United Steel Workers of America v. Saint Gobain

• Decision Date: 30 October 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-6851.,05-6851.
• Parties: UNITED STEEL WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO-CLC, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SAINT GOBAIN CERAMICS & PLASTICS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

467 F.3d 540

UNITED STEEL WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO-CLC, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SAINT GOBAIN CERAMICS & PLASTICS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 05-6851.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: September 20, 2006.

Decided and Filed: October 30, 2006.

ARGUED: David R. Jury, United Steelworkers of America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for Appellant. John W. Woodard, Jr., Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Daniel M. Kovalik, Paul L. Edenfield, United Steelworkers of America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for Appellant. John W. Woodard, Jr., Edwin S. Hopson, Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellee.

Before GUY, SUTTON, and ALARCÓN, Circuit Judges.^*

OPINION

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

General Drivers, Warehousemen and Helpers, Local Union 89 v. Moog Louisville Warehouse, 852 F.2d 871 (6th Cir. 1988), held that the application of an express time-limitations bar in a collective bargaining agreement prohibiting the arbitration of untimely grievance appeals presents a substantive question of arbitrability for a court to decide, as opposed to a procedural question for an arbitrator to decide. Consistent with that decision, the district court in this case granted the company's motion to preclude arbitration as a matter of law based on the late filing of a grievance appeal. Like two prior panels of this court, we have serious misgivings about the soundness of Moog's reasoning. See Armco Employees Indep. Fed'n v. AK Steel Corp., 252 F.3d 854 (6th Cir.2001); Raceway Park, Inc. v. Local 47, Serv. Employees Int'l Union, 167 F.3d 953 (6th Cir.1999). But like those panels, we are constrained to follow Moog and therefore affirm.

I.

Saint Gobain Ceramics makes refractory products for a variety of industrial clients. The United Steelworkers of America represents the Louisville-based workers of the company. The two parties entered into a collective bargaining agreement that went into effect on February 14, 2002, and lasted until February 13, 2005.

On March 2, 2004, the company fired two union members for insubordination. On the same day, the union filed grievances challenging the propriety of both discharges.

The collective bargaining agreement contained a four-step process for resolving grievances. The union's grievances proceeded without complications through steps one, two and three. On March 29, 2004, the company issued a written denial of both step-3 grievances, which the union received on April 8, 2004. The agreement gave the union 30 days, excluding weekends and holidays, to appeal the company's decision to step 4—arbitration. If the union failed to appeal within the time limit, the agreement provided that the union forfeited its right to arbitrate the grievance. The union appealed the denials by letter dated May 19, 2004, and the company received the appeals on May 24, 2004. The company informed the union that the appeals could not proceed to arbitration because it had received them after the 30-day deadline.

The union filed an action in federal district court under § 301 of the Labor-Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185, to compel arbitration of the grievances under the collective bargaining agreement. Faced with cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court held that the grievances were not arbitrable given this court's decision in Moog and given the union's failure to comply with the limitations period.

II.

A.

When an employer and a union agree to submit grievances arising from a collective bargaining agreement to arbitration, the "limited" function of the federal courts is "to ascertain[] whether the party seeking arbitration is making a claim which on its face is governed by the contract." United Steelworkers of Am. v. Am. Mfg. Co., 363 U.S. 564, 567-68, 80 S.Ct. 1343, 4 L.Ed.2d 1403 (1960). Whether a collective bargaining agreement commits a dispute to arbitration, the Supreme Court has held, is a question of substantive arbitrability for the courts to decide. See John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Livingston, 376 U.S. 543, 547, 84 S.Ct. 909, 11 L.Ed.2d 898 (1964) ("[W]hether or not the company was bound to arbitrate, as well as what issues it must arbitrate, is a matter to be determined by the Court on the basis of the contract entered into by the parties.") (internal quotation marks omitted). Whether the parties have complied with the procedural requirements for arbitrating the case, by contrast, is a question for the arbitrator to decide. Id. at 556-57, 84 S.Ct. 909. If doubt exists over whether a dispute falls on one side or the other of this dichotomy, the presumption in favor of arbitrability makes the question one for the arbitrator. AT & T Techs., Inc. v. Commc'ns Workers of Am., 475 U.S. 643, 647, 106 S.Ct. 1415, 89 L.Ed.2d 648 (1986).

