National Union of Hospital & Health Care Employees v. Lafayette Square Nursing Center, Inc.

Gilbert, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Labor disputes resulting in strikes are never pleasant, are ofttimes filled with bitterness and rancor, and are sometimes violent. When the strikers’ jobs are filled by management with strikebreakers or “scabs,” as they are commonly known, emotions may give way to violence. In that event, the labor dispute becomes more than a management-union controversy because the police and the courts then become involved as keepers of the public peace.

This appeal is the direct result of such an occurrence. To comprehend fully the issues herein discussed, we shall briefly set the factual predicate giving rise to this case: Lafayette Square Nursing Center, Inc. (Center) purchased on August 9, 1976, a nursing home from Community Health Corporation (Community Health). Immediately prior to the acquisition of the home by Center, the home was known as Bolton Hill Nursing and Convalescent Center (Bolton). Community Health had previously entered into a labor agreement with National Union of Hospital and Health ⁶²¹ Employees, District 1199E, an unincorporated trade union (Union).

By terms of the agreement, Union was recognized as the collective bargaining agent for certain employees of Bolton. Almost simultaneously with Center’s emption of Bolton from Community Health, it entered into an agreement with Olympic Management Services, Inc., a Delaware corporation, whereby Olympic was to supply the labor for Center. The employees of Community Health who had been working at Bolton were informed that they could make job applications to Olympic and “they would be hired . . . and continue to receive the same wages, benefits and other terms and conditions of employment they enjoyed as employees of Community Health. . . .” At approximately 1 p.m. on August 10, 1976, representatives of the Union went to the Center and demanded that the Union be recognized by Center as the collective bargaining agent and that Center assume Community Health’s collective bargaining agreement. Unsuccessful in that endeavor, the Union advised Center, by telegram from its parent organization, that a strike would be called, and Center would be picketed commencing 6 a.m., August 22, 1976.

Notwithstanding the date set in the telegram, pickets arrived on the morning of August 11, 1976, and the strike began. Two days later a “Bill of Complaint for Temporary and Permanent Injunction” was filed by Center against the Union. 1 The Bill recited that acts of coercion, intimidation, violence and property damage had occurred at the nursing home and prayed that the Union be enjoined “from threatening, intimidating, warning, assaulting, blocking or in any other way molesting or interfering with any person on or about the premises” of Center. Additionally, the Circuit Court of Baltimore City was asked to limit to not more than two (2) the number of pickets “at any of the entrances to the premises” of Center. ⁶²² Following the hearing of August 17 and 18, 1976, the trial court issued an injunction which restrained the Union from, “(c) Threatening, intimidating, warning, assaulting, blocking or in any other way molesting or interfering with any person on or about the premises of . . . [the Nursing Center] or seeking entrance or exit to or from the . . . [Center’s] premises; and, (d) Placing or allowing more than four (4) pickets at the main or Lafayette Avenue entrance to . . . [Center’s] nursing home. (e) Placing or allowing more than two (2) pickets at the courtyard entrance to . . . [Center’s] nursing home, said entrance being located on John Street.

(f) Placing or allowing more than two (2) pickets at the ambulance entrance .... (g) Placing or allowing more than two (2) pickets at either of the alley entrances . .. .” The Union promptly appealed to this Court where it alleges that the chancellor erred because: “A. The Court’s finding that unlawful acts have been threatened or committed and will be executed or continued unless restrained is clearly not supported by the evidence. B. The Court’s finding that substantial and irreparable injury to . . . [Center’s] property will follow unless relief is granted is unsubstantiated by the evidence. C. The Court’s finding that ... [Center] has no adequate remedy at law is not supported by the evidence.

D. The record does not support the Trial Court’s finding that the police could not control the situation nor that police protection was inadequate. E. The Maryland Code requires that a complainant seeking an injunction make every reasonable effort to settle a labor dispute either ⁶²³ with the aid of any available machinery, through governmental mediation or voluntary arbitration, unless irreparable injury is threatened.” The scope of review of injunctions by the Court of Appeals is governed by Md. Rule 886. Md. Trust Co. v. Tulip Realty, 220 Md. 399, 411 , 153 A. 2d 275, 283 (1959). The Court of Special Appeals has its counterpart in Md. Rule 1086.

Sullivan v. Auslaender, 12 Md. App. 1 , 3 n. 3, 276 A. 2d 698, 700 (1971). The standard to be applied, therefore, in this Court’s review of Union’s contentions “A” through “D”, is whether the chancellor’s findings of fact were “clearly erroneous.” The General Assembly has declared with regard to the use of injunctions in labor-management disputes that: “Negotiations of terms and conditions of labor should result from voluntary agreement between employer and employees. Governmental authority has permitted and encouraged employers to organize in the corporate and other forms of capital control. In dealing with such employers the individual unorganized worker is helpless to exercise actual liberty of contract, and to protect his freedom of labor, and thereby to obtain acceptable terms and conditions of employment.

