INJUNCTIONS WITHOUT T-H
FORKOSCH, MORRIS D.
Injunctions Without T-H By MORRIS D. FORKOSCH (Second o/ two articles) THE FOUR TYPES of injunction discussed in my previous article are the only ones obtainable under the Taft-Hartley Act...
...the board had reported...
...Here President Truman had appointed a board of inquiry under the "national health or safety" clauses of the Act...
...The first Lewis contempt case occurred in the fall of 1946, before the Taft-Hartley Act became a law in June 1947...
...This' showcause injunction is the only one involved in these recent proceedings, just as in the 1948 case...
...In other words, the inherent power of a court to issue a temporary restraining order, regardless of the ultimate decision on the question of its power or jurisdiction to hear or determine the case itself, is upheld, and the 1932 Norris-La Guard ia Anti-Injunction Act is no bar to a contempt citation...
...For an alleged violation of this bhew-cause court injunction the United Mine Workers was cited for contempt...
...Although the government (Jan appeal the civil contempt denial, It still ha: the Taft-Hartley injunction request tt be passed upon...
...The third Lewis contempt case in February-March 1950, is exactly similar to the second 1948 one, but one factual change precluded a Lewis fine...
...Navy Captain Collisson, who administered the mines for the government, denied this and later brought suit to have the court declare Lewis could not alone breach such agreement...
...he expressly 'differentiated the present contempt from the 1948 one by saying that while in the latter case there had been proof that the union had made no attempt to restore normal production, now such proof had been shown and the union's good faith and actions had not been impugned sufficiently to support a finding of either civil or criminal contempt...
...This court injunction is not the Taft-Hartley one for which the government is petitioning, but its legal purpose is to maintain the status quo of the parties until the government's application for a Taft-Hartley injunction has been determined...
...Regardless of the merits of the basic suit or the incidental relief requested, the Supreme Court decision of March 1947 upheld the lower federal court's power in the first instance to determine these questions and to issue the temporary restraining order for violation of which Lewis was adjudged guilty...
...In 1948 the unresolved difficulties over the operation of the fund resulted in a Presidential Order on March 23 creating a board of inquiry under the Taft-Hartley Act...
...Morris D. Forkosch...
...This Taft-Hartley injunction, legally obtainable, probably will not be sought because of the contract settlement...
...This error of law and fact was pointed out by this writer in a letter to the Times giving the beckground just developed and stressing that the injunction was issued by the court and not under the Taft-Hartley Act, although in a Taft-Hartley proceeding...
...Since the AttorneyGeneral is theoretically still under a Presidential order to obtain such n Taft-Hartley injunction, it may require a Presidential directive to stop further proceedings...
...and then the President had directed the AttorneyGeneral to petition the District of Columbia District Court for an injunction...
...Thus it was under this inherent court power that the Attorney-General obtained a show-cause temporary court injunction on February 11, 1950, good only until the federal district court passed upon the requested Taft-Hartley preliminary injunction...
...Since the trial on this narrow question showed no attempt had been made to restore normal production, the Court of Apeals affirmed the contempt fine and the Supreme Court refused to grant an appeal (certiorari), undoubtedly because its first Lewis decision was, in theory, a sufficient answer now...
...Finally, although not connected with the Taft-Hartley Act, private litigant...
...To this point (tie 4050 case follows"indentk-ally the 1948 one, except that Judge Keeeh, on March 2, 1950, held against the government and said the UMW had not been guilty of either civil or criminal contempt...
...Lewis was held to have disobeyed this order and the appeal involved "only the narrow question whether people must obey a temporary order isued by a court which seeks to maintain conditions until it can determine its authority in the dispute...
...Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, was a pseeecusor in the war crimes trials in Japan...
...Debs was convicted of a contempt of court and sent to jail for a violation of the exceedingly broad permanent injunction obtained by the United States against him...
...On April S President Truman directed the Attorney-General to petition for a TaftHartley injunction, which the latter did, and also requested and obtained a temporary restraining order in its application (as was likewise done in the 1950 situation below...
...may seek injunctions under the equitable powers of the federal courts (ua was the case in the temporary restraining orders above), but they are subject to the provisions of the 1932 NorrisLaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act, which denies jurisdiction to the federal courts in certain types of labor disputes and in others sets forth a procedure involving notice, hearing, findings, etc., which must be followed before any injunction may issue...
...15 of a prior 1945 agreement permitting this procedure...
...As part of the show-cause order, and issued solely at the discretion of the court, there may be contained a court injunction clause, also called a temporary restraining order...
...Simultaneously, and incidental to the suit, Collisson requested a temporary restraining order (also preliminary injunctive relief in advance of the trial) which the court granted without notice to Lewis.' (This type of restraining order was again used in the 1948 and 1950 situations discussed below...
...THIS DISTINCTION is at times either blurred or mieundei stood by many people...
...THE SECOND LEWIS contempt case involved the Taft-Hartley Act and began with the July 7, 1947, coal agreement which created a welfare and retirement fund...
...In the famous Debs case, in 1894-5, the U. S. Supreme Court upheld the power of the Federal Government to prevent private interference with those functions necessary for its existence or which have been committed .to it and, although this case has been condemned and challenged, it has never been reversed...
...There the United States held and operated the coal mines when Lewis gave written notice to Interior Secretary Krug of a desire for a conference, claiming the May 1946 Lewis-Krug agreement embodied Sec...
...Injunctions Without T-H By MORRIS D. FORKOSCH (Second o/ two articles) THE FOUR TYPES of injunction discussed in my previous article are the only ones obtainable under the Taft-Hartley Act But they are not the only ones obtainable through other procedures...
...Even such a well-informed paper as the New York Times, in its lead editorial of March 8, 1950, commented on "the fact that his (Lewis'] union has just succeeded in defying an injunction issued under the Taft-Hartley Act...
...Lewis challenged the power and jurisdiction of the court to issue this temporary restraining order...
...The method adopted by the AttorneyGeneral was to obtain "a rule (order) to show cause," which is a court order directing those mentioned therein to appear and give reasons why a TaftHartley injunction should not be issued...
Vol. 33 • March 1950 • No. 12
