Subsequent Developments
In 1909, a new trial was held in the District Court to determine the outcome of the case. The presiding judge directed the jury to find for Loewe & Co. in accordance with the Supreme Court decision. The jury returned with a verdict of $74,000 in damages, which was trebled under the Sherman Act to $222,000. The union won on appeal but then lost on retrial in 1912. The case reached the Supreme Court in 1914, and in Lawlor v. Loewe (1915) the Court again held the union liable for damages. In 1917 the case was settled for slightly over $234,000 (approx. $3.9 million in 2009 currency) of which the AFL was able to obtain $216,000 in voluntary contributions from union members.
The ruling deprived labor unions of an important and effective union tactic, and the decision to hold individual union members personally liable for damages had an adverse impact on union organizing efforts. This led the AFL to initiate an aggressive campaign to convince Congress to address labor concerns about the Sherman Act in the reform of antitrust laws. The push culminated with the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, which provided that "the labor of a human being is not a commodity or an article of commerce." Section 20 of the act further stated that no injunctions should be granted by federal courts in labor disputes "unless necessary to prevent irreparable injury to property, or to a property right." These provisions, however, were narrowly interpreted by the Supreme Court, which ruled in Duplex Printing Press Company v. Deering (1921) that the exemptions in the Clayton Act did not protect secondary boycotts from judicial control.
Prosecution of labor under antitrust laws would continue until the enactment of the Norris-La Guardia Act in 1932, which included express exemptions of organized labor from antitrust injunctions. These exemptions were upheld by the Supreme Court in United States v. Hutcheson (1941) where it was stated that the act should be read broadly to provide a total antitrust exemption for labor unions, "so long as union acts in its self-interest and does not combine with non-labor groups." The majority opinion in Hutcheson was written by Felix Frankfurter who, before becoming a Supreme Court Justice, had served as one of the drafters of Norris-La Guardia.
Read more about this topic: Loewe V. Lawlor
Famous quotes containing the words subsequent and/or developments:
“Reading ... is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization, and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor-intensive economy and its traditional folk culture.”
—C. Vann Woodward (b. 1908)