WIDGETS R US Collective Bargaining The International Union of Widget Molders (IUWM) organized workers in 80 widget factories in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. These factories produced 75% of the world's widgets. The widgets were shipped by rail and by truck throughout the United States and several foreign countries. The organizing campaign, which was completed in 1933, was a long campaign and was hard fought. In winning the right to represent the widgeteers (widget molders were called widgeteers) the union used a variety of tactics, some considered to be violent and some considered to be non-violent. For example in the Alabama campaign, the union started a leafleting campaign where they handed out literature to those who were coming into the factory. None of the leafleteers were employees of the factory. Those handing out leaflets did not speak to those entering the factory but merely handed out the literature. When this quiet tactic did not work, the union representatives placed nails in the roadway where the delivery trucks entered and left the plant. Fortunately no trucks or tires were damaged by this action. In Virginia, the union organizers dressed in costumes depicting Thomas Jefferson and espoused the right to certain freedoms as something that Jefferson would want were he alive today. In particular, the freedom to organize for the common good. Many persons in the community, customers and non-customers were swayed by this depiction and did not do business with the Virginia factory and business fell off a good bit. In New Jersey, things became a bit more active. Tony Soprano's grandfather, Antonio Soprano, was a member of the IUWM. Antonio organized a crew of organizers who drove trash trucks onto company property and deposited 10 million tons of garbage in the entryways of the New Jersey plants. As a result the factories were over run with large Norwegian rats, an unusually virulent strain of rat that is very difficult to eradicate. The factory owners were reduced to calling out sharpshooters to kill the rats. The end result was that the New Jersey plants were shut down entirely. Later in the campaign the IUWM put Quaker State motor oil on the rails of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C. By doing this the wheels were unable to grip the rails and the cars carrying the widgets were seriously delayed. The widget manufacturers lost many contracts. Some of the widgets made it though but most of the widgets traveling by rail were stalled in their delivery. The owners of the factories were at a loss as to what to do. However, the first thing they did was file a petition to obtain an injunction. You are their attorney. You must examine the law current at the time and explain to them what their chances are to succeed. In doing so, you will provide some history for them as to how the courts and the legislature have looked at this type of behavior. Examine each action separately, apply the various laws up until the time, cite the restrictions if any, the case law that supports or does not support each situation and also tell them how Justice Holmes would have handled this, if he was deciding the case. Evaluate their chance of prevailing. It is imperative that you substantiate your answer. Good Luck!! \f\fIn State Board of Nursing and State Board of Healing Arts v. Ruebke, 259 Kan. 599, 913 P.2d 142 (1996) (hereafter Ruebke), factors noted in the defendant's favor included that, though she was an unlicensed provider of lay midwife care, she did not \"hold herself out as anything other than a lay midwife; [Ruebke] has routinely used and consulted with supervising physicians; was not shown to administer any prescription drugs [...] and had engaged only in activities routinely and properly done by people who are not physicians\" (Ruebke). Ruebke, who was eventually found not to have violated state law, also had a great deal of experience, and had been operating under the supervision of a physician whenever she performed something that might otherwise have been \"the practice of the healing arts\" (Furrow et al, p. 23). It's worth noting that Ruebke was also not accused of harming anyone through her unlicensed practice of healthcare. Knott fails to meet each of the exculpatory factors. In Sermchief v. Gonzales, 660 S.W.2d 683 (1983) (hereafter Sermchief), licensed professional nurses with post-graduate training in obstetrics and gynecology were found to have been operating within the law in their provision of gynecological care. The court noted, \"all acts were performed pursuant to standing orders and protocols approved by physicians.\" Had Knott consulted with any of Amicus' direct care providers - whether a physician was available or not - he would never have been allowed to administer the insulin. The Sermchief court also noted, \"the hallmark of the professional is knowing the limits of one's professional knowledge.