remedy of injunction, but specifically on the denial of the existence of an equitable right. In a recent case in the New York Court of Appeals, damages were sought by a labor union from the walking delegates of a rival union, who by threats of a strike had caused the discharge of members of the plaintiff's union. The Court denies the right to relief. It puts its decision squarely on the ground that it is lawful for a labor union to refuse to permit its members to work with fellow-serv ants who are members of a rival organiza tion, to notify the employer to that effect ami to notify him that a strike would be ordered unless such servants were dis charged; such action being based upon a proper motive, such as to secure the employ ment of approved workmen only, or an ex clusive preference of employment to its own members: and provided that no force was employed and no unlawful act committed. Judge Parker, speaking for the Court, says that a man may work for another or not, just as he pleases; and that if he pleases not to, the lawfulness of his choice is not diminished by the fact that the reason he pleases not to is that his employer retains in his employ some other man to whom he, the workman, objects; and if he chooses not to work, of course he may stop working; and if he may stop working, he may threaten to stop working. "A man may threaten to do that which the law says he may do. ... A labor organization has precisely the same right as an individual, to threaten to do that which it may lawfully do."1 With the Chief-Judge vote Judge O'Brien, Judge Haight and Judge Gray: three judges dissent. The Court thus decided the case by a bare majority vote. The same vote determines the decision of the Court in regard to the Child Labor Law, which prohibits the employment of a child under the age of fourteen in any factory in National Protective Association т. Gumming. 170 N. Y. 3"5. 33'-
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the State of New York, construing the act as in effect declaring that a child under that age presumably does not possess the requis ite judgment to be chargeable with contribu tory negligence or to have assumed the risks of employment. Here again the vote of the Court и four to three, just carried by the Chief- Judge. Coming down to the last few weeks, the Court of Appeals has just had occasion to construe an act passed by the New York Legislature in 1897 providing that no em ployé should be required to work in a bakery or confectionery establishment more than sixty hours in any one week. The Court holds this to be an exercise of the police power, and therefore constitutional. Here again Judge Parker carries the Court with him by a single vote. From writing the dissenting opinion on behalf of himself and a single other judge. Judge Parker has in the somewhat similar Bakeries case come to write the opinion of the Court. The dis senting opinion in the Bakeries case, like the majority opinions in the Prevailing Rate of Wages and Dressed Stone cases, is, it must be confessed, somewhat general in its criti cism, and they all furnish an instance of con stitutional discussion with almost no refer ence whatever to any particular section of the Constitution. 1'erhaps Judge Gray does not go far wrong when he refers to Judge Parker's opinion in the Bakeries case as "carefully expressed and convincing in its reasoning."* Since the above was written, the very latest utterance of the .Court of Appeals has been published on the Prevailing Rate of Wages Law;3 and in view of what I have pointed out as to the vigorous temperament of our Chief-Judge, it is of interest to note that the dissenting opinion in the Rodgers case above referred to has now practically 2 People t-. Lochner, 177 N. Y. 145. 3 Ryan v. City of New York, - N. Y. л1ю Journal, n February, 1904).
. (Neu- York