In John Wiley & Sons, the Court considered whether the application of a time-limitations bar presented a substantive question of arbitrability for the court or a procedural question for the arbitrator. Opposing arbitration, the company argued that the union had failed to comply with two preconditions to arbitration and that the application of these provisions presented a threshold question of arbitrability for the courts. First, the company noted, the union had not complied with steps 1 and 2 of the grievance procedure, which preceded the duty to arbitrate under step 3. 376 U.S. at 556, 84 S.Ct. 909. Second, the company noted, the union had not complied with the following time limitation: "Notice of any grievance must be filed with the Employer and with the Union Shop Steward within four (4) weeks after its occurrence or latest existence. The failure by either party to file the grievance within this time limitation shall be construed and be deemed to be an abandonment of the grievance." Id. at 556 n. 11, 84 S.Ct. 909. The Court rejected the company's argument. "Once it is determined ... that the parties are obligated to submit the subject matter of a dispute to arbitration," it held, "`procedural' questions which grow out of the dispute and bear on its final disposition should be left to the arbitrator." Id. at 557, 84 S.Ct. 909. "Reservation of `procedural' issues for the courts," the Court pointed out, would "not only create the difficult task of separating related issues, but would also produce frequent duplication of effort." Id. at 558, 84 S.Ct. 909. The Court therefore ordered the company to comply with its duty to arbitrate the underlying dispute, leaving it to the arbitrator to determine whether the time-limitations bar applied.

Given the general rule that procedural questions arising from an arbitration clause are reserved for arbitrators and given Wiley & Sons' application of that rule in the context of a time-limitations bar, one might assume that all timeliness questions raise procedural questions for arbitrators to decide. But after General Drivers, Warehousemen and Helpers, Local Union 89 v. Moog Louisville Warehouse, 852 F.2d 871 (6th Cir.1988), that is not the case. At issue in Moog was this timeliness provision: "[I]f the Union fails to notify the Company ... within 15 calendar days after the Company gives its answer in writing to a grievance at Step (b) of the grievance procedure, ... then the Union shall be conclusively presumed to have accepted the Company's answer thereto and said grievance shall not thereafter be arbitrable." Id. at 873. Because this "contractual language" in the court's eyes "clearly indicate[d] that the particular grievance in dispute [was] excluded from arbitration," the court held that it had the duty "first" to decide whether "the union met the conditions precedent to arbitration"—that the application of this timeliness provision in other words presented a question of arbitrability for the court to decide. Id. at 875. Concluding that the company had no duty to arbitrate untimely grievances and that the union had not "met the conditions precedent to arbitration," the court dismissed the union's action to compel arbitration.

Moog requires us to treat the timeliness question presented here as one of substantive arbitrability. Like the collective bargaining agreement in Moog, this agreement contains an express time-limitations bar. The contract gives the union "30 days from the time of the written Step 3 decision to notify the Company in writing that it is appealing a grievance to arbitration." Art. 28, § 1, Step 4. "Grievances not appealed within the time limits set forth in Steps 1, 2, 3, or 4," it then says, "shall be considered settled on the basis of the decision last made and shall not be eligible for further discussion or appeal." Id. § 4 (emphasis added).

Together, these provisions expressly prevent untimely appeals of a grievance to arbitration. Much like the provision in Moog, the express language of the agreement demonstrates that the parties intended to foreclose arbitration of grievances that the union failed to appeal within 30 days. Because Moog makes this timeliness question one of arbitrability for the courts to decide, it falls to us to decide whether the union satisfied this "condition[] precedent to arbitration." 852 F.2d at 875.

In resisting this conclusion, the union points out that Moog applies only when "the contractual language ... clearly indicates that the particular grievance in dispute is excluded from arbitration." 852 F.2d at 875 (emphasis added). But the modest differences between the time-limitation provisions in the two cases do not suffice to treat them differently. The Moog provision said that failure to comply with the 15-day deadline meant that "the Union shall be conclusively presumed to have accepted the Company's answer thereto and said grievance shall not thereafter be arbitrable." Id. at 873. Today's provision says that failure to comply with the 30-day deadline means that the "[g]rievance[] ... shall be considered settled on the basis of the decision last made and shall not be eligible for further...