Zdanok v. Glidden Company

Citation288 F.2d 99
Decision Date28 March 1961
Docket NumberDocket 26542.,No. 217,217
PartiesOlga ZDANOK, John Zacharczyk, Mary A. Hackett, Quitman Williams and Marcelle Kreischer, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. GLIDDEN COMPANY, Durkee Famous Foods Division, a Foreign Corporation, Defendant-Appellee.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit)

Morris Shapiro, New York City (Harry Katz, Sahn, Shapiro & Epstein, New York City, on the brief), for plaintiffs-appellants.

Chester Bordeau, New York City (Charles C. Humpstone, White & Case, New York City, on the brief), for defendant-appellee.

Before LUMBARD, Chief Judge, MADDEN, Judge, United States Court of Claims,* and WATERMAN, Circuit Judge.

Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing In Banc Denied April 24, 1961.

MADDEN, Judge.

The plaintiffs sued in the District Court for the Southern District of New York for damages for alleged breach by the defendant of a contract made for their benefit by a labor union. The District Court had jurisdiction because of diversity of citizenship. The Court decided that they were not entitled to recover, 185 F.Supp. 441, and they have appealed.

From 1929 until November 30, 1957, the defendant operated a plant at Elmhurst, New York, known as its Durkee Famous Foods Division. The plaintiffs are members of General Warehousemen's Union, Local 852, which is affiliated with the Teamsters' Union. The defendant and Local 852 had had collective bargaining agreements since December 1, 1949, each agreement covering a two-year period. The last agreement covered the period December 1, 1955 to November 30, 1957.

Each agreement contained a provision establishing a system of seniority which required that in case of a curtailment of production, employees were to be laid off in the reverse order of seniority. If, at the time he was laid off, an employee had had five or more years of continuous employment, his seniority would entitle him to be reemployed if an opening for reemployment for one having his seniority occurred within three years after his layoff. If he had had less than five years of employment before his lay-off, he would be entitled to reemployment if an opening for one with his seniority occurred within two years after his lay-off. The contract between the union and the employer contained a non-contributory pension plan, with normal retirement on pension at age 65, early retirement at 55 if the employee had had 15 years of service, and other types of pensions under specified conditions. The contract also included hospital, medical and surgical insurance, life insurance and accidental death insurance to be paid for by the employer.

On September 16, 1957, the defendant gave written notice to the union that it would terminate the collective bargaining contract at its expiration date, November 30, 1957. After September 16 it began to reduce production at Elmhurst, and to remove its machinery and equipment from Elmhurst to a newly established plant at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The employment of four of the five plaintiffs was terminated on November 1, and that of the fifth one on November 18. The ages of the five plaintiffs, at the time of their discharge, ranged from 43 to 61 years, and their periods of employment with the defendant ranged from 10 to 25 years.

The defendant removed a considerable part of its machinery from its Elmhurst plant to the new Bethlehem plant, and manufactured there a number of the same products. The Bethlehem plant was more modern and efficient, and apparently had a considerable number of new machines, in addition to the ones moved from Elmhurst. Some of the products formerly made at Elmhurst were, after the closing of that plant, made at the defendant's Louisville plant.

There was work at the Bethlehem plant similar to that done at Elmhurst by three of the plaintiffs. As to the other two plaintiffs, who were men, aged 43 and 49, their work at Elmhurst was to check merchandise that was loaded or unloaded from trucks leaving or entering that plant. At the Bethlehem plant such duties have been incorporated into other job classifications which specify the employee to load and unload the trucks and to operate an electric walking type lift truck to stack the merchandise in the storage area as well as to check the incoming and outgoing merchandise that the employee loads and unloads. This different Bethlehem work would not seem to have required any skill that could not have been acquired in a short time.

The defendant offered to give fair consideration to applications for employment at its Bethlehem plant, to its former employees at Elmhurst, only if they would come to Bethlehem and make application there on the same basis as new applicants who might seek employment there. Two Elmhurst employees, not plaintiffs herein, made such applications, and their applications were accepted. Only one of them actually went to work. He has been considered as a new employee at Bethlehem, with no seniority carried over from Elmhurst.

