''Gompers v. Buck's Stove and Range Co.'', 221 U.S. 418 (1911), was a ruling by the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

involving a case of contempt for violating the terms of an injunction restraining

labor union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

leaders from a

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...

or from publishing any statement that there was or had been a boycott.

Facts

In 1907 the metal polishers in the Buck Stove and Range Company in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

, struck for a nine-hour day. After the

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...

put the company on its " unfair list," the company obtained a sweeping

injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...

forbidding this

. For their refusal to obey,

Samuel Gompers Samuel Gompers (; January 27, 1850December 11, 1924) was a British-born American cigar maker, labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and served as the organization's ...

, John Mitchell and Frank Morrison were sentenced to prison for

contempt In colloquial usage, contempt usually refers to either the act of despising, or having a general lack of respect for something. This set of emotions generally produces maladaptive behaviour. Other authors define contempt as a negative emotio ...

Judgment

The Supreme Court dismissed the case, in part, as moot. Buck's Stove president James Van Cleave had died in 1910 and his successor resolved his dispute with the workers. The court also reversed the contempt decision on the grounds that the proceedings should have been instituted by the court rather than the plaintiff (the Buck's Stove company). In the second contempt trial held in 1912, the defendants were again found guilty and sentenced to prison. The Supreme Court overturned the convictions in ''Gompers v. United States'',. because the proceedings had not been instituted within the three-year statute of limitations imposed by the

Clayton Antitrust Act The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 (, codified at , ), is a part of United States antitrust law with the goal of adding further substance to the U.S. antitrust law regime; the Clayton Act seeks to prevent anticompetitive practices in their inci ...

Notes

References

* Adams, James Truslow. ''Dictionary of American History.'' New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940. * Foner, Philip S. ''History of the Labor Movement in the United States. Vol. 5: The AFL in the Progressive Era, 1910-1915.'' New York: International Publishers, 1980. Cloth ; Paperback * Rayback, Joseph G. ''A History of American Labor.'' Rev. and exp. ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1974.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gompers v. Buck's Stove and Range Co. 1911 in United States case law United States labor case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the White Court American Federation of Labor Consumer boycotts Samuel Gompers 1911 in labor relations

Facts

Judgment

See also

Notes

References

External links