§ 115. Remedy by Injunction.-It is well settled that any attempt to prevent one person from entering into or continuing in the employment of another by threats or intimidation in any form is unlawful, and where such acts are continuous in their nature, an injunction will issue to restrain them. In a recent case in Massachusetts, the rule was stated by Mr. Justice Allen, as follows: "The act of displaying banners with devices, as a means of threats and intimidation to prevent persons from entering into or continuing in the employment of the plaintiffs, was injurious to the plaintiffs and illegal at common law and by statute. We think that the plaintiffs are not restricted to their remedy by an action at law, but are entitled to relief by injunction. The acts and injury were continuous. The banners were used more than three months before the filing of the plaintiffs' bill, and continued to be used at the time of the hearing. The injury was to the plaintiffs' business, and an adequate remedy could not be given by damages in a suit at law. The wrong is not, as argued by the defendants' counsel, a libel upon the plaintiffs' business. It is not found that the inscription upon the banners were false, nor do they appear to have been in disparagement of the plaintiffs' business. The scheme, in pursuance of which the banners were displayed and maintained, was to injure the plaintiffs' business, not by defaming it to the public, but by intimidating workmen, so as to deter them from keeping or making engagements with the plaintiffs. The banner was a standing menace to all who were or wished to be in the employment of the plaintiffs to deter them from entering the plaintiffs' premises. Maintaining it was a continuous unlawful act, injurious to the plaintiffs' business and property, and was a nuisance such as a court of equity will grant relief against. In its general provisions this rule is 1 Sherry v. Perkins, 147 Mass. 212. See also Boston Diatite Co. v. Florence Mfg. Co., 114 Mass. 69; S. C., 19 Am. Rep. 31; Springhead Spinning Co. v. Riley, L. R. 6 Eq. 551; Prudential Assurance Co. v. Knott, L. R. 10 Ch. 142; Saxby v. applicable to the employes of a railroad company or to trades unions, the members of which are railroad employes, and it is farther modified by the requirement of the interstate commerce act. In the recent leading case of the Gaskin v. Balls, L. R. 13 Ch. D. 324; Hill v. Davies, L. R. 21 Ch. D. 798; Loog v. Bean, L. R. 26 Ch. D. 306; State v. Glidden, 55 Conn. 46; s. C., 3 Am. St. Rep. 23; Gilbert v. Mickle, 4 Sand. Ch. 357. Judge Wood, in U. S. v. Debs, 64 Fed. Rep., at page 745, says: "While, however, the point is not decided, the authorities on the subject have been brought forward so fully because, in part, of their bearing upon the question now to be considered, whether or not the injunction was authorized by the Act of July 2, 1890. It was under that act that the order was asked and granted; but it has been seriously questioned in this proceeding, as well as by an eminent judge, and by lawyers elsewhere, whether the statute is by its terms applicable, or consistently with constitutional guarantees can be applied to cases like this. It is admitted in one of the briefs for the defendant, and the authorities already quoted clearly demonstrates, that were Congress to declare that the United States might maintain a bill to enjoin the obstruction of interstate commerce on railroads engaged therein, where such obstructions amounted to what on a public highway would be a public nuisance, such legislation would be admissible.' Such an act, not going beyond the scope of equity jurisdiction in England at the time when the federal constitution was adopted, it is plain would not be obnoxious to the objection that it was an invasion of the field of criminal law which involved in terference with the right of trial by jury. The jurisdiction of the courts of equity, and by implication their right to punish for contempt, are established by the constitution equally with the right of trial by jury, and so long as there is no attempt to extend jurisdiction over subjects not properly cognizable in equity, there can be no ground for the assertion that the right of jury trial has been taken away or impaired. The same act may constitute a contempt and a crime. But the contempt is one thing, the crime another; and the punishment for one is not a duplication of the punishment of the other. The contempt can be tried and punished only by the court, while the charge of crime can be tried only by a jury." In the Supreme Court in In re Debs, 158 U. S., at page 582, Brewer, J., says: "But passing to the second questlon, is there no other alternative than the use of force on the part of the executive authorities whenever obstructions arise to the freedom of interstate commerce or the transportation of the mails? Is the army the only instrument by which rights of the public can be enforced and the peace of the nation preserved? Grant that any public nuisance may be forcibly abated, either at the instance of the authorities, or by any individual suffering private damage therefrom, the existence of this right of forcible abatement is not inconsistent with, nor does it destroy, the right of appeal in an orderly Toledo, Ann Arbor & Northern Michigan Railway Company v. The Pennsylvania Company, before the United States Circuit Court for the Northern District of Ohio, W. D., it was held that circuit courts of the United States have way to the courts for a judicial determination, and an exercise of their powers by writ of injunction and otherwise to accomplish the same result. In Stamford v. Stamford Horse Railroad Co., 56 Conn. 381, an injunction was asked by the borough to restrain the company from laying down its track in a street of the borough. The right of the borough to forcibly remove the track was insisted upon as a ground for questioning the jurisdiction of a court of equity, but the court sustained the injunction, adding, "And none the less so because of its right to remove the track by force. As a rule, injunctions are denied to those who have an adequate remedy atlaw. Where the choice is between the ordinary and the extraordinary processes of law, and the former are sufficient, the rule will not permit the use of the latter. In some cases of nuisance, and in some cases of trespass, the law permits an individual to abate the one and prevent the other by