William Benz v. Compania Naviera Hidalgo, S.A., M. D. MacRae v. Compania Naviera Hidalgo, S.A., Jeff Morrison v. Compania Naviera Hidalgo, S.A.

These are appeals from judgments awarding damages in three separate suits brought by the appellee, a Panamanian corporation, in the district court. Appellee is the owner and operator of the S. S. Riviera, a vessel of Liberian registry. The appellants, defendants in the several actions below, are citizens of the State of Oregon and of states or countries different from that of the plaintiff. Appellants were sued individually as officers of three voluntary unincorporated labor associations, and also as representatives of classes composed of the members of their respective labor associations.

These cases were before us previously, on appeals from interlocutory injunctions issued against the same appellants to restrain them from picketing appellee’s vessel. Benz v. Compania Naviera Hidalgo, S.A., 9 Cir., 1953, 205 F.2d 944 . The vessel had sailed before the case came on for hearing and we accordingly dismissed for mootness, returning the case to the district court for trial of the damage claims. We directed that those claims be prosecuted free from the effects of res judicata arising from the injunctions, and generally “as free from the effects of such injunctions, as if the same had…