These are direct appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 1253, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1253 from the judgment of a three-judge District Court, 194 F.Supp. 31 (S.D.Ill.), which upheld an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 79 M.C.C. 599, granting a motor common carrier application. This Court noted probable jurisdiction because of important questions raised as to the relationship and interplay between remedies available under the Interstate Commerce Act and under the National Labor Relations Act as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act. 49 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.; 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., 368 U.S. 951, 82 S.Ct. 393, 7 L.Ed.2d 385.
Appellee Nebraska Short Line Carriers, Inc., is a Nebraska corporation, organized in June 1956. All of its stock is owned by 12 motor carriers serving eastern and central Nebraska and interchanging interstate traffic at Omaha and other gateway points with over 20 larger trunk-line carriers, among whom are the appellant carriers, with whom throughroute, joint-rate, interline arrangements have been established. Some of the stockholder carriers serve Nebraska communities without other motor carrier or rail service.
For some time prior to May 1956, the stockholder carriers had resisted efforts by the Teamsters Union too unionize their operations. Eventually, the union sought to bring economic pressure to bear upon the stockholder carriers by a secondary boycott against their traffic through the larger, unionized, trunk-line carriers upon whom the stockholder carriers were dependent for interchanging traffic to and from points beyond Nebraska. The collective bargaining contract between the trunkline carriers and the union contained protection of rights or so-called 'hot cargo' clauses which reserved to the union and its members 'the right to refuse to handle goods from or to any firm or truck' involved in any controversy with the union and provided that it should not be a cause for discharge if an employee of the carrier refused to handle 'unfair' goods.
In May 1956, some of the stockholder carriers began experiencing difficulties in receiving and delivering freight from and to many of their normal and logical connections at Omaha and, to some extent, at Sioux City, Lincoln, and Grand Island. The difficulty consisted primarily of the refusal on the part of many of the larger carriers to accept interline traffic tendered to them by the stockholder carriers and the refusal to turn over to them inbound traffic routed over their lines or normally turned over to them for delivery to ultimate destinations in Nebraska. The stockholder carriers, shippers, and consignees thus experienced considerable delay, inconvenience, and unforeseen expense in the movement of traffic to and from interior Nebraska points. At the same time, however, some of the larger interlining carriers, particularly appellants Burlington Truck Lines, Inc., and Santa Fe Trail Transportation Company, generally maintained normal interline relationships with the stockholder carriers.