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FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting.

330 U.S.

the practical workings of unions, reinforced by the safeguards they will naturally take on the basis of this decision.

Aside from the actualities of trade union practice, the terms of § 6, read in the light of its legislative history and its purpose, repel the result reached by the Court once "we free our minds from the notion that criminal statutes must be construed by some artificial . . . rule." United States v. Union Supply Co., 215 U. S. 50, 55. To assure immunity to powerful unions collaborating with employers' associations in disregard of the Sherman Law, was not the purpose of § 6, and the provision should not be so read. This minor provision of the Norris-LaGuardia Act was directed against decisions by some of the federal courts in litigation involving industrial controversies. The abuse was misapplication of the law of agency so that labor unions were held responsible for the conduct of individuals in whom was lodged no authority to wield the power of the union. By undue extension of the doctrine of conspiracy, whereby the act of each conspirator is chargeable to all, unions were on occasion held responsible for isolated acts of individuals, believed in some instances to have been agents provocateurs who held a spurious membership in the union during a strike. Congress merely aimed to curb such an abusive misapplication of the principle of agency. It did not mean to change the whole legal basis of collective responsibility. By talking about "actual authorization," Congress merely meant to emphasize that persons for whose acts a corporation or a union is to be held responsible should really be wielding authority for such corporation or union.

The Congressional purpose behind § 6, then, is clear." All that Congress sought to do was to eliminate an extrane

2 See the statement of Senator Blaine, a Committee spokesman: "I have this memorandum which I can refer to which gives the purpose of this section 6. This is merely the application of the sound

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ous doctrine that had crept into some of the decisions, whereby organizations were held responsible not for acts of agents who had authority to act, but for every act committed by any member of the union merely because he was a member, or because he had some relation to the union although not authorized by virtue of his position to act for the union in what he did. And so Congress charged the federal courts with the duty to look sharply to the relation of the individual to the affairs of the organization, and not to confound individual with union unless the indi

principles of the law of agency to labor cases. It has become necessary because the Federal courts in many cases have held the union or members not connected with the unlawful acts responsible for those acts although proof of actual authorization or ratification is wholly lacking.

"Now, that is the law of agency, and we want to apply that. We want to apply that for this reason, that if it is unjust to hold all members of the union responsible for the acts of its officers and their members merely because of such membership, similarly it is unjust to hold the officers responsible during the strike merely because they pass on questions of this kind, that an attempt is here made to recognize the rules of law of agency in labor cases." See Hearings before Subcommittee of Senate Committee on the Judiciary, S. 1482, 70th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 763.

The Senate Committee reported this: "There has been a distinct conflict of opinion in the courts as to the degree of proof required. Mere ex parte affidavits establishing a certain amount of lawless conduct in the prosecution of a strike have been held in some instances to establish a 'presumption' that the entire union and its officers were engaged in an unlawful conspiracy; and, on the other hand, other courts have declined thus to substitute inference for proof, rejecting such a doctrine in language such as the following used in a New York case: 'Is it the law that a presumption of guilt attaches to a labor union association?' Various examples of these different rulings are quoted in The Labor Injunction, by Frankfurter and Greene, pp. 74-75.

"It is appropriate and necessary to define by legislation the proper rule of evidence to be followed in this matter in federal courts. That is the only object of section 6." S. Rep. No. 163, 72d Cong., 1st Sess. (1932) pp. 20-21.

FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting.

330 U.S.

vidual is clothed with power by the union, in the ordinary way of union operation, in doing what he does for the union. A basis for liability which has entered into the warp and woof of our law, as is true of the responsibility of collective bodies for the acts of their agents, should not be deemed to have been uprooted by an enactment which merely emphasizes that basis and rules out its distortions. 1932 was too late in the day for Congress not to have known that unions, like other organizations, act only through officers, and that unions do not, any more than do other organizations, explicitly instruct their officers to violate the Sherman Law. Neither by inadvertence nor on purpose did Congress remove the legal liability of organizations for the conduct of officials who, within the limits of their authority, wield the power of those organizations. It is not lightly to be assumed that Congress would thus turn back the clock of legal history a hundred years and disregard the practicalities of collective action by powerful organizations.

