In 1945, when the Railway Labor Act prohibited union shop
agreements between railroads and labor unions, nonunion employees
of a railroad brought a suit against the railroad and certain
unions of its employees which resulted in a consent decree
forbidding the defendants to discriminate against nonunion
employees because of their refusal to join unions. After the Act
was amended in 1951 so as to permit union shop agreements between
railroads and labor unions, the petitioner unions moved that the
decree be modified so as not to prohibit the defendants from
entering into such agreements. The District Court, which had
retained jurisdiction of the suit, denied the motion.
Held: it erred in doing so. Pp.
364 U. S.
643-653.
(a) It would have been an abuse of discretion to deny
modification of the injunction had it not resulted from a consent
decree, since a change in the law had expressly made lawful what
had theretofore been forbidden.
Pennsylvania
v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 421.
Pp.
364 U. S.
646-650.
(b) A different conclusion is not required by the fact that the
injunction was incorporated in a consent decree, since the decree
was a judicial act, and not a mere contract between the parties.
Pp.
364 U. S.
650-651.
(c) It was the Railway Labor Act, and only incidentally the
parties, that the District Court served in entering the consent
decree; and that Court must be free to continue to further the
objectives of the Act after its provisions have been amended. Pp.
364 U. S.
651-653.
272 F.2d 56, reversed.
Page 364 U. S. 643
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
By a complaint filed on July 16, 1945, in the United States
District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, 28 nonunion
employees of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad began an action
for declaratory relief, an injunction, and damages against the
railroad and a number of unions representing its employees.
Particularly relevant to the complaint were those provisions of the
fourth and fifth paragraphs of § 2 of the Railway Labor Act,
[
Footnote 1] which make it
"unlawful for any carrier to interfere in any way with the
organization of its employees, or to use the funds of the carrier
in maintaining or assisting or contributing to any labor
organization, labor representative, or other agency of collective
bargaining, or in performing any work therefor, or to influence or
coerce employees in an effort to induce them to join or remain or
not to join or remain members of any labor organization . . ."
and which forbid any carrier from requiring "any person seeking
employment to sign any contract or agreement promising to join . .
. a labor organization. . . ." Also relied upon was the duty of the
exclusive bargaining agent to represent fairly and without
discrimination all members of the class represented.
See Steele
v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U.
S. 192. The factual allegations set forth a pattern of
discriminations effected by the railroad and the defendant unions
against nonunion employees.
Page 364 U. S. 644
By a settlement agreement dated December 1, 1945, the 28
plaintiffs released the railroad and union defendants from all
claims [
Footnote 2] or actions
then accrued
"in consideration of the sum of $5,000.00 this day paid to the
undersigned . . . and the consent of said defendants to the entry
of a decree in said action, a copy of which is attached hereto. . .
."
The attached decree was adopted by the District Court on
December 7, 1945. After detailing and then enjoining a number of
specific discriminations on the basis of union status, the decree
provided that the defendants
"are further enjoined, in the application of the provisions of
the regularly adopted bargaining agreements in effect between the
defendant Railroad and the defendant Unions, or that may be
hereafter in effect between the defendant Railroad and the
defendant Unions in accordance with the provisions of the Railway
Labor Act, from discriminating against the plaintiffs and the
classes represented by them in this action by reason of or on
account of the refusal of said employes to join or retain their
membership in any of defendant labor organizations, or any labor
organization. . . ."
The District Court, 165 F. Supp. 443, 445, retained jurisdiction
over the matter "for the purpose of entering such further orders as
may be deemed necessary or proper."
In 1951, the Railway Labor Act was amended to permit, under
certain circumstances, a contract requiring a union shop. [
Footnote 3] In order to avail
themselves of the newly granted statutory privilege, in 1957, the
petitioners filed in the District Court a motion under Rule 60(b)
of the Federal
Page 364 U. S. 645
Rules of Civil Procedure, [
Footnote 4] asking for a sufficient modification of the
consent decree to make clear that it
"shall have no prospective application to prohibit defendants,
or any of them, from negotiating, entering into, or applying and
enforcing, any agreement or agreements authorized by Section 2,
Eleventh, of the Railway Labor Act, as amended January 10,
1951."
