Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/535

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S02

THE GREEN BAG

pickets noting together and their persistent folowlng of the workmen to and from their work day after day for months is in itselt a constant threat producing fear and alarm among the work men. Judge Sanborn, writing the opinion, reviews at considerable length the American and English authorities relating to the right of striking em ployees, TORTS (Conspiracy). Man. —In the recent case of Aberthaw Construction Co. v. Cameron, 80 N. E. Rep. 478, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts holds that a corporation is not, because It Is a corporation, immune from the consequences of an unlawful combination with others to compel a contractor to employ only union workmen In the construction of a building, under penalty of a strike. As supporting this doctrine the court cites White v. Apsley Rubber Co., Bo N. E. 500, and Buffalo Oil Co. v. Standard

Oil Co., 106 N. Y. 66g, 12 N. E. 826. In the present case it appealed that the contractor was doing the work for the corporation involved. On the ground that the contractor was employing non-union labor, a strike was threatened. To avoid this, and the consequent delay in the build ing operations, the defendant corporation requested the contractor either to remove the non-union workman employed and procure employment for him elsewhere, or permit it to do so. This request, which was at most advisory only, was not re garded as making the defendant corporation a co-conspirator witn those who had threatened the contracting employer with a strike, but its partici pation, with knowledge of the action of the other bodies involved, in the transaction which brought on a breach of the building contract, was heldjto make the corporation, as well as the other defend ants, liable for a conspiracy.