance of which defendants were enjoined.
It is important to understand exactly what these defendants were doing. Essentially it was this: By agreement amongst themselves they selected a list of hospitals, of which plaintiff's was not one. By agreement amongst themselves, for their own protection and for the betterment of the condition of their men, they required of the men, as a condition of obtaining employment, or as a condition of remaining in employment, that they should assent to a deduction from their monthly wages of eighty-seven and a half cents, which should be given to a hospital of the employee's own selection taken from the list presented. These defendants did not go so far as to discharge or even to threaten to discharge an employee who might buy a ticket entitling him to the service of the plaintiff's hospital. They insisted merely that he buy a ticket in one of their designated hospitals. An employee was at liberty to buy an additional ticket in plaintiff's hospital, but, in the nature of things, an employee having purchased a ticket in another hospital, would not be likely to lay out any more money for such a purpose.
There being no contractual relations between plaintiff and defendants, the defendants, individually or in combination, were under a duty only to refrain from inflicting a legal wrong upon plaintiff. The finding of the court is that defendants in *554
making their agreements with the Sequoia, St. Francis, Marine View, and Trinity hospitals were acting solely for the purpose and with the intent to subserve their own interests. But if this were not so, and their purpose were to injure the business of plaintiff, nevertheless, unless they adopted illegal means to that end, their conduct did not render them amenable to the law, for an evil motive which may inspire the doing of an act not unlawful will not of itself make the act unlawful. (Parkinson v.Building Trades Council,
We are unable to perceive where any element of monopoly enters into this consideration, as respondent contends. Defendants had the undoubted right to deal with any hospital which they might select. In fact they are dealing with four, and they are not even prohibiting their men from engaging the services of plaintiff. We repeat, that since the acts of defendants are within their legal rights, the motive for those acts is not a subject of inquiry. "To entitle a plaintiff to recover, there must be a wrong done. `No one is a wrongdoer but he who does what the law does not allow.' He who does what the law allows cannot be a wrongdoer whatever his motive. `So no one is guilty of a fraud, because he exerts his rights.' The motive which may induce such exertion is immaterial." (Heywood v. Tillson,
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.
Lorigan, J., and Melvin, J., concurred.
Hearing in Bank denied.
In denying a hearing in Bank, the following opinion was filed by Beatty, C.J., on December 20, 1910: —
Addendum
In response to the petition for a rehearing of this cause I desire to say that, while concurring in the judgment of reversal, I find some expressions in the opinion of Justice Henshaw which I deem unnecessary to the conclusion of the court, and which, if not absolutely inconsistent with my views, as expressed in the case of Parkinson v. Building Trades Council,
"The direct object or purpose of a combination furnishes the primary test of its legality. It is not every injury inflicted upon third persons in its operation that renders the combination unlawful. It is not enough to establish illegality in an agreement between certain persons, to show that it works harm to others. An agreement entered into for the primary purpose of promoting the interest of the parties is not rendered illegal by the fact that it may incidentally injure third persons. Conversely, an agreement entered into for the primary purpose of injuring another is not rendered legal by the fact that it may incidentally benefit the parties. As a general rule it may be stated that, when the chief object of a combination is to injure or oppress third persons, it is a conspiracy; but that when such injury or oppression is merely incidental to the carrying out of a lawful purpose, it is not a conspiracy. Stated in another way: A combination entered *559 into for the real malicious purpose of injuring a third person in his business or property may amount to a conspiracy and furnish a ground of action for the damages sustained, or call for an injunction, even though formed for the ostensible purpose of benefiting its members and actually operating to some extent to their advantage; but a combination without such ulterior oppressive object, entered into merely for the purpose of promoting by lawful means the common interests of its members, is not a conspiracy."
This doctrine, however, cannot avail the respondent here as the case is presented by the record, for although it is found by the trial judge that the defendants without any interests of their own to subserve, or any lawful object to promote did conspire and confederate together for the purpose of unlawfully injuring the plaintiff in the manner alleged in the complaint, it is also found, as shown in the opinion of the court, that the agreement with the four favored hospitals was entered into by the defendants solely for the purpose and with the intent to subservetheir own interests. These two findings appear to me to stand in absolute and irreconcilable opposition to each other and the result is no finding at all upon a point essential to the validity of the judgment, which must therefore be reversed.