Therefore it is necessary that the individual workman have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of his employment, and that he shall be free from interference, restraint or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” Md. Ann. Code art. 100, § 63. ⁶²⁴ By enactment of Md. Ann. Code art. 100, § 68, the legislature has mandated: “No court nor any judge or judges thereof shall have jurisdiction to issue a temporary or permanent injunction in any case involving or growing out of a labor dispute, as herein defined, except after hearing the testimony of witnesses in open court, (with opportunity for cross-examination) in opposition thereto, if offered, and except after findings of all the following facts by the court or judge or judges thereof; (a) Acts committed. — That unlawful acts have been threatened or committed and will be executed or continued unless restrained; ■ (b) Injury — In general. — That substantial and irreparable injury to complainant’s property will follow unless the relief requested is granted; Tc) Same — Extent. —That _as to each item of relief granted greater injury will be inflicted upon complainant by the denial thereof than will be inflicted upon defendants by the granting thereof; (d) Jurisdiction. — That no item of relief granted is relief that a court or judge thereof has no jurisdiction to restrain or enjoin under § 65 of this article; (e) No remedy at law. — That complainant has no adequate remedy at law; and (f) Failure to protect property. —That the public officers charged with the duty to protect complainant’s property have failed or are unable to furnish adequate protection. (g) Notice of hearing. — Such hearing shall be held after due and personal notice thereof has been given, in such manner as the court shall direct, to all known persons against whom relief is sought, and also to those public officers charged with the ⁶²⁵ duty to protect complainant’s property.” 2 (Emphasis supplied.) The chancellor found as a fact: “a.) that the mass picketing, blocking of exits and entrances, acts of violence, loud noise, verbal abuse, verbal assaults and threats set forth . . . are illegal and unlawful acts ⁶²⁶ caused by or engaged in by the representatives, agents, servants, and employees of Respondent Local 1199E and those acting in consort and participation with them and such Acts will continue unless restrained; b. ) that the potential for violence to Complainant’s employees and destruction of Complainant’s property is great and substantial and irreparable injury to Complainant’s property will more probably then [sic] not follow unless the relief requested in the Bill of Complaint is granted; c. ) that as to each item of relief requested, greater injury will be inflicted upon Complainant by the denial thereof than will be inflicted upon Respondents by the granting thereof; d. ) that as a matter of law, those acts complained of by the Complainant and sought by it to be enjoined are not within the prohibitions of S 65 of Article 100 of the Annotated Code of Maryland and that there has been no Federal pre-emption of the right of the State courts to prohibit the acts complained of; e. ) that as a result of the aforesaid unlawful acts by Respondent Local 1199E, Complainant has suffered substantial and irreparable injuries for which it has no adequate remedy at law and unless a permanent injunction is issued, Complainant will suffer substantial and irreparable injury; f. ) that the public officers charged with the duty to protect ... [Center’s] property have failed or are unable to provide adequate protection; g. ) that only by the issuance of the injunctive relief hereinafter set forth may the ⁶²⁷ peace and security of the citizens of this State and their property be protected; h.) that the end sought to be obtained may best and most fairly be reached by prohibiting those particular acts which lead to the continuing disorders and may place reasonable limitation on the number of pickets that may be maintained by Respondent Local 1199E; that the unlawful acts which have been committed will be continued unless restrained . . . At the hearing before the trial court, there was testimony that (1) the noise created by the picketers of the Center was great and disturbed persons living in the neighborhood; (2) a hose was placed through the window of the kitchen of the Center and the water was turned on; (3) tacks were placed in the driveway of the Center; (4) a picket was struck by a car driven by an employee of Center; (5) Arlene Lewis, an employee of Center, while on her way to work, was pushed against a wall by pickets and told to “get her ass back on the bus”; (6) Mary Nutter, an employee, was blocked from entering the Center, and subsequently had a bottle thrown at her car as well as having Rick Ehrman, District 1199E’s Administrator, beat and kick her car; (7) Harriet Pitt was told, on two occasions, by a picket that if she went into the building the picket “was going to whip ... [her] ass”; (8) Employee Margarite Thomas, as she left the Center, was allegedly assaulted by her brother who was picketing for 1199E; and (9) Sonya Gershowitz, owner of the Center, testified that pickets kicked her car and threw rocks and stones at it, broke windows in the chapel, called her names and tried to stop trash from being picked up and food from being delivered. The Union refers us to a number of cases decided in various other State courts as well as Federal tribunals. 3 A ⁶²⁸ reading of those cases, however, fails to reveal that in any of them was a trial court precluded from issuing an injunction to prevent violence to the person or to property.

Although it is clear that Md. Ann. Code art. 100, §§ 63-75 (sometimes called “Maryland’s Little Norrjs-La Guardia Act”) was intended to and did abridge substantially the authority of courts of equity to issue injunctions in matters involving labor disputes, the act did not strip those courts totally of injunctive power. Indeed, § 68, quoted above, makes it beyond question that an equity court may issue an