financial loss to its victim may be entirely without remedy either in a court of equity or a court of law. . . Coming now to the facts of the case before this Court, we find, at the beginning of the line of dealers whose right to contract and right to a free market must be recognized, the complainant, a manufacturer and employer of labor, on the one hand, and a free combination of about twenty-five former employees of the complainant on the other. . . . Passing a step further we find the customers of the complainant, the boss carpenters and contractors of Hudson county. . . . The boss carpenters are simply exercising their absolute right to refrain from contracting. Each of the two dealers is free, and each has the full advantage of the freedom of the other. Passing still a step further we come to the employees of the boss carpenters. We have now four parties to the affair in hand. . . . Still we have no case of coercion which can constitute the tort with which we are dealing, because at the very basis of the entire series of transactions which we are examining we find only a free combination of dealers exercising their absolute right to refrain from dealing, so that all inquiry into motives is excluded. . . . Coercion which results, however, directly and intentionally from the exercise of the absolute right to refrain from contracting cannot possibly be a tort, because it violates no legal right. It is a mere incidental result of the assertion and enjoyment of a right. Taking one more step, at last we come to the defendants. If it appeared that these defendants, individually or in free combination, were merely exercising their right to refrain from contracting, then, no matter how damaging to the complainant such conduct might be, no right of the complainant would be violated, and the defendants would be guilty of no tort. I know of no reason why the chain which I have been following up, link by link, might not be indefinitely extended. . . . But, in fact, we have come to the end of the chain, and we find that the powerful coercive force originating there which draws dealers away from the complainant at the other end of the chain is not the voluntary exercise of the right to refrain from contracting. The pull at the far end of the chain is given by the defendant Burgess, the business agent of this powerful labor organization in Hudson county, when he snaps his fingers, and the employees of the boss carpenters against their will are coerced to refrain from renewing their contracts for labor with their employers by the fear of fines, expulsion from their labor unions, social ostracism and poverty. The last question to be considered which is presented by the facts of this case is whether there is any justification shown for the interference with the complainant's market by the coercion exercised upon the employees of the boss carpenters by these defendants or the labor organization which they represent. It may be conceded that the coercion may be justified, and hence may not constitute a violation of anyone's right to a free market, precisely as persuasions and inducements may be justified so that they cannot constitute the tort which consists in causing the breach of a contract. The concrete question in this case is whether these employees of the boss carpenters, by voluntarily joining these labor unions, and subjecting themselves to the by-laws and regulations of these unions, and the control of its officers and agents, deprive the coercion which is exercised upon them of all illegal taint. This is the only question in this case which seemed to me to be open to debate. . . . I certainly do not propose to question the lawfulness of fining or expelling and constantly threatening to fine and expel members of labor unions who disobey the laws to which they have voluntarily subjected themselves. . . . When, however, the threat of fine and expulsion is employed for the purpose of coercing the employees of a large number of different employers to refrain from renewing their contracts for labor in order to coerce all these employers to boycott the complainant, with the ultimate object of coercing the complainant in respect of a matter with which the employees who are first coerced have absolutely no concern whatever, then it seems to me the whole scheme becomes an attack upon the complainant's right to a free market. . . . No justification has been shown in this case. If two thousand five hundred workmen in Hudson county could, by permitting themselves to be organized into labor unions, surrender not only their own right to freedom in respect of making contracts, but also destroy the interest of all other dealers in that freedom, the whole foundation of the right to a free market would be swept away. ... Order for an injunction affirmed. 853. IRON MOULDERS' UNION NO. 125 OF MILWAUKEE v. ALLIS-CHALMERS COMPANY UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS. 1908 166 Fed. 45 APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. For opinion below, see 150 Fed. 155. The appeal is from a final decree in a strike injunction suit. On the bill, supplemental bill, and showing in connection therewith, a temporary injunction was issued. Later, certain of the individual defendants were found to have violated the temporary injunction, and were accordingly punished. The pleadings, the temporary injunction, and the petition and evidence in the contempt proceedings are all stated in Allis-Chalmers Co. v. Iron Moulders' Union, (C. C.) 150 Fed. 155. By agreement of parties the cause was submitted for final hearing upon the "proofs taken on the motion to commit for contempt, as well as upon the other proofs in the case." The final decree enjoins the defendants, four Wisconsin local unions of the national organization of iron moulders and some sixty individuals who were officers and members, from doing the following: "(1) From in any manner directly interfering with, hindering, obstructing, or stopping the business of the said complainant, or its agents, servants or employees, in the maintenance, conduct, management or operation of its business. (2) From compelling or inducing or attempting to compel or induce by threats, intimidation, force or violence any of the said company's employees to fail or refuse to work for it, or to leave its service. (3) From preventing or attempting to prevent any person or persons by threats, intimidation, force or violence, from freely entering into or continuing in the said company's service. (4) And from congregating upon or about the company's premises or the streets, approaches and places adjacent or leading to said premises for the purpose of intimidating its employees or preventing or hindering them from fulfilling their duties as such employees or for the purpose or in such manner as to induce or coerce by threats, violence, intimidation or persuasion, any of the said company's employees to leave its service or any person to refuse to enter its service. (5) From congregating upon or about the company's premises or the sidewalk, streets, alleys or approaches adjoining or adjacent to or leading to said premises, and from picketing the said complainant's places of business or the homes or boarding-houses or residences of the said complainant's employees. (6) From interfering with the said company's employees in going to and from their work. (7) From going singly or collectively to the homes of the said company's employees for the purpose of intimidating or threatening them or collectively persuading them to leave its service. . . . (16) From by threats, intimidation, persuasion, force or violence, compelling or attempting to compel or