The plaintiffs contend that they were, as beneficiaries of the contract between their union and the defendant, entitled to the jobs which were created by the opening of the plant at Bethlehem. They say that they were laid off because of the removal of the machinery and the cessation of operations at Elmhurst, and that as work was opened up at Bethlehem they were entitled, by reason of their seniority and the contract provisions relating to it, to go to work at Bethlehem with the seniority which they had acquired at Elmhurst.

The defendant offers several defenses. We consider first the defense of res judicata. That defense was considered and rejected, first by Judge Dimock, on a motion by the defendant for summary judgment and again, after the defendant had filed its answer asserting res judicata as an affirmative defense, by Judge Palmieri, in his decision and opinion on the merits of the case.

Local 852, the plaintiffs' union, served on the defendant a notice of intention to arbitrate certain designated disputes, pursuant to the arbitration provision in the union's contract with the defendant. The defendant made a motion in the Supreme Court of New York to stay arbitration, on the ground that the disputes were not arbitrable under the arbitration provision of the contract. That provision said:

"Any question, grievance or dispute arising out of and involving the interpretation and application of the specific terms of this Agreement * * * shall, at the request of either party, be referred to the New York State Mediation Board for arbitration." (Emphasis supplied.)

The court granted the defendant's motion, on the ground that the subjects sought to be arbitrated were not covered by the specific terms of the contract. The court's opinion1 lays much emphasis on the word specific in the agreement to arbitrate and says that "no one is under a duty to resort to arbitration unless by clear language he has so agreed." The court concluded its opinion with this sentence:

"It follows from all the foregoing that Glidden\'s motion to stay arbitration must be granted, whatever other remedies the Union may have with respect to the alleged disputes."

The New York court's opinion as a whole, and its concluding paragraph seem to us to show that the court was deciding nothing more than that the arbitration provision, as narrowly written, did not confer jurisdiction upon an arbitration tribunal to adjudicate the disputes in question. If the court had decided, as the defendant claims, that the contract as a whole, in its circumstances, and including its fair implications, conferred no rights upon the union or the employees with regard to the asserted disputes, the court's concluding paragraph defies understanding.

The defendant also contends that because the collective bargaining agreement contained provisions for the arbitration of disputes, the plaintiffs are not entitled to individually enforce their rights under the agreement. The defendant relies heavily upon Parker v. Borock, 1959, 5 N.Y.2d 156, 182 N.Y.S.2d 577, 156 N.E.2d 297, as support for its contention that the plaintiffs individually are not entitled to enforce the rights which they claim here. In the Parker case, the plaintiff had been discharged "for cause." He invoked the grievance procedure of the collective bargaining agreement between his union and employer. He was not reinstated, and the union refused his request to seek arbitration. He thereupon moved in the United States District Court to compel the employer to arbitrate his discharge. The motion was denied.

The plaintiff then sued in the New York state courts for money damages for breach of the collective agreement, asserting that the employer did not have "cause" to discharge him. The defendant moved for a stay pending arbitration, but its motion was denied on the ground that only the employer or the union, and not an employee, could seek a submission to arbitration. The defendant then moved for summary judgment. The New York Supreme Court denied the motion, but the Appellate Division's reversal, granting the motion, was affirmed by the Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals said, 5 N.Y.2d at page 160, 182 N.Y.S.2d at page 580, 156 N.E.2d at page 299, that "the employee is the direct beneficiary" of provisions in a collective agreement prohibiting discharge of an employee except for cause. The court held, however, that the plaintiff, who was also "bound by and limited to the provisions of the agreement," had "entrusted his rights to his union representative," who alone could have sought arbitration of the plaintiff's discharge. 5 N.Y.2d at page 161, 182 N. Y.S.2d at page 580, 156 N.E.2d at pages 299-300. The court noted that the plaintiff's only remedy would be against the union for failing to fulfil its duties under the agreement.

The Parker case is, therefore, significantly different from the instant case. In Parker, the...

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