Elgin Ry Co v. Burley

• Decision Date: 25 March 1946
• Docket Number: No. 160,160
• Parties: ELGIN, J. & E. RY. CO. v. BURLEY et al. Re
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

327 U.S. 661

66 S.Ct. 721

90 L.Ed. 928

ELGIN, J. & E. RY. CO.

v BURLEY et al.

No. 160.

Reargued Dec. 3, 4, 1945.

Decided March 25, 1946.

Mr.Paul R. Conaghan, of Chicago, Ill., for petitioner.

Mr. Robert L. Stern, of Washington, D.C., for The United States, as amicus curiae, by special leave of Court.

Mr. John H. Gately, of Chicago, Ill., for respondents.

Mr. Justice RUTLEDGE delivered the op nion of the Court.

We adhere to our decision rendered in the opinion filed after the first argument. 325 U.S. 711, 65 S.Ct. 1282.¹ That opinion expressly refrained from undertaking to make a definitive statement of what might be sufficient evidence of the collective agent's authority either to settle finally the aggrieved individual employee's claims or to represent him exclusively before the Adjustment Board. We do not attempt to do so now. For whether the collective agent has such authority is a question which may arise in many types of situations involving the grievances either of members of the union or of nonmembers, or both, and necessarily therefore no allinclusive rule can be formulated for all such situations. But neither does this mean that an equally all-exclusive rule must be followed, namely, that authority can be given or shown only in some particular way.

The question whether the collective agent has authority, in the two pertinent respects, does not turn on technical agency rules such as apply in the simple, individualistic situation where P deals with T through A about the sale of Blackacre. We are dealing here with problems in a specialized field, with a long background of custom and practice in the railroad world. And the fact that § 3 First (i), 45 U.S.C.A. § 153, subd. 1(i) provides that disputes between carriers and their employees arising out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules or working conditions 'shall be handled in the usual manner' up to and including the chief operating officer of the carrier, indicates that custom and usage may be as adequate a basis of authority as a more formal authorization for the union, which receives a grievance from an employee for handling, to represent him in settling it or in proceedings before the Board for its determination. ²

Moreover, when an award of the Adjustment Board involving an employee's individual grievance is challenged in the courts, one who would upset it carries the burden of showing that it was wrong.³ Its action in adjusting an individual employee's grievance at the instance of the collective bargaining agent is entitled to presumptive weight. For, in the first place, there can be no presumption either that the union submitting the dispute would undertake to usurp the aggrieved employee's right to participate in the proceedings by other representation of his own choice, or that the Board knowingly would act in disregard or violation of that right. Its duty, and the union's, are to the contrary under the Act.⁴

Furthermore, the Board is acquainted with established procedures, customs and usages in the railway labor world. It is the specialized agency selected to adjust these controversies. Its expertize is adapted not only to interpreting a collective bargaining agreement,⁵ but also to ascer- taining the scope of the collective agent's authority beyond what the Act itself confers, in view of the extent to which this also may be affected by custom and usage.

We also pointed out that the Act imposes correlative affirmative duties upon the carrier, the collective agent and the aggrieved employee to make every reasonable effort to settle the dispute.⁶ It would be entirely inconsistent for the Act to require the carrier and the union to negotiate concerning the settlement of the grievance and, while withholding power from them to make that settlement effective finally as against the employee, to relieve him altogether of obligation in the matter. Not only is he required to take affirmative steps. His failure to do so may result in loss of his rights.⁷

It is not likely that workingmen having grievances will be ignorant in many cases either of negotiations conducted between the collective agent and the carrier for their settlement or of the fact that the dispute has been submitted by one or the other to the Adjustment Board for determination. Those negotiations, as the Act requires, are conducted on the property. § 2 Sixth. Ordinarily submissions are not, and the statute contemplates that they shall not be, made to the Board until after all reasonable efforts to reach an agreement have been exhausted in good faith.⁸