The motion, which was opposed by the railroad and its suing
employees (respondents here), was denied after a hearing at which
was presented unrebutted evidence of assaults, destruction of
property, and various other malicious acts directed by members of
the union at any employee (union or nonunion) who had worked during
a 58-day strike in 1955. The District Court acknowledged its
authority to modify the consent decree, but declined to do so,
primarily out of regard for the fact that the unions (petitioners
here) had consented by the decree not to have a union shop then or
in the future, an undertaking which the District Court considered
was not unlawful either before or after the 1951 amendments.
[
Footnote 5] The court
stated:
"It is to be remembered that the provisions of the Railway Labor
Act made illegal a union shop in 1945, when the injunction was
agreed upon. Hence, it was then unnecessary for the railroad and
the
Page 364 U. S. 646
to agree, as they did, that the non-union members should not
then be required to join or maintain membership in any of their
craft unions as a condition precedent to employment. The law so
prohibited, Section 152, Fourth and Fifth, Title 45, United States
Code Annotated, Railway Labor Act. The railroad and unions went
further to provide by their agreement that no such requirement of
union membership should thereafter be in effect in any bargaining
agreement in accordance with the provisions of the Railway Labor
Act. The 1951 amendment to the Act did no more than make
negotiations for a union shop permissive,
Railway Employees'
Dept. v. Hanson, supra. The amendment did not nullify the
agreement or the injunction. It did not prohibit an agreement
between the railroad and the unions that a union shop should not
exist. Hence, the Court leaves the parties as they agreed to be and
to remain."
165 F. Supp. 443, 449. Though making it clear that evidence of
continued union hostility against nonunion employees was not
decisive, the District Court gave some weight to the administrative
difficulty of preventing unlawful discriminations against nonunion
employees that might be facilitated if there were a union shop. The
Sixth Circuit affirmed "for the reasons set forth in the opinion of
Chief Judge Shelbourne" in the District Court. 272 F.2d 56, 58. We
granted certiorari because of the importance of the issues
involved. 362 U.S. 948.
At the outset, it should be noted that the power of the District
Court to modify this decree is not drawn in question. That
proposition indeed could not well be disputed.
See Pennsylvania v. Wheeling &
Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 421;
United States
v. Swift & Co., 286 U. S. 106;
Page 364 U. S. 647
Chrysler Corp. v. United States, 316 U.
S. 556. In the
Swift case, Mr. Justice Cardozo
put the matter thus, 286 U.S. at
286 U. S.
114:
"We are not doubtful of the power of a court of equity to modify
an injunction in adaptation to changed conditions though it was
entered by consent. . . . Power to modify the decree was reserved
by its very terms, and so, from the beginning, went hand in hand
with its restraints. If the reservation had been omitted, power
there still would be by force of principles inherent in the
jurisdiction of the chancery. A continuing decree of injunction
directed to events to come is subject always to adaptation as
events may shape the need.
Ladner v. Siegel, 298 Pa. 487,
494, 495."
There is also no dispute but that a sound judicial discretion
may call for the modification of the terms of an injunctive decree
if the circumstances, whether of law or fact, obtaining at the time
of its issuance have changed, or new ones have since arisen. The
source of the power to modify is, of course, the fact that an
injunction often requires continuing supervision by the issuing
court, and always a continuing willingness to apply its powers and
processes on behalf of the party who obtained that equitable
relief. Firmness and stability must no doubt be attributed to
continuing injunctive relief based on adjudicated facts and law,
and neither the plaintiff nor the court should be subjected to the
unnecessary burden of reestablishing what has once been decided.
Nevertheless, the court cannot be required to disregard significant
changes in law or facts if it is "satisfied that what it was been
doing has been turned through changing circumstances into an
instrument of wrong."
United States v. Swift & Co.,
supra, at
286 U. S.
114-115. A balance must thus be struck between the
policies of
res judicata and the right
Page 364 U. S. 648
of the court to apply modified measures to changed
circumstances.
