MASON-DIXON LINES, INC., Appellant, v. Local Union No. 560, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America
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Scribd Government DocsMASON-DIXON LINES, INC., Appellant, v. Local Union No. 560, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America
Uploaded by
Scribd Government Docs443 F.
2d 807
MASON-DIXON LINES, INC., Appellant,
v.
LOCAL UNION NO. 560, INTERNATIONAL
BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS,
WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA.
No. 18702.
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
Argued January 26, 1971.
Decided June 1, 1971.
Vincent J. Apruzzese, Apruzzese & McDermott, Springfield, N. J.
(Francis A. Mastro, Springfield, N. J., on the brief), for appellant.
Edward A. Cohen, Beckerman, Franzblau & Cohen, Newark, N. J., for
appellee.
Before HASTIE, Chief Judge, and ALDISERT and GIBBONS, Circuit
Judges.
OPINION OF THE COURT
HASTIE, Circuit Judge.
The appellant, an interstate motor carrier, brought this action in the district
court under Sections 301 and 303 of the Labor-Management Relations Act, 29
U.S.C. 185, 187, against a local union, the bargaining agent of its
employees, for damages caused by striking and picketing, allegedly in violation
of a collective bargaining agreement. The district court stayed the action
pending arbitration of issues in suit. This appeal has been taken from that order.
There is a threshold question whether the challenged order, obviously not a
final order, is an order granting an injunction and as such appealable under
section 1292(a) (1) of title 28, United States Code. Without restating the
generally accepted analysis that supports our result1 we hold that the order,
staying what at common law would have been an action on the law side, is
appealable. Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corp. v. Pennsylvania Turnpike Com'n,
3d Cir. 1967, 387 F.2d 768; Formigli Corporation v. Alcar Builders, Inc., 3d
Cir. 1964, 329 F.2d 79; Hilti, Inc. v. Oldach, 1st Cir. 1968, 392 F.2d 368.
3
The obligation to arbitrate alleged in this case is founded upon two collective
bargaining agreements, an industry-wide National Agreement and a New
Jersey-New York Area Supplemental Agreement. The latter explicitly provides
in article 44, section 1(j): "[w]here a strike is in violation of this Agreement, or
any law including but not limited to violations of Sections 301 or 303 of the
National Labor Relations Act, all issues of liability shall be resolved pursuant to
the grievance procedure." Section 2 of article 44 of the same agreement
declares that "disputes concerning the interpretation, application or enforcement
of the grievance procedures provided in this Agreement shall themselves be
deemed arbitrable. * * *" Thus, on its face the local Supplemental Agreement
makes arbitrable the present dispute concerning the liability of the union under
Section 301 or Section 303 of the National Labor Relations Act for an allegedly
illegal strike.
However, the employer contends that the quoted provisions of the local
Supplementary Agreement are nullified by an overriding provision of Article
8(d) of the National Agreement that "[n]othing herein shall prevent legal
proceedings by the Employer where the strike is in violation of this
Agreement." The words "nothing herein" are sensibly read as meaning "nothing
in the National Agreement". Moreover, when the draftsmen of the National
Agreement wished to prohibit the inclusion of a provision in any supplemental
agreement they did so by explicit reference to supplementary agreements. E. g.,
Article 8(c). Thus, like the district court, we find no inconsistency between the
collective bargaining agreements and the order staying legal action pending
arbitration.
It remains to consider the employer's contention that, as a matter of law, the
court lacked authority to issue a stay, which in effect requires arbitration, rather
than permitting immediate judicial consideration of the merits of the employer's
claim for damages under Section 301 or 303.
This court had held that "a stay of proceedings pending arbitration * * * is
within the inherent power of a [district] court and does not require statutory
authority." Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corp. v. Pennsylvania Turnpike Com'n,
1967, 387 F.2d 768, 773, quoting similar language in Landis v. North American
Co., 1936, 299 U.S. 248, 254, 57 S.Ct. 163, 81 L.Ed. 153. Certainly, the normal
power of a court to do equity enables it to postpone action on a complaint
pending the outcome of a procedure for resolving such a dispute upon which
the parties have agreed. Yale & Towne Mfg. Co. v. Local Lodge 1717,
Machinists, 3d Cir. 1962, 299 F.2d 882. Indeed, our Yale & Towne decision
approved a stay, pending arbitration, of an action for damages under Section
301 for breach of a no-strike agreement. Accord, International Association of
Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, Local 66 v. Leona Lee Corp.,
5th Cir. 1970, 434 F.2d 192.
7
To avoid this conclusion the appellant relies upon a limitation stated in the
United States Arbitration Act, 9 U. S.C. 1. Section 3 of that Act requires a
district court to grant a stay pending arbitration where the issue involved in a
pending suit is "referable to arbitration under an agreement in writing for such
arbitration." But Section 1 makes the Arbitration Act inapplicable "to contracts
of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers
engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." In our view, the effect of Section 1
is merely to leave the arbitrability of disputes in the excluded categories as if
the Arbitration Act had never been enacted. So, assuming that the collective
bargaining contract in this case is covered by the exclusionary language of
Section 3, the question remains whether, without regard to the Arbitration Act,
the stay order was within judicial power.
We have already indicated that it was. This conclusion is strongly supported by
the decision of the Supreme Court in Textile Workers Union v. Lincoln Mills,
1957, 353 U.S. 448, 77 S.Ct. 912, 1 L.Ed.2d 972. There the Supreme Court
derived from Section 301 of the Labor-Management Relations Act authority to
fashion appropriate federal concepts to govern demands for arbitration based
upon collective bargaining agreements and, applying such concepts, ordered
arbitration. Mr. Justice Frankfurter dissented partly because he viewed Section
3 of the Arbitration Act as disclosing a federal policy against arbitration in such
cases. But this argument, which is essentially the appellant's argument here, did
not persuade a majority of the Court.
Moreover, since the Lincoln Mills case, the Supreme Court has not hesitated to
declare that federal policy strongly favors judicial implementation of arbitration
for which the parties have provided as a salutary feature of collective
bargaining. Thus, in United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co.,
1960, 363 U.S. 574, 578, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1351, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409, the Court said:
10
"[T]he run of arbitration cases * * * becomes irrelevant to our problem. There
the choice is between the adjudication of cases or controversies in courts with
established procedures or even special statutory safeguards on the one hand and
the settlement of them in the more informal arbitration tribunal on the other. In
the commercial case, arbitration is the substitute for litigation. Here arbitration
is the substitute for industrial strife. Since arbitration of labor disputes has quite
different functions from arbitration under an ordinary commercial agreement,
the hostility evinced by courts toward arbitration of commercial agreements has
no place here. For arbitration of labor disputes under collective bargaining
agreements is part and parcel of the collective bargaining process itself."
11
The judgment of the district court will be affirmed.
Notes:
1
Shanferoke Coal & Supply Corp. v. Westchester Corp., 1935, 293 U.S. 449, 55
S. Ct. 313, 79 L.Ed. 583, approved and distinguished in Baltimore Contractors,
Inc. v. Bodinger, 1955, 348 U.S. 176, 75 S.Ct. 249, 99 L.Ed. 233See Kirschner
v. West Company, 1962, 300 F.2d 133.
