United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Coronado Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers, 268 U.S. 295 (1925)

Coronado Coal Company v. United Mine Workers of America

No. 671

Argued January 7, 1925

Decided May 25, 1925

268 U.S. 295

Syllabus

1. Where the constitution of an "international" trade union provided that its constituent district organizations might order local strikes within their respective districts on their own responsibility, but that such strikes, to be financed by the international union, must be sanctioned by its executive board, held that liability for damages to property inflicted in a local strike called without such sanction by a district organization could not be imposed on the larger organization, and that evidence of participation by its president was insufficient to show participation by the organization itself or to bind it on principles of agency. P. 268 U. S. 299.

2. The mere reduction in the supply of an article to be shipped in interstate commerce by the tortious prevention of its production is ordinarily an indirect and remote obstruction to that commerce; but when the intent of those unlawfully preventing the production is to restrain or control the supply entering and moving in interstate commerce, or the price of it in interstate markets, their action is a direct violation of the Anti-Trust Act. P. 268 U. S. 310.

3. In an action brought under the Anti-Trust Act by the owners of coal mines against a district union and local unions of coal miners and individuals to recover damages resulting from the destruction of the mines during a strike, held that there was substantial evidence tending to prove that the purpose of such destruction on the part of the defendants was to stop the production of nonunion coal and prevent its shipment to markets in other states where it would, by competition, tend to reduce the price of the commodity, and thus affect injuriously the maintenance of wages for union labor in competing mines, and that direction of a verdict for the defendants was therefore erroneous. P. 268 U. S. 305.

4. In such a case, evidence tending to prove that the production of the plaintiffs' mines with nonunion labor would be sufficient to become a serious factor in the interstate coal market is relevant in connection with other evidence of the intent of the defendants to prevent its shipment to neighboring states at nonunion cost. P. 268 U. S. 305.

300 F.9d 2 in part affirmed, in part reversed.

Page 268 U. S. 296

Error to a Judgment of the circuit court of appeals which affirmed a judgment of the district court entered on a verdict directed for the defendants, in an action for treble damages under the Anti-Trust Act. For the opinion of this Court on a former review, see 259 U. S. 259 U.S. 344.