Where there is such a balance of imponderables, there must be
wide discretion in the District Court. But discretion is never
without limits, and these limits are often far clearer to the
reviewing court when the new circumstances involve a change in law,
rather than facts. When the decree in this case was originally
made, union shop agreements were prohibited by the Railway Labor
Act, and thus constituted in themselves a form of statutorily
forbidden discrimination. Congress has since, in the clearest
terms, legislated that bargaining for and the existence of a union
shop contract, satisfying the conditions provided in § 2 Eleventh
of the Railway Labor Act, are not forbidden discriminations by
union or employer. Congress has therefore determined that whatever
ways such a union shop arrangement facilitates other, unauthorized
discriminations must be borne as inescapable incidents of a
legislatively approved contract term.
Had the 1945 decree simply represented relief awarded by the
District Court after a trial of the action instituted by
petitioners, there could be little doubt but that, faced with the
1951 amendment to the Railway Labor Act, it would have been
improvident for the court to continue in effect this provision of
the injunction prohibiting a union shop agreement as being unlawful
per se, or its use as an instrument to effectuate other
statutorily forbidden discriminations. That provision was well
enough under the earlier Railway Labor Act, but to continue it
after the 1951 amendment would be to render protection in no way
authorized by the needs of safeguarding statutory rights at the
expense of a privilege denied and deniable to no other union. This
conclusion would not be affected by the circumstance, which the
District Court here found, that the unions' hostility to nonunion
employees still continued, for any discriminations that might be
facilitated
Page 364 U. S. 649
by the union shop clause have been legislatively determined to
be an expense more than offset by the benefits of such a
provision.
What seems plain to us in reason, as to a litigated decree, is
amply supported by precedent. In
Pennsylvania v. Wheeling &
Belmont Bridge Co., supra, this Court was also required to
deal with the effect upon an outstanding injunction of subsequent
congressional action. The Court had earlier held that a bridge
across the Ohio River obstructed navigation in such a way as to be
in conflict with certain Acts of Congress regulating navigation on
the river. The decree "directed that the obstruction be removed,
either by elevating the bridge to a height designated, or by
abatement." 18 How. at
59 U. S. 429. A
later Act of Congress declared the bridge to be a lawful structure
in its existing position and elevation. The injunction was
dissolved, the Court saying, 18 How. at
59 U. S.
430-432:
"So far, therefore, as this bridge created an obstruction to the
free navigation of the river, in view of the previous acts of
congress, they are to be regarded as modified by this subsequent
legislation; and, although it still may be an obstruction in fact,
is not so in the contemplation of law. . . . But that part of the
decree directing the abatement of the obstruction is executory, a
continuing decree, which requires not only the removal of the
bridge, but enjoins the defendants against any reconstruction or
continuance. Now whether it is a future existing or continuing
obstruction depends upon the question whether or not it interferes
with the right of navigation. If, in the meantime since the decree,
this right has been modified by the competent authority so that the
bridge is no longer an unlawful obstruction, it is quite plain the
decree of the court cannot
Page 364 U. S. 650
be enforced. There is no longer any interference with the
enjoyment of the public right inconsistent with law, no more than
there would be where the plaintiff himself had consented to it,
after the rendition of the decree. Suppose the decree had been
executed, and after that the passage of the law in question, can it
be doubted but that the defendants would have had a right to
reconstruct it? And is it not equally clear that the right to
maintain it, if not abated, existed from the moment of the
enactment?"
The principles of the
Wheeling Bridge case have
repeatedly been followed by lower federal and state courts.
[
Footnote 6] We find no reason
to recede from them.
That it would be an abuse of discretion to deny a modification
of the present injunction if it had not resulted from a consent
decree we regard as established. Is this result affected by the
fact that we are dealing with a consent decree? Again we start with
the
Swift case, supra, where the Court held, 286 U.S. at
286 U. S.
114-115:
"The result is all one whether the decree has been entered after
litigation or by consent. . . . In either
Page 364 U. S. 651
event, a court does not abdicate its power to revoke or modify
its mandate, if satisfied that what it has been doing has been
turned through changing circumstances into an instrument of wrong.