force, because such permission is necessary to the complete protection of property and person. When the choice is between redress, or prevention of injury by force, and by peaceful process, the law is well pleased if the individual will consent to waive his right to the use of force and await its action. Therefore, as between force and the extraordinary writ of injunction, the rule will permit the latter.' So in the case before us, the right to use force does not exclude the right of appeal to the courts for a judicial determination, and for the exercise of all their powers of prevention. Indeed, it is more to the praise than to the blame of the government that, instead of determining for itself questions of right and wrong on the part of these petitioners and their associates, and enforcing that determination by the club of the policeman and the bayonet of the soldier, it submitted all those questions to the peaceful determination of judicial tribunals, and invoked their consideration and judgment as to the measure of its rights and powers, and the correlative obligations of those against whom it made complaint. And it is equally to the credit of the latter that the judgment of those tribunals was by the great body of them respected, and the troubles which threatened so much disaster terminated." See also People v. Vanderbilt, 28 N. Y. 396; State v. Dayton & S. E. R. R., 36 Ohio St. 434; Springfield v. Connecticut River R. R., 4 Cush. 63; Atty.Gen. v. Woods, 108 Mass. 436; Easton & Amboy R. R. Co. v. Greenwich, 25 N. J. Eq. 565; Stearns Co. v. St. Cloud, M. & A. R. R., 36 Minn. 425; Rio Grande R. R. Co. v. Brownsville, 45 Tex. 88; Philadelphia v. Street Ry. Co., 8 Phila. 648; Atty.-Gen. v. Tudor Ice Co., 104 Mass. 239; Atty.-Gen. v. Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation, 133 Mass. 361; Village of Pine City v. Munch, 42 Minn. 342; State v. Goodnight, 70 Tex. 682. jurisdiction of a bill in equity to restrain violations of the interstate commerce law to the irreparable injury of the complainant, because of the subject-matter, and without regard to the citizenship of the parties. A combination to induce and procure the officers of a common carrier corporation, subject to the provisions of the interstate commerce act, and its locomotive engineers, to refuse to receive, handle and haul interstate freight from another like common carrier in order to injure the latter, is a combination or conspiracy to commit the misdemeanor described by section 10 of the interstate commerce act, and, if any person engaged in it does an act in furtherance thereof, all combining for the purpose are guilty of criminal conspiracy, as denounced by section 5440, Revised Statutes. The injury which will be caused to the common carrier against which such conspiracy is directed will be irreparable, and, in order to prevent this and maintain the status quo until full relief can be granted, a preliminary and temporary mandatory injunction will issue against the company and its employes threatening the injury, restraining them from refusing to afford the proper interchange of interstate freight and traffic facilities to complainant. The employes, while in the employ of the defendant company, must obey this mandatory injunction, but may, without contempt of court, avoid or evade obedience thereto by ceasing to be such employes, otherwise the injunction would, in effect, be an order compelling the employes to continue the relation of servant to the complainant,-a kind of order never yet issued by a court of equity. A preliminary injunction may issue against the chief member of such a conspiracy, as that above described, to restrain him from giving the order and signal which will result, and is intended to result, in the unlawful and irreparable injuries to the complainant. Where such chief member has already issued an unlawful, willful and criminal order, the injurious effect of which will be continuing, the court may by mandatory injunction compel him to rescind the same, especially when the necessary effect of the order or signal is to induce and procure flag rant violations of an injunction previously issued by the court.1 § 116. Statutory Regulations. In many, perhaps in most of the States, there are statutes designed to determine the rights of trades unions in their relations to their employers, and, especially, with reference to strikes. In some of the States, as Arkansas, California, Maine, Tennesse, etc., it has been made a criminal offense to commit any act that is adapted to injure the public health or morals, or that constitutes an obstruction to trade or commerce, or that tends to the perversion of justice or is an obstruction to the orderly and regular administration of the law. In other States, as Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc., statutes have been enacted, the object of which is to restrain trades unions or other combinations from interference with the operations of railroads, or the work of corporations, or with the regular course of business, by firms or individuals. In other States, as Michigan, Rhode Island, etc., it is made a misdemeanor to attempt by force or by any manner of intimidation to prevent any person from entering into or from continuing in any employment. In New Jersey, where it is provided by statute that "it shall not be unlawful for any two or more persons to unite, combine, or bind themselves by oath, covenant, agreement, alliance or otherwise to persuade, advise or encourage, by peaceable means, any person or persons to enter into any combination for or against leaving or entering into the employment of any person or persons or corporations," it was held that under this statute it is not unlawful for the members 1 Toledo, A. A. & N. M. Ry. Co. v. Penna Co., 54 Fed. Rep. 730. Equity will enjoin the publication and circulation of posters, handbills, circulars, etc., printed and circulated in pursuance of a combination to boycott a newspaper. Casey v. Cincinnati Typographical Union No. 3, 45 Fed. Rep. 135. An injunction will not lie to restrain handicraftsmen from combining, and peaceably and without intimidation persuading their fellowworkmen to leave the service of their employers, in order to compel an advance in wages, on the ground that such persuasion invades the constitutional right of the employer to prosecute his business free from unlawful obstruction. Rogers v. Evarts, 17 N. Y. Supl. 264. |