Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering

Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering

Argued January 22, 1920
Decided January 3, 1921
Full case name Duplex Printing Press Company v. Deering, et al., individually and as business agents of District No. 15 of the International Association of Machinists, et al.
Citations

254 U.S. 443 (more)

41 S. Ct. 172; 65 L. Ed. 349; 16 A.L.R. 196; 18 Ohio L. Rep. 366
Holding
The Clayton Act did not insulate labor unions engaged in illegal activities.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Edward D. White
Case opinions
Majority Pitney, joined by White, McKenna, Day, Van Devanter, McReynolds
Dissent Brandeis, joined by Holmes, Clarke
Laws applied
Clayton Act

Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 41 S. Ct. 172 (1921) is a United States Supreme Court case which examined the labor provisions of the Clayton Antitrust Act and reaffirmed the prior ruling in Loewe v. Lawlor that a secondary boycott was an illegal restraint on trade. The decision authorized courts to issue injunctions to block this practice, and any other tactics used by labor unions that were deemed unlawful restraints on trade.[1]

Background

In response to growing public pressure to control the unprecedented concentrations of economic power that developed after the American Civil War, Congress enacted the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). It proscribed “unlawful restraints and monopolies” in interstate commerce as well as conspiracies to erect them. Soon thereafter federal judges began to employ the measure to combat efforts to unionize workers and to deny labor its traditional self‐help weapons. To counteract this “government by injunction,” the United States Congress included in the Clayton Act (1914) provisions that sought to preclude application of antitrust legislation against organized labor.

Opinion of the Court

The Supreme Court reached the issue in Deering, a six‐judge majority holding that the Clayton Act did not insulate labor unions engaged in illegal activities, such as the conduct of a secondary boycott. Justice Mahlon Pitney asserted that the machinist union's coercive action constituted an unlawful conspiracy to “obstruct and destroy” (p. 460) the interstate trade of complainant, a company with which they were not “proximately or substantially concerned” (p. 472).

Dissent

Writing for the three dissenters, Justice Louis D. Brandeis charged the majority with ignoring law and reality: the injunction imposed by the Court deprived labor of forms of a collective action Congress had tried “expressly” to legalize (p. 486).

Subsequent history

For more than a decade, the majority's narrow interpretation of the nation's antitrust legislation sanctioned judicial application of injunctions against workers seeking to organize to advance their interests. With the dramatic transformation of opinion brought about by the Great Depression, Congress included in the Norris‐LaGuardia Act (1932) provisions to exempt organized labor from antitrust injunctions, and the Supreme Court legitimated this fundamental New Deal legislation.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781577180999_chunk_g97815771809996_ss1-111
  2. ↑ http://www.answers.com/topic/duplex-printing-co-v-deering

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/26/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.