Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/247

 2 10

pressive. One speaker at that meeting said that the grabber was one of the meanest and basest creatures that walked the face of the earth. He said, 'we have one of those with a chaney eye before us. He is worse than a grabber, he is an evictor.' The man pointed at in this speech is O'Keeffe. Another speaker said: 'There is one thing you can do, and that is watch the farms, watch the houses; yes and watch the shops, too, and see who will go into them.' This was not merely an invitation, this is a direction to boycott. From the -moment of this meeting, O'KeefFe's trade was according to his evi dence practically extinguished. "This brings me to the meeting of the ijth of June, 1900, which is important because it so nearly approaches the time of the agree ment between the Parkers and O'Keeffe, the time at which the first phase of this case terminates. At that meeting Walsh is proved to have said: 'Twelve months ago I advised the people not to go to a certain coal-yard for coal. I told no one what that yard was, but everyone knew what yard I meant. (A voice:—'Down with the grabber.') It is said that this person gives a cheaper loaf than anyone in Tallow; but they should see is this loaf the proper weight, or is it made of stuff that would give one a pain in the belly.—(A voice:—'Down with the grabber.') For my part I would rather go where I would get an honest loaf, where I would be sure that it was not made of stuff that would sicken me.'" In this principal case no concerted action was avowed, indeed it was disavowed. But the Chief Baron disposed of that difficulty in a summary way: "I accordingly now proceed to give you a legal direction as to the mode in which an agreement, in a case of this kind, can be established. To prove an agreement, in the sense in which that word is used in the ques tion I have sumbitted to vou, it is not neces

sary to prove that the defendants met, and in words agreed. Agree, as here used, does hot mean that which commercially would be deemed a contract. An agreement of this description may be, and generally is, a matter of inference, deduced from the acts of -parties done in pursuance of a wrongful purpose apparently in common between them. The essential characteristic "of the evidence of such an agreement is common wrongful ac tion, tending tovards common, wrongful purpose. To infer such an agreement, you should be satisfied that the wrong ful action, relied on as evidence of it is the action, not of one single isolated individual acting independently of others, but is the joint action of several ac tuated by a common wrongful purpose and tending to a common wrongful end. If there is such joint action, you are at liberty to infer that it resulted from an understanding be tween the actors so to act; and such an un derstanding would, for the purpose in hand, amount to, and constitute, an agreement. Therefore the distinction, between the inde pendent action of one, and the joint action of several for a common wrongful purpose, is one which, as I have already told you, must be steadily kept in view by you throughout the entire case." And of a certainty there was evidence enough in this case to show that these things were the result of concert, not of coincidence. Not every joint refusal to deal with a per son which results in damage to him involve? a legal wrong to a legal right. A mere strike. for example; stopping work, together with damage resultant, it is well agreed is not an actionable conspiracy. There must be some thing unlawful in what is done in order that there shall be held to be something unlawful in the combination. The question must then be put to legal analysis: First, what is the right of the plaintiff; second, what is the wrong of the defendants.