We reject the argument for the interveners that a decree entered
upon consent is to be treated as a contract and not as a judicial
act. . . . But, in truth, what was then adjudged was not a contract
as to anyone. The consent is to be read as directed toward events
as they then were. It was not an abandonment of the right to exact
revision in the future if revision should become necessary in
adaptation to events to be."
This Court has never departed from that general rule. [
Footnote 7] We continue to adhere to it
because of the policy it expresses. The parties cannot, by giving
each other consideration, purchase from a court of equity a
continuing injunction. In a case like this, the District Court's
authority to adopt a consent decree comes only from the statute
which the decree is intended to enforce. Frequently, of course, the
terms arrived at by the parties are accepted without change by the
adopting court. But, just as the adopting court is free to reject
agreed-upon terms as not in furtherance of statutory objectives, so
must it be free to modify the terms of a consent decree when a
change in law brings those terms in conflict with statutory
objectives. In short, it was the Railway Labor Act, and only
incidentally the parties, that the District Court served in
entering the consent decree now before us. The court must be free
to continue to further the objectives of that Act when its
provisions are amended.
Page 364 U. S. 652
The parties have no power to require of the court continuing
enforcement of rights the statute no longer gives.
The record leaves no room for doubt that the parties in fact
attempted to conform the consent decree to the dictates of the
Railway Labor Act as it then read. We can attach no weight to
either of the two factors that led the lower courts to find that
the parties had bargained, free of the requirements of the Act, for
an injunction serving only their own interests. The first factor --
that an independently arrived at contract, rather than a decree
effectuating rights accorded by the Act, must have been
contemplated because the unions agreed to equitable relief when
their acts were already declared unlawful by statute -- ignores
completely the fact that this was precisely the relief sought in
the complaint filed by the 28 plaintiffs and the relief that had
been granted after litigation in
Steele v. Louisville &
Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192, and
in
Graham v. Brotherhood of Firemen, 338 U.
S. 232. The second factor-that the unions agreed to be
bound as to bargaining agreements that might later be in effect as
well as the contract then in effect -- ignores the fact that the
parties, in all likelihood, meant only to cover any later
bargaining agreements under the Act as it read at the time of the
consent decree. [
Footnote
8]
The type of decree the parties bargained for is the same as the
only type of decree a court can properly grant -- one with all
those strengths and infirmities of any litigated decree which arise
out of the fact that the court will not continue to exercise its
powers thereunder when a change in law or facts has made
inequitable what was once equitable. The parties could not become
the conscience
Page 364 U. S. 653
of the equity court and decide for it once and for all what was
equitable and what was not, because the court was not acting to
enforce a promise, but to enforce a statute.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals must be reversed, and the
case remanded to it for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART took no part in the consideration or
decision of this case.
[
Footnote 1]
45 U.S.C. § 152.
[
Footnote 2]
Each of the 28 plaintiffs had claimed $5,000 in damages.
[
Footnote 3]
45 U.S.C. § 152, Eleventh.
See Railway Employees' Department
v. Hanson, 351 U. S. 225.
[
Footnote 4]
The relevant provisions of Rule 60(b) are as follows:
"On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may
relieve a party or his legal representative from a final judgment,
order, or proceeding for the following reasons: . . . (5) . . . it
is no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective
application; or (6) any other reason justifying relief from the
operation of the judgment."
[
Footnote 5]
In the view we take of the case, we need not consider whether
such a commitment of indefinite duration is valid.
[
Footnote 6]
In
McGrath v. Potash, 91 U.S.App.D.C. 94, 199 F.2d 166,
after Congress passed a statute excluding from the requirements of
the Administrative Procedure Act deportation proceedings, the
District of Columbia Circuit vacated an injunction against the
Government requiring compliance with that Act. There are many cases
where a mere change in decisional law has been held to justify
modification of an outstanding injunction.
E.g., Ladner v.
