Privilege of a Labor Union to Induce a Breach of Contract

Abstract

Manufactures of felt hats are divided into "makers" and "finishers," the former producing "hats in the rough" and the latter preparing them for the consumer ready to wear. In the recent case of R. & W. hat Shop Inc. v. Sculley (1922, Conn) 118 Atl 55, the plaintiff was a hat-finishing company running a non-union shop. The plaintiff had ordered a number of hats in the rough of one McLachlan, a hat "maker" running a union shop, and he had accepted the order. A bilateral contract was thereby made, creating in each party a right to performance by the other with the correlative duty on each to perform. These "unital" rights and duties were the primary juristic effect of the operative acts of offer and acceptance; but, as a by-product of these operative acts, each contractor obtained innumerable (or "multital") rights in rem against all other individuals, each of whom bore a correlative duty not at all contractual in nature. These latter rights are often called, and were so called by the court in the instant, case, a "property right in the contract." By virture of the rule first laid down in Lumley v. Gye, the plaintiff had this "property right" against each third person, including the defendant Sculley, that such person should not, without just cause, include McLachlan to break the contract to supply the plaintiff with hats in the rough.