Long v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad

²⁶⁷ Pabee, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellants, Ralph E. Long and Janies S. Poteet, are railway engineers in the service of the appellee the Baltimore and Ohio Railway Company, a corporation, operating its extensive railway system, and members in good standing of the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, an unincorporated association of more than seven members, the other appellee. The proceedings at bar were begun by the appellants against the appellees by a bill of complaint for an injunction to compel the appellees to recognize and enforce the alleged right of the appellants to employment by the railway company in a special form of railway work at a particular place by virtue of an agreement between the railway company and the brotherhood whereby territorial seniority of employees in point of service with the company was thus rewarded. The preliminary pleadings before the parties were at issue embraced a motion by the brotherhood to quash the writ of summons and return on the ground that the brotherhood was an unincorporated body with its permanent headquarters in Ohio, and so was not within section 104 of article 23 of the Code, since the proceedings were not an action affecting the common property, rights, and liabilities of the brotherhood; and, when this motion was lost, demurrers by each of the appellees to the original and two successively amended bills of complaint; and after the demurrers to the second amended bill were overruled, answers on the part of both appellees.

The principal substantive objections raised by the demurrers are: (1) That precedence or preference founded upon seniority of service are not such property rights in the workman as would justify a court of equity intervening by injunction to prevent any change in such precedence or preference by the party or parties creating them. Compare Burger v. McCarthy, 84 W. Va. 697 ; Hurd v. Dunlap (Texas), 248 S. W. 760 ; Chambers v. Davis, 128 Miss. 613 ; Gregg v. Starks, 188 Ky. 834 . And (2) that the trade agreement between the railway company and the brotherhood is not a contract be ²⁶⁸ tween individual members of the brotherhood and the company, which will sustain the present proceedings by individual members. Compare West v. Balto. & O. R. Co., 103 W. Va. 417 ; Burnetta v. Coal Co., 180 Mo. 241 ; Hudson v. Cincinnati etc. R. Co., 152 Ky. 711 , Ann. Cas. 1915B 98; Powers v. The Journeymen Bricklayers Union, 130 Tenn. 643 , L. R A. 1915E 1006; Jennings v. Lee, 395 Fed. 561 ; Connett v. United Hatters of North America, 76 N. J. Eq. 202; Peircy v. Louisville & N. Ry.

Co., 198 Ky. 477 , 33 A. L. R 322; 16 R. C. L., p. 425, sec. 10; 24 Gyc. 824. These questions on the motion to quash and on the demurrers are important and debatable, but we shall pass them without an expression of opinion, since this is rendered unnecessary by our agreement with the judgment of the chancellor in dismissing the bill of complaint on the proof taken. The brotherhood is a large and powerful labor union of men employed as locomotive engineers upon the different railways of the United States, Canada and Mexico, and through its constituted officials represents its members collectively, and negotiates with the several railways of the United States, and concludes agreements with them with respect to standards of wages and working conditions and tules and regulations governing the service of the members. Such a treaty had been concluded between the Baltimore and Ohio Kailroad Company and the brotherhood in reference to the rates of pay and regulations governing engineers in road and yard service.

By this contract the company was bound to give employment to its workmen in accordance with their preferential rights as determined from the rules of the brotherhood. The order in which work was given to railroad employees and in which precedence was accorded them in the assignment to particular jobs was decided by territorial seniority, which, generally speaking, was the relative position of a particular fireman or engineer with respect to his fellows in the same rank of employment and excellence of standing, but of different length of service. To ²⁶⁹ put it more concretely, the workman who was oldest in years of service as an engineer, other things being equal, should have the preference in the allotment of runs and other work in his yard or on his division. The matter in dispute here is whether or not the appellants have been wrongfully deprived of any preference which they enjoyed in the operation of the company’s Brunswick Yards in Frederick County.

The answer to this question depends mainly upon the validity of an agreement or resolution of January 25th, 1908, which is known as the “fifty-fifty agreement.” In order to comprehend this document and the circumstances of its adoption, it will be necessary to outline the history of the controversy. In the first place, the unit of the brotherhood organization is the lodge, which it calls a “division.” These subordinate lodges or divisions are organized at different points along the various railway systems, and every one of these divisions has territorial jurisdiction over a certain section or portion of the particular railway on which its members are employed, and the seniority rights of the members of every such division are effective or valid only on that portion of the railway on which the members of that division are employed. At this point it should be stated that the term “division” has a threefold use on this record. In railway use it means those territorial sections or geographical units into which a railway system is divided for operative purposes; while in brotherhood terminology its meaning is either a subordinate lodge or, for the purpose of ascertaining precedence through seniority, a particular area or district of the railway.

It frequently occurs that a division will be coterminous in both railway and union usage, as is illustrated on this, record. Before May 10th, 1891, the Baltimore or First 'Division for railway purposes extended from Baltimore to Martinsburg, West Virginia, and Division No. 97 of the brotherhood had the twofold significance of the lodge established at Baltimore and the section of railway territory along the company’s railroad west to Martinsburg. Likewise, the company’s Cumberland or Second Division began at the western terminus, of the ²⁷⁰ First Division in Martinsburg and 'extended westward; and 'Division Bo. 506 of the brotherhood meant the local lodge at Brunswick, and that section of railway territory west of Martinsburg, which was the dividing point between Divisions 1 and 2 of the company and Divisions Bos. 97 and 506 of the brotherhood. So for both railway operation and seniority purposes there was no territorial difference before May 10th, 1891, but on that date the company opened its Brunswick Yard, which then embraced only what is now known as the east yard at Brunswick, and, at the same time, both the company and the brotherhood, respectively, reduced the territorial extent of the Baltimore Division and Division Bo. 97 by about thirty-five miles, by making their western terminus at the west end of what is now called the “east yard” at Brunswick; and, correspondingly increased the track mileage of the Cumberland Division and Division Bo. 506 by making it include the railway territory between the west end of the “east yard” at Brunswick to Martinsburg.