induce any of the apprentices in the employ of the said complainant to break their contracts and leave the employ of the said complainant." Frederick H. Judson and W. B. Rubin, for appellants. ... Before GROSSCUP, BAKER, and SEAMAN, Circuit Judges. BAKER, Circuit Judge (after stating the facts as above). The evidence showed that appellee was entitled to injunctive relief. To keep other workmen out of appellee's foundries, some of the union men went to the extent of using vile and abusive language, threats of violence, and actual assaults. This was effective enough to damage appellee's business quite seriously, and was carried on under circumstances that might be held to indicate the unions' tacit approval. None of the appellants ever challenged by appeal the justice of the temporary injunction or of the punishments for its violation. And on this appeal from the final decree not a shadow of justification is found for these acts of violence and intimidation. The only substantial question is whether or not the trial Court has stepped beyond the line of safe-guarding the legal rights of appellee and has thereby deprived appellants of some of their legal rights. 1. To organize for the purpose of securing improvement in the terms and conditions of labor, and to quit work and to threaten to quit work as means of compelling or attempting to compel employers to accede to their demands for better terms and conditions, are rights of workmen so well and so thoroughly established in the law (Thomas v. R. Co., (C. C.) 62 Fed. 803; Arthur v. Oakes, 63 Fed. 320, 11 C. C. A. 209, 25 L. R. A. 414; Wabash R. Co. v. Hannahan, (C. C.) 121 Fed. 563) that nothing remains except to determine successive cases as they arise, whether the means used in the endeavor to make the strike effective are lawful or unlawful. . . . Consequently the parts of the decree which prohibit the use of persuasion and picketing can be justified only on the basis that such means are not lawfully to be applied in a genuine struggle of labor to obtain better terms and conditions; for surely men are not to be denied the right to pursue a legitimate end in a legitimate way, simply because they may have overstepped the mark and trespassed upon the rights of their adversary. A barrier at the line, with punishment and damages for having crossed, is all that the adversary is entitled to ask. 2. So far as persuasion was used to induce apprentices or others (section 16 of the decree) to break their contracts to serve for definite times, the prohibition was right. And the reason, we believe, is quite plain. Each party to such a contract has a property interest in it. If either breaks it, he does a wrong, for which the other is entitled to a remedy. And whoever knowingly makes himself a party to a wrongful and injurious act becomes equally liable. 3. But in the present case the generality of the men who took or sought the places left by the strikers were employed or were offered employment at will, as the strikers had been. If either party, with or without cause, ends an employment at will, the other has no legal ground of complaint. So if the course of the new men who quit or who declined employment was the result of the free play of their intellects and wills, then against them appellee had no cause of action, and much less against men who merely furnished information and arguments to aid them in forming their judgments. Now it must not be forgotten that the suit was to protect appellee's property rights. Regarding employment at will, those rights reached their limits at this line: For the maintenance of the incorporeal value of a going business, appellee had the right to a free access to the labor market, and the further right to the continuing services of those who accepted employment at will until such services were terminated by the free act of one or the other party to the employment. On the other side of this limiting line, appellants, we think, had the right, for the purpose of maintaining or increasing the incorporeal value of their capacity to labor, to an equally free access to the labor market. The right of the one to persuade, (but not coerce) the unemployed to accept certain terms is limited and conditioned by the right of the other to dissuade (but not restrain) them from accepting. For another thing that must not be forgotten is that a strike is one manifestation of the competition, the struggle for survival of place, that is inevitable in individualistic society. Dividends and wages must both come from the joint product of capital and labor. And in the struggle wherein each is seeking to hold or enlarge his ground, we believe it is fundamental that one and the same set of rules should govern the action of both contestants. For instance, employers may lock out (or threaten to lock out) employees at will, with the idea that idleness will force them to accept lower wages or more onerous conditions; and employees at will may strike (or threaten to strike), with the idea that idleness of the capital involved will force employers to grant better terms. These rights (or legitimate means of contest) are mutual and are fairly balanced against each other. On the other hand, an employer, having locked out his men, will not be permitted, though it would reduce their fighting strength, to coerce their landlords and grocers into cutting off shelter and food; and employees, having struck, will not be permitted, though it might subdue their late employer, to coerce dealers and users into starving his business. The restraints, likewise, apply to both combatants and are fairly balanced. These illustrations, we believe, mark out the line that must be observed by both. In contests between capital and labor, the only means of injuring each other that are lawful are those that operate directly and immediately upon the control and supply of work to be done and of labor to do it, and thus directly affect the apportionment of the common fund, for only at this point exists the competition, the evils of which organized society will endure rather than suppress the freedom and initiative of the individual. But attempts to injure each other by coercing members of society, who are not directly concerned in the pending controversy, to make raids in the rear cannot be tolerated by organized society; for the direct, the primary, attack is upon society itself. . . . After the strike was on, appellee sent patterns, on which the strikers had been working, to foundries in other cities. The strikers procured the moulders in those foundries, who also were members of the Iron Moulders' Union of North America, to refuse to make appellee's castings. Those moulders notified their employers that they would have to cancel their contracts to make castings for appellee, or they would quit work. Some employers discharged the notifiers, others refused to cancel and the union men struck, and others complied and the union men stayed. In those instances where the foundrymen fulfilled their contracts, appellee was not damaged; in those where foundrymen broke their contracts, there is no proof that appellee has not collected or cannot collect adequate damages. That might be taken as a reason why appellee on this branch of the case is not entitled to the aid of equity. But there is a more important reason. Appellants were aiming to prevent, and appellee to secure, the doing of certain work in which the skill of appellant's trade was necessary. Here was the ground of controversy, and here the test of endurance. If appellee had the right (and we think the right was perfect) to seek the aid of fellow foundrymen to the end that the necessary element of labor |