\" Knott's behavior constitutes a major infraction of several sections of the nursing practice act; any one of those infractions alone might be grounds to lose his nursing license, and their combination would certainly constitute grounds. The tort of malpractice is defined in Hall v. Hilbun, 466 So.2d 856 (1985) (hereafter Hall) as \"legal fault by a physician or surgeon [arising] from the failure of a physician to provide the quality of care required by law.\" Hall is particularly instructive in Amicus' case because it addresses both the concept of regional variations in the standard of care and a physician who was found to have potential malpractice liability through omissions and failures to act, rather than active mistakes. Briefly, one of Hall's patients died fourteen hours after he performed abdominal surgery, and after exhibiting symptoms including a heartrate of 140, which were not reported to Hall; he was sued on the basis of his \"failure to make inquiry regarding his patient's postoperative course prior to his retiring [that night] and his alleged failure to give appropriate postoperative instructions\" to staff. One doctor's expert testimony noted that serious complications may arise after abdominal surgery, and that the patient's decline could have been arrested by \"an experienced general surgeon [...Hall] lost the opportunity to diagnose a condition,\" particularly if subject to closer observation. In Hall, the court moved away from the \"locality rule,\" finding that national standards of medical care supersede local limitations. Physicians, according to the decision, must meet the same level of minimum competence and knowledge as that of any other physician in the United States, as well as to understand their limitations. Furthermore, he must have a working understanding of \"the facilities, equipment, resources (including personnel) [...] and options (including what specialized services or facilities may be available in larger communities [...] reasonably available [...] as well as the practical limitations on same.\" His use of the resources immediately available to him, as well as reasonably available at larger facilities, should be \"adept.\" The court in Hall noted that a physician has an obligation to \"use minimally sound medical judgment [...] A physician does not guarantee recovery. [...] A competent physician is not liable per se for a mere error of judgment, mistaken diagnosis or the occurrence of an undesirable result.\" One question that results is whether Pepper's failure to check whether Amicus' coma was treatable equates to an abdication of the responsibility to exercise minimally adequate medical judgment, given that it was in keeping with the standard practice of the hospital to not aggressively treat unconscious patients from nursing homes. The counterargument to finding it negligent might be that the professional judgment and experience of Pepper and other ECNH physicians has shown unconscious patients from nursing homes to be unresponsive to aggressive treatment. In addition, given that Pepper knew Amicus had been subject to both a massive insulin overdose and a stroke, he could have made the professional judgment that she would not respond to such treatment, or held minimal probability of recovery. That counterargument is undermined by Pepper's admission that his failure to check whether the stroke was treatable was not a decision - he simply didn't think to check for it. Furthermore, he feels that he \"missed the stroke.\" It's hard to make the case that assessing a patient's prognosis is not a component of the minimum standard of competent care; thus, while local medical judgment might concur with Pepper, the law, the resources available to him, and the medical training he received would all have required him to assess Amicus' chances for recovery from the stroke. Those don't constitute \"aggressive\" treatment - rather, the concept is fairly basic. Another case that illustrates potential exposure for Pepper is Herskovits v. Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, 99 Wash.2d 609, 664 P.2d 474 (1983) (hereafter Herskovits). Herskovits is instructive because of its consideration of liability in the case of a physician's malpractice reducing the patient's chances of survival, particularly where the plaintiff cannot prove that the person would have lived. Here, a failure to diagnose lung cancer over an extended period of time allowed tumor development from stage 1 to stage 2; plaintiffs were able to present expert testimony that research indicated such development would reduce the likelihood of fiveyear survival by almost 15%, from 39% to 25%. The Herskovits court found that plaintiffs did have a cause of action that could be presented to a jury, and that to find otherwise would be \"a blanket release from liability for doctors and hospitals any time there was a less than a 50 percent chance of survival, regardless of how flagrant the negligence.\" While the research available in Herskovits is not available here, it's an interesting exercise - and one Pepper's lawyers would no doubt propose - to consider how full Amicus' recovery could have been, given the confluence of a) advanced Alzheimer's; b) an infection; c) a massive insulin overdose and resultant coma; and d) stroke