To compensate for .this loss of trackage, a number of engineers of Division Bo. 97 were transferred to Division Bo. 506, in both senses of lodge membership and seniority rights, in order that the proportion of engineers allotted by track mileage should approximately remain the same. The dividing line between the division at Brunswick was at a point near Maple Avenue, and from 1906 to 1908 the company built a westward extension of its yards at Brunswick. This addition was as large or larger than the original, and is called the west yard, and was built entirely within the Cumberland Division and Division Bo. 506. About 1908 the company for operating purposes again changed the western terminus of the Baltimore ^Division from the point near Maple Avenue in Brunswick to a point at or near Weverton Station, but the brotherhood made no change, so that the engineers of the Cumberland Division still enjoyed their rights of territorial seniority to the western end of the old or east yard.

The yard was a unit for railroad operations, and the company 'began to operate both the old and the new parts as one. Since the seniority rights of the yard engineers were respectively limited to the ²⁷¹ territory within their respective divisions, the result was that the portion of the Brunswick yard west of Maple Avenne was subject to the territorial seniority rights of the engineers of Division No. 506 (Cumberland) and that section of the yard east of Maple Avenue was governed by the territorial seniority rights of engineers of Division No. 97 (Baltimore), so that, in order for the company to obey the rule of the brotherhood according to the agreement between them, it was necessary for the engineers working in this yard, and repeatedly passing from orfe end of the yard to the other, as is required in such railway service, to have their engineers and crews change every time an engine crossed the intangible boundary line between the two brotherhood divisions at Maple Avenue. Such an impossible situation cried out for a solution, particularly as at this time employment on yard engines was considered a preference and advantage over running road engines. Now the matter of prescribing and defining territorial seniority rights was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the brotherhood, which attempted to settle these conflicting territorial seniority rights by a resolution or agreement, which is known as “the fifty-fifty” 'agreement, is dated January 25th, 1908, and reads thus: “Resolved that the east and west yards of Brunswick be considered one yard, so far as yard engines are concerned.

That the first and second division engineers shall hold equal rights according to their seniority, according to Art. No. 2 of present agreement; but it is understood that no engineer who is in, the yard at present shall be moved unless, he has been promoted for yard service since 1900. That vacancies be filled in as vacancies occur. W. E. Evans, 506; B. R. Stull, 97; O. II. Burch, 352.” This would seem to be a fair, reasonable and practical adjustment of the conflicting interests involved, and it has since been enforced.

However, the argument in this court is that this resolution or agreement was void ab initio because it was not passed in accordance with the constitution, statutes, and standing rules of the brotherhood; and that, therefore, no appeal from the adoption of the agreement was necessary ²⁷² within the limitations for appeal prescribed by the laws of the brotherhood; and, if the agreement were within the rule of limitations, the appellants had begun their appeal within the period allowed. The evidence was taken before the chancellor, and was directed to the establishment of the equity of the appellant, Ralph E. Long, who seems to be the real appellant, although the appeal is taken in the name of both complainants. No contention is made by the appellants that, if the assailed resolution is valid, they have sustained any wrongs, so the fundamental question is the validity of the resolution. As has been mentioned, the engineers are members of subordinate lodges called divisions, which are identified by a given number.

There are thirty of these divisions on the company’s railroad system. As has been shown, the division at Baltimore is No. 97, 'and its members are entitled almost exclusively to seniority on the Baltimore Division; the division at Brunswick is No. 506, and some of its members have seniority on the Baltimore Division and some on the Cumberland Division, and the division at Martinsburg is No1. 352, and almost all of its members have seniority on the Cumberland Division. Hence these three lodges were primarily concerned in the seniority rights on the Brunswick yards. By the constitution of the brotherhood, its governing; body is known as the Grand International Division of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, which shall have “exclusive jurisdiction over all subjects pertaining to the brotherhood, and its enactments and decisions upon all questions are the supreme law of the brotherood, and all divisions and members of the order shall render true obedience thereto.” In pursuance of this authority, this legislative body enacted as one of the standing rules of the brotherhood that “the general committee of adjustment shall have full power to settle all questions of seniority and rights to runs, or jurisdiction of territory that are presented to> them legally, and their decision shall be final unless on an appeal to the membership their ²⁷³ decision is repealed by a two-thirds vote of the membership on the system.” On any system of railroad where two or more divisions are organized there shall be a standing general committee of adjustment whose members shall consist of one representative, with one vote, from every division on the railway system, and who shall be elected and meet triennially.

This committee may make such rules or regulations as are deemed necessary for the proper adjustment of differences on its system, provided that they do not conflict with the laws of the brotherhood; and the general chairman of the committee constitutes the committee between meetings, and any action by the general chairman ox by tbe committee shall stand as law for all members and divisions on the system until repealed by the general committee or by a two-thirds vote of the members of the system or by the Grand International Division, provided that before an appeal or any question of law shall be entertained on appeal by the Grand International Division the question of law must first have been appealed from the general committee of adjustment to the grand chief engineer. The general committee of adjustment on the company’s system is composed of thirty members and the general chairman, who was W. W. Puckett during 1908 and the whole period of this controversy. At its meeting in 1908, the general committee of adjustment had brought before it the controversy with respect to the Brunswick Yard, and from the minutes of that meeting it appears that the general committee adopted the motion of Daugherty and Clair, two of its