BLACK, J., lead opinion (Footnotes)
1. The investigator and the Regional Counsel were not served with process, and are not parties. 2. We do not find it necessary to consider the Brotherhood's additional argument that the decree violates the Brotherhood's right to represent workers, which is guaranteed by the Railway Labor Act, 44 Stat. 577, as amended, 45 U.S.C. §§ 151-188. 3. Constitution of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen Insurance Department, Preamble. 4. Interstate Commerce Commission, Third Annual Report (1889) 85. 5. Griffith, "The Vindication of a National Public Policy Under the Federal Employers' Liability Act," 18 Law and Contemp.Prob. 160, 163. 6. 27 Stat. 531, as amended, 46 U.S.C. §§ 1-43. 7. 35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U.S.C. §§ 51-60. An earlier version of the law, passed two years earlier, 34 Stat. 232, had been held unconstitutional. Employers' Liability Cases, 207 U.S. 463. The constitutionality of the 1908 statute was sustained in the Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U.S. 1. 8. The Brotherhood also provides a staff, now at its own expense, to investigate accidents to help gather evidence for use by the injured worker or his family should a trial be necessary to vindicate their rights. 9. Certain other provisions of the decree enjoin the Brotherhood from sharing counsel fees with lawyers whom it recommended and from countenancing the sharing of fees by its regional investigators. The Brotherhood denies that it has engaged in such practices since 1959, in compliance with a decree of the Supreme Court of Illinois. See In re Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 13 Ill.2d 391, 150 N.E.2d 163. Since the Brotherhood is not objecting to the other provisions of the decree except insofar as they might later be construed as barring the Brotherhood from helping injured workers or their families by recommending that they not settle without a lawyer and by recommending certain lawyers selected by the Brotherhood, it is only to that extent that we pass upon the validity of the other provisions. Because of our disposition of the case, we do not consider the Brotherhood's claim that the findings of the court were not supported by substantial evidence. 10. The Bar relies on the common law, the Canons of Ethics of the American Bar Association, adopted into the rules of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, 171 Va. xviii, and several Virginia statutes prohibiting the unauthorized practice of law. The Canons of Ethics to which the Bar refers prohibit, respectively, stirring up of litigation, control or exploitation by a lay agency of professional services of a lawyer, and aiding the unauthorized practice of law. Canons 28, 35, 47. The statutes respectively set the qualifications for the practice of law in the State and provide for injunctions against "running, capping, soliciting, and maintenance." Virginia Code, 1950, §§ 54-42, 54-83.1. 11. NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415; Konigsberg v. State Bar, 353 U.S. 252; Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U.S. 232. 12. See Feather, The Essence of Trade Unionism (London, 1963) 42-43. 13. Cf. Drinker, Legal Ethics (1953), 167; Hildebrand v. State Bar, 36 Cal.2d 504, 515, 225 P.2d 508, 514 (Carter, J., dissenting), 36 Cal.2d at 521, 225 P.2d at 518 (Traynor, J., dissenting). 14. See also Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Comm., 372 U.S. 539; Louisiana ex rel. Gremillion v. NAACP, 366 U.S. 293; Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479; Bates v. City of Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516; NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449; Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147. CLARK, J., dissenting (Footnotes)
1. In the context of NAACP objectives, litigation is not a technique of resolving private differences; it is a means for achieving the lawful objectives of equality of treatment by all government, federal, state and local, for the members of the Negro community in this country. It is thus a form of political expression. NAACP v. Button, supra, at 429. 2. E.g., In re Petition of Committee on Rule 28 of the Cleveland Bar Ass'n, 15 Ohio Law Abst. 106 (1933); In re Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 13 Ill.2d 391, 150 N.E.2d 163 (1958); In re O'Neill, 5 F.Supp. 465 (E.D.N.Y.1933); Young v. Gulf M. & O. R. Co., No. 3957 (E.D.Mo.1946); Reynolds v. Gulf M.O. & Texas Pac. R. Co., No. 772 (E.D.Tenn.1946); North Carolina ex rel. McLean v. Hice, Superior Ct. of N.C., County of Buncombe (1948).
