## Facts

- Union officers and members representing most retail ice peddlers in Kansas City, Missouri sought to organize nonunion peddlers and improve wages and working conditions.
- The union adopted a plan to prevent nonunion peddlers from obtaining ice by pressuring wholesale distributors to agree not to sell to nonunion peddlers.
- All wholesale distributors except Empire Storage & Ice Company agreed; Empire refused because such an agreement would violate Missouri’s restraint-of-trade statute and expose it to criminal penalties and treble-damages liability.
- After warning it would use other means to force compliance, the union began picketing Empire’s premises with signs stating that Empire continued selling to nonunion peddlers.
- The picketing triggered refusals by union truck drivers (who comprised most drivers serving Empire’s customers) to deliver goods to or from Empire, causing a substantial business loss.
- Missouri courts found the picketing’s immediate purpose was to compel Empire to enter an unlawful agreement to stop selling ice to nonunion peddlers.

## Issues

1. Whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit a state from enjoining peaceful union picketing when it is an essential and inseparable part of a scheme to compel violation of a valid criminal restraint-of-trade law.
2. Whether truthful, peaceful labor picketing receives constitutional protection when used to accomplish conduct the state may lawfully prohibit.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the injunction against the union’s picketing.
- The Court held that Missouri could constitutionally prohibit combinations in restraint of trade and could enjoin picketing used as an integral part of a plan to induce a violation of that law.
- The Court rejected the argument that the injunction impermissibly abridged speech, because the state action targeted unlawful conduct (a restraint-of-trade combination) rather than public discussion as such.

## Legal Principles

- The First Amendment does not immunize speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct that violates a valid criminal statute.
- A state may prohibit and remedy agreements and combinations in restraint of trade, including enjoining actions undertaken to force another party to join an unlawful restraint.
- Peaceful picketing may be enjoined when it is the operational means for accomplishing an unlawful objective, even if the picketing includes truthful statements.
- Constitutional protection for labor picketing does not extend to picketing directed to compel commission of a crime or other conduct the state may validly forbid.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld Missouri’s injunction because the picketing was found to be inseparable from a scheme to coerce Empire into an illegal restraint-of-trade agreement; expressive activity intertwined with unlawful conduct may be restrained without violating the First or Fourteenth Amendments.


Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490 (1949)