Nor are the debilitating implications for Sherman Law enforcement of the construction now placed on § 6 limited to their bearing on union activities. Congress did not lay down one rule of liability for corporations and another for unions. On the contrary, it subjected both groups of organizations to the same basis and measure of liability. Both can act only through responsible agents and both are responsible as organizations only through the acts of such agents. See § 13 (b) of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. If the

a "SEC. 13. When used in this Act, and for the purposes of this Act. (b) A person or association shall be held to be a person participating or interested in a labor dispute if relief is sought against him or it, and if he or it is engaged in the same industry, trade, craft, or occupation in which such dispute occurs, or has a direct or indirect interest therein, or is a member, officer, or agent of any association composed in whole or in part of employers or employees engaged in such industry, trade, craft, or occupation." 47 Stat. 70, 73, 29 U. S. C. § 113 (b).

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liability of a union does not flow from the acts of responsible officers acting in the due course of their authority in the pursuit of union purposes, then a corporation "interested in a labor dispute" cannot be held liable for the acts of its responsible officers acting within their customary authority in pursuit of corporate purposes. Violations of the Sherman Law by corporate officers acting on behalf of the corporation and pursuing its economic interest are not usually explicitly authorized by a formal vote of the Board of Directors or by the stockholders in annual meeting assembled.

The teaching of the present case can hardly fail. To come under the Court's indulgent rule of immunity from liability for the acts of its officers, unions will not rest on a lack of affirmative authorization. To make assurance doubly sure they will, doubtless in good conscience, have standing orders disavowing authority on the part of their officers to make any agreements which may be found to be in violation of the Sherman Law. So also, corporations "interested in a labor dispute," as, for instance, by combining to resist what they deem unreasonable labor demands, will, by the formality of a resolution at a directors' meeting, disavow and disapprove any arrangements made by their officers which run afoul of the Sherman Law. This may achieve immunity even though the officers are moving within the orbit of their normal authority and are acting solely in the interests of their corporation.

Words are symbols of meaning. In construing § 6, as in construing other enactments of Congress, meaning must be extracted from words as they are used in relation to their setting, with due regard to the evil which the legislation was designed to cure as well as to the mischievousand startling consequences of one construction as against another. "Doubt, if there can be any, is not likely to survive a consideration of the mischiefs certain to be engendered . . The mind rebels against the notion

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that Congress

was willing to foster an opportunity for juggling so facile and so obvious." Cardozo, J., in Woolford Realty Co. v. Rose, 286 U. S. 319, 329-30.

Practically speaking, the interpretation given by the Court to 6 serves to immunize unions, especially the more alert and powerful, as well as corporations involved in labor disputes, from Sherman Law liability. To insist that such is not the result intended by the Court is to deny the practical consequences of the Court's ruling. For those entrusted with the enforcement of the Sherman Law there may be found in the opinion words of promise to the ear, but the decision breaks the promise to the hope. In our view the judgments below should be affirmed.

JOSEPH, COMPTROLLER, ET AL. v. CARTER & WEEKES STEVEDORING CO.

NO. 29. CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK.*

Argued March 1, 1946.-Reargued November 12, 1946.-Decided March 10, 1947.

1. New York City levied an excise tax on the gross receipts of a stevedoring corporation engaged wholly within the territorial limits of the City in loading and unloading vessels moving in interstate and foreign commerce. Held: Such a tax is invalid, since it would burden interstate and foreign commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Pp. 427, 433–434.

2. Loading and unloading are essential parts of transportation itself. Therefore, stevedoring is essentially a part of interstate and foreign commerce and cannot be separated therefrom for purposes of local taxation. Pp. 427, 433.

3. Puget Sound Stevedoring Co. v. State Tax Comm'n, 302 U. S. 90, reaffirmed. P. 433.

*Together with No. 30, Joseph, Comptroller, et al. v. John T. Clark & Son, also on certiorari to the same Court.

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