In view of these facts there cannot be many instances in which an aggrieved employee will no have knowledge or notice that negotiations affecting his claim are being conducted or, if they fail, that proceedings are pending before the Board of dispose of it.⁹ Although under our ruling his rights to have voice in the settlement are preserved, whether by conferring with the carrier and, having seasonably done so, refusing to be bound by a settlement reached over his protest, or by having representation before the Board according to his own choice, we did not rule, and there is no basis for assuming we did, that an employee can stand by with knowledge or notice of what is going on with reference to his claim, either between the carrier and the union on the property, or before the Board on their submission, allow matters to be thrashed out to a conclusion by one method or the other, and then come in for the first time to assert his individual rights. No such ruling was necessary for their preservation and none was intended.

It may be, as we said previously, that respondents upon the further hearing will find it difficult to sustain their allegations, whether with reference to knowledge or notice in the material respects concerning which they have denied having it or otherwise. But whether this burden will be easy or impossible to carry, they are entitled to undertake it in the forum where such issues properly are triable.

The judgment is affirmed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion and the previous opinion filed in this cause.

Affirmed and cause remanded.

Mr. Justice JACKSON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case on the reargument.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER dissenting.

The CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice BURTON, and I are of opinion that the judgment should be reversed. Last Term a divided Court held that a determination by the Adjustment Board of a dispute brought before it by a union recognized as the collective bargaining agent on behalf of its members is not binding, and may be upset in a district court in an independent suit involving the construction of the collective agreement, but brought by an individual member on his own behalf. 325 U.S. 711, 65 S.Ct. 1282. The dissent expressed the view that 'to allow such settlements to be thus set aside is to obstruct the smooth working of the Act. It undermines the confidence so indispensable to adjustment by negotiation, which is the vital object of the Act.' 325 U.S. at pages 755, 756, 65 S.Ct. at pages 1304, 1305.

The Court now announces that it 'adheres' to its decision. But as we read the Court's interpretation of its original opinion, it 'adheres' to it by extracting from it almost all of its vitality. We say 'almost' because the one thing that remains is the conclusion that the determination by the Adjustment Board that the recognized union represented its members is allowed to be reopened not before the Board but anew in the courts, State or federal, in an independent suit by a member of the union against the carrier. To be sure, the prospects for redetermination are largely illusory because the Court now erects a series of hurdles which will be, and we assume were intended to be, almost impossible for an employee to clear. But since litigation is authorized and hope springs eternal in a litigant's breast, the far-reaching mischief of unsettling nonlitigious modes of adjustment under the machinery of the Railway Labor Act largely remains. When peaceful settlements between carriers and the Brotherhoods are subject to such hazards, the carrier can hardly be expected to negotiate with a union whose authority is subject to constant challenge. It was this dislocation of settled habits in adjusting railroad labor relations which evoked a series of petitions for rehearing from the United States, the Brotherhoods, the Railway Labor Executives' Association, and the organizations of industrial and craft unions. All the interests primarily concerned and best informed on these matters were aroused because for them the opinion destroyed the capacity of the Railway Labor Act to fulfill its function, ignored the normal practices of the industry, and impaired the rights of collective bargaining generally. Because of this unsettling effect, not abated by the present decision's adherence to the prior by adding new complexities—complexities so inimical to healthy relations on the railroads—we deem it appropriate to add to what was said in the original dissent. 325 U.S. 711, 749, 65 S.Ct. 1282, 1302.

That these mischiefs are real and potent is attested by the arguments presented by the amici curiae. The United States points out:

'The result of last Term's decision has been and will be that a union's authority to settle a grievance involving a claim for accrued damages will always be subject to challenge by an individual who does not get all he wants, unless the union has previously obtained an exceedingly explicit power of attorney to act on his behalf. This means that the carriers will be likely to demand proof of such authorization from every individual involved before undertaking to negotiate a grievance case, since they might otherwise be liable to any employee dissatisfied with the settlement. As we shall see, this has been what has happened on the Adjustment...