Siegel, 298 Pa. 487, 148 A. 699 (whether a garage in a
residential district is a nuisance);
Santa Rita Oil & Gas
Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 112 Mont. 359, 116 P.2d
1012 (what federal instrumentalities are exempt from state
taxation);
Coca-Cola Co. v. Standard Bottling Co., 138
F.2d 788 (whether the use of the word "cola" infringed Coca-Cola's
trademark);
and see Western Union Tel. Co. v. International
Brotherhood, 133 F.2d 955 (whether ordinary strikes are
forbidden by the Sherman Act and what picketing can
constitutionally be enjoined).
[
Footnote 7]
In
Coca-Cola Co. v. Standard Bottling Co., 138 F.2d
788, 790, a Circuit Court could say with some certainty:
"We know of no case which holds that a consent decree imposing a
continuing injunction deprives the court of its supervisory
jurisdiction in the matter."
[
Footnote 8]
We consider unpersuasive the argument of the railroad that, in
1945, there was already on foot a movement to amend the Railway
Labor Act so as to permit union shop agreements.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER and MR.
JUSTICE WHITTAKER concur, dissenting in part.
This controversy commenced in 1945 prior to the time when
so-called union shop agreements were authorized by Congress. Act of
Jan. 10, 1951, 64 Stat. 1238, 45 U.S.C. § 152, Eleventh. Since the
date of that law, which we upheld in
Railway Employes' Dept. v.
Hanson, 351 U. S. 225,
employees and carriers may negotiate that type of agreement, though
they are not required to do so.
Id., p.
351 U. S. 231.
Prior to that date, however, a union shop was barred by law in this
industry, and a union that discriminated against nonunion members
was accountable to them.
See Steele v. Louisville & N. R.
Co., 323 U. S. 192,
323 U. S.
207.
Twenty-eight nonunion members sued petitioners, in 1945,
claiming damages in the amount of $140,000. The complaint purported
to state a class action. But the case never came to trial. A
settlement was reached which provided for (a) the payment of $5,000
in cash; (b) the waiver and release by the 28 plaintiffs of all
their claims; and (c) a consent decree which would protect "the
undersigned" against future acts of discrimination by
petitioners.
Page 364 U. S. 654
The consent decree did not purport to protect future employees.
By its terms, it protected only "the plaintiffs in this action and
all other employes of the defendant Railroad employed in"
designated crafts or classes and not members of the union. The
petitioners agreed to refrain from discriminating "against the
plaintiffs and the classes represented by them."
I do not think the consent decree, read in light of the
settlement, did more than settle claims of then-existing employees.
Employees hired in the future were, by its terms, not included. Yet
apparently a host of them have intervened, seeking the protection
of the
status quo created by that decree. I use the word
"apparently" because the record does not show which intervenors
were on the payroll of the carrier in 1945. Those who became
employed after that date plainly are not entitled to the protection
of the decree. Of those who were employed at that time, we know
that some are still employed. Of the latter group, at least seven
of the original 28 employees are still on the payroll. These seven
released valuable claims for settling their disputes. It is harsh
and unjust to deprive them of those fruits of the settlement.
Whether there are others employed in 1945 who have a like claim to
fair dealing is impossible to tell from the record.
We are all agreed that there is power in the District Court to
modify the consent decree, whether or not the power to modify was
reserved.
United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.
S. 106,
286 U. S. 114.
I agree with the Court that the union should not be disabled by
that decree from carrying out the new union shop policy which
Congress has made permissive.
Cf. 59 U.
S. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 421,
59 U. S.
435-436. Certainly all employees who have joined the
ranks since 1945 have no claim to its protection, as they are not
included in its
Page 364 U. S. 655
terms and gave nothing up in exchange for it. To construe it to
include them would as a result of changing circumstances turn the
consent decree "into an instrument of wrong."
United States v.
Swift & Co., supra, 286 U. S. 115.
But when we set aside the decree as respects those who gave up
something of value to get it, we do an injustice. I think the
applicable principle is stated in
United States v. Swift &
Co., supra, 286 U. S. 119:
"The injunction, whether right or wrong, is not subject to
impeachment in its application to the conditions that existed at
its making."