United Leather Workers v. Herkert, 265 U.S. 457 (1924)

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United Leather Workers International Union, Local Lodge

or Union No. 66 v. Herkert & Meisel Trunk Company
No. 233

Argued April 24, 25, 1924
Decided June 9, 1924
265 U.S. 457

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEAL

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

Syllabus

1. A strike by employees, intended to prevent through illegal picketing and intimidation of workers the continued manufacture of goods by their employer and having that effect, is not a conspiracy to restrain interstate commerce within the Anti-Trust Act, even though the strikers know that the products when made are to be shipped in interstate commerce to fill orders already received and accepted from the employer’s customers in other states, provided there be no actual or attempted interference with the free transport of the products, when manufactured, from the factory to their destination in other states or with their sale in those states. United Mine Workers v. Coronado Co., 259 U.S. 344. P. 464.

2. The mere reduction of the supply of an article to be shipped in interstate commerce by illegal and tortious prevention of its manufacture is ordinarily an indirect and remote obstruction to that commerce; it is only when the intent or the necessary effect is to enable those preventing the manufacture to monopolize the supply, control prices, or discriminate as between would-be purchasers that the unlawful interference can be said directly to burden interstate commerce. P. 471.

284 F. 446 reversed.

Appeal from a decree of the circuit court of appeals which affirmed a final decree of the district court, granting an injunction in a suit by divers manufacturers of trunks and leather goods against striking employees and labor unions.