A third possible basis for distinction might be found in the court's constant reiteration in its opinion that recovery is grounded on a common-law, apparently as distinguished from a statutory, tort. Why this distinction is relevant to the state's right to grant relief is not clear, unless it suggests a difference between state laws of general application and laws aimed specifically at labor relations.
When the Laburnum case is read against the background of the Garner case, it is clear that these factors are not themselves the ultimate tests of state court jurisdiction to apply state law, but indications of whether or not there is a likelihood of conflict between state and federal policy. The possibility of conflict of policies, pointed up in the Garner case, remains the principal consideration, whether damages or injunctive relief, violence, or peaceful picketing, common-law or statutory rights to recovery are involved.
Thus, if there is a conflict between state and federal substantive rules in terms of conduct condemned or protected, state law must of course give way no matter what remedy it provides. Likewise, even if state and federal laws have an appearance of harmony, as applied by different tribunals they may become inconsistent and federal policy indirectly thwarted. This potential inconsistency was the consideration that lay behind the Garner decision and prompted the statement that, 'A multiplicity of tribunals and a diversity of procedures are quite as apt to produce incompatible or conflicting adjudications as are different rules of substantive law.' The notion of 'conflicting remedies' is a shorthand way of pointing up this potential conflict in the application of substantive policies. Conversely, the conclusion that there is no 'conflict of remedies' would seem to indicate that the different substantive rules as applied by different tribunals will not conflict in terms of conduct condemned or protected, and that once this absence of conflict is assured, federal law does not envisage its preventive remedy as necessarily the only one available to an injured party.