American Federation of Labor v. Swing , 61 S. Ct. 568 ( 1941 )

Mr. Justice Frankfurter

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Milk Wagon Drivers Union v. Meadowmoor Dairies, ante, p. 287, we held that acts of picketing when blended with violence may have a significance which neutralizes the constitutional immunity which such acts would have in isolation. When we took this case, 310 U. S. 620, it seemed to present a similar problem. More thorough study of the record and full argument have reduced the issue to this: is the constitutional guarantee of freedom of discussion infringed by the common law policy of a state forbidding resort to peaceful persuasion through picketing merely because there is no immediate employer-employee dispute?

A union of those engaged in what the record describes as beauty work unsuccessfully tried to unionize Swing’s beauty parlor. Picketing of the shop followed. To en-' join this interference with his business and with the freedom of his workers not to join a union, Swing and his employees began the present suit. In addition, they charged the use of false placards in picketing and forcible behavior towards Swing’s customers. A preliminary injunction was granted. Answers were then filed denying violence as well as falsity of the placards. The union also moved to strike the complaint and the trial court, finding the complaint wanting in equity, granted the motion and dissolved the preliminary injunction. The appellate court, one of Illinois’ intermediate courts of review, held that the trial court was in error. 298 Ill. App. 63; 18 N. E. 2d 258. This action of the appellate court was affirmed by the state supreme court. 372 Ill. 91; 22 N. E. 2d 857. It found that the complaint properly invoked equity for three reasons: (1) there was no dispute between the employer and his immediate employees; (2) the placards were libelous; (3) there were acts of violence. Inasmuch as the supreme court affirmed the issuance merely of a preliminary injunction, we denied certiorari for want of a final judgment. 309 U. S. 659. Thereupon, although as we have seen issue had been formally joined on the claims of libel and violence, the appellate court, by a procedure unrevealed by the record and without opinion, entered a permanent injunction ranging from peaceful persuasion to acts of violence. The decree recited “that this Court and the Supreme Court of this State have held in this case, that, under the law of this State, peaceful picketing or peaceful persuasion are unlawful when conducted by strangers to the employer (i. e., where there is not a proximate relation of employees and employer), and that appellants are entitled in this case to relief by injunction against the threat of such peaceful picketing or persuasion by appellees.” The union sought review of this decree in the supreme court by writ of error. Swing and his employees moved to dismiss the writ because in seeking to obtain it the union had conceded that “all issues of the case have been settled on prior appeal and that the decree entered by the appellate court is in conformity with the mandate issued” to the appellate court. The writ was dismissed.

Such is the case as we extract it from a none too clear record. It thus appears that in passing upon the temporary injunction the supreme court of Illinois sustained it in part because of allegations of violence and libel. But our concern is with the final decree of the appellate court. On its face the permanent injunction in that decree rested on the explicit avowal that “peaceful persuasion” was forbidden in this case because those who were enjoined were not in Swing’s employ. Moreover, as we have seen, the supreme court of Illinois dismissed proceedings before it to review that decree on representations that the decree was in accordance with its mandate on the temporary injunction.

Since the case clearly presents a substantial claim of the right to free discussion and since, as we have frequently indicated, that right is to be guarded with a jealous eye, Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242, 258; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 161; United States v. Carotene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152n., it would be improper to dispose of the case otherwise than on the face of the decree, which is the judgment now under review. We are therefore not called upon to consider the applicability of Milk Wagon Drivers Union v. Meadowmoor Dairies, supra, the circumstances of which obviously present quite a different situation from the controlling allegations of violence and libel made in the present bill.

All that we have before us, then, is an instance of “peaceful persuasion” disentangled from violence and free from “picketing en masse or otherwise conducted” so as to occasion “imminent and aggravated danger.” Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 105. We are asked to sustain a decree which for purposes of this case asserts as the common law of a state that there can be no “peaceful picketing or peaceful'persuasion” in relation to any dispute between an employer and a trade union unless the employer’s own employees are in controversy with him.

Such a ban of free communication is inconsistent with the guarantee of freedom of speech. That a state has ample power to regulate the local problems thrown up by modern industry and to preserve the peace is axiomatic. But not even these essential powers are unfettered by the requirements of the Bill of Rights. The scope of the Fourteenth Amendment is not confined by the notion of a particular state regarding the wise limits of an injunction in an industrial dispute, whether those limits be defined by statute or by the judicial organ of the state. A state cannot exclude workingmen from peacefully exercising the right of free communication by drawing the circle of economic competition between employers and workers so small as to contain only an employer and those directly employed by him. The interdependence of economic interest of all engaged in the same industry has become a commonplace. American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Council, 257 U. S. 184, 209. The right of free communication cannot therefore be mutilated by denying it to workers, in a dispute with an employer, even though they are not in his employ. Communication by such employees of the facts of a dispute, deemed by them to be relevant to their interests, can no more be barred because of concern for the economic interests against which they are seeking to enlist public opinion than could the utterance protected in Thornhill’s case. “Members of a union might, without special statutory authorization by a State, make known the facts of a labor dispute, for freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.” Senn v. Tile Layers Union, 301 U. S. 468, 478.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas concur in the result.