Moseley v. Southern Pacific Transp. Co.

Decision Date04 September 1984
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. 83-2466.
Citation594 F. Supp. 1039
PartiesA.W. MOSELEY, Jr. v. SOUTHERN PACIFIC TRANSPORTATION COMPANY and American Railway Supervisors Association.
CourtU.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Robert E. Lee, New Orleans, La., for plaintiff.

Joseph Guerrieri, Jr., Monroe, La., John J. Sullivan, New Orleans, La., Robert H. Urann, Metairie, La., for defendant American Ry. Sup'rs Assn.

Raymond J. Salassi, Jr., H. Mark Adams, New Orleans, La., for defendant Southern Pacific Transp. Co.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

CASSIBRY, Senior District Judge:

A.W. Moseley, a former Mechanical Department supervisor employed by the Southern Pacific Transportation Company ("SP"), filed this action under the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. §§ 151-188 ("the RLA").1 Named as defendants are Moseley's former union, the American Railway Supervisors Association ("ARSA") and his one-time employer, SP. Plaintiff's complaint alleges that ARSA breached the duty of fair representation it owed to him and that SP breached its collective bargaining agreement with ARSA covering the Mechanical Department supervisors ("the Agreement"). The essence of plaintiff's complaint is that, by dint of personal favoritism and procedural irregularities in the application of the Agreement's seniority rules, Moseley was forced to surrender his supervisor's position.

All three parties have moved for summary disposition of this matter. The court has before it SP's motion for summary judgment, ARSA's motion to dismiss or for summary judgment, and plaintiff's own motion for summary judgment. In addition, in response to SP's motion for summary judgment, plaintiff has moved for leave to amend his complaint. In its motion, SP contends that plaintiff's complaint is barred by the applicable statute of limitations.2

We are presented, therefore, with the question of what statute of limitations applies to an employee's suit against his union and his employer under the RLA. The question is apparently one of first impression in this circuit since the Supreme Court's decision in DelCostello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983), holding that a six-month limitations period applies to identical claims brought under section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act ("LMRA"). We conclude that actions under the RLA are also governed by the six-month limitations period and that, under the facts of this case, plaintiff's suit is time-barred.

SUMMARY OF EVENTS: THE SENIORITY SHUFFLE

Moseley entered the employ of the railroad at SP's Avondale, Louisiana, facility on September 1, 1978. Initially employed as a carman, he became a probationary car supervisor in March of 1979. Thereafter, Moseley advanced to a regular supervisor's position in the Car Department, establishing a seniority date of May 15, 1980.

A short time later, a vacancy opened in the supervisors' ranks due to the retirement of Car Foreman R.J. Champagne.3 Rule 7(c) of the Agreement sets forth the procedures to be followed in notifying supervisors of a vacancy.4 The rule also provides for preferential consideration to be given to applications from "supervisors ... in service."

At some time after Champagne's retirement, J.L. Springfield made known his intention to resign his position as trainmaster at Avondale and to bump back into the supervisors' ranks.5 Word of Springfield's interest in the vacant supervisor's position spread among the supervisors on the Car Department seniority list. It was the supervisors' common understanding that Springfield's seniority ran from March, 1956. In light of the apparent futility of bidding against a man with so much seniority, neither Moseley nor any other supervisor thought to submit a bid for the post. As the only applicant for the job, Springfield received the appointment on September 4, 1980.

Two weeks later, in an apparently unrelated personnel move, a more senior supervisor displaced Ronnie Champagne from his supervisor's position. Pursuant to Rule 8 of the Agreement, Champagne (the son of the Champagne whose retirement kicked off this game of musical chairs) took advantage of his slightly greater seniority and displaced Moseley from his supervisor's position.6

Left standing when the music stopped, Moseley, as a displaced supervisor, had the option of either displacing a junior supervisor himself or of resigning his supervisor's position and returning to the craft ranks he had so recently left. In connection with the first alternative, ARSA's local representative, A.L. Bourg, informed Moseley that a junior person held a supervisor's position in Ennis, Texas. Moseley was qualified for this position and would have had sufficient seniority to bump into it. After traveling to Ennis to consider the move, Moseley chose not to bid on it. Instead, he submitted bids on carman jobs in his home Avondale Yards and bumped back into his former craft. By so doing, he forfeited his supervisor's seniority and ARSA representation.7

The first inkling any supervisor had of possible mishandling in connection with the assignment of Springfield to the supervisor's position came in February of 1981. At that time, in accordance with the terms of the Agreement, SP published supervisors' seniority rosters for the Car and Locomotive Departments.8 Springfield's name appeared on the Locomotive Department roster with a 1956 seniority date, but it did not appear on the Car Department roster. Under Rule 7(a) of the Agreement,

Seniority of supervisors shall be confined to (1) Locomotive Department or (2) Car Department, and will be systemwide.... Supervisors' seniority will be as of the date they are assigned to a regular supervisor's position.

The rosters indicated that Springfield has been assigned to a Car Department supervisor's position for which he had no seniority. In response to complaints from Locomotive supervisors, ARSA conducted an investigation which established that Springfield had accumulated seniority since 1956 only on the Locomotive Department roster. ARSA representatives next met with SP Labor Relations Officials in order to set the situation right. The meeting produced a written agreement, dated March 31, 1981, preserving the status quo. Springfield was permitted to maintain his Locomotive Department seniority from 1956, keep his new Car Department position, and establish a Car Department seniority date effective from the September, 1980 date when he assumed the position.

Upon learning of this agreement, plaintiff, now a carman, made his dissatisfaction known to both ARSA and SP. On April 24, 1981, he wrote a letter of protest to ARSA General Chairman Braderich with a copy to SP officials. Moseley asked that the award of the job to Springfield be thrown out, the bidding reheld, that he be restored to the Car supervisor's seniority roster with full seniority and that he be compensated for his trip to Ennis, Texas.

In ARSA's opinion, it was under no obligation to take any action on plaintiff's grievance. ARSA head Braderich informed Moseley that, since Moseley was now a carman, he was no longer represented by the supervisors' union. In addition, ARSA considered the grievance to be untimely under Rule 16 of the Agreement which requires written filing of a grievance within sixty days of the occurrence on which it is based. Nevertheless, the union presented plaintiff's grievance to SP Labor Relations officials.

SP determined to leave the Springfield agreement undisturbed. SP informed ARSA that since Moseley had not bid on the position in question and had voluntarily resigned rather than move to Ennis, Texas, it was SP's position that Moseley did not have a claim under the Agreement. ARSA Chairman Braderich transmitted this decision to Moseley by letter dated June 6, 1981. Braderich added that ARSA now considered the matter closed and would take no further action on his grievance. In other words, ARSA was not prepared to carry Moseley's grievance to arbitration before the National Railway Adjustment Board ("NRAB" or "the Board").

Not content with this decision, Moseley notified ARSA that he would take the matter up with the NRAB himself. On June 3, 1982, Moseley filed a notice of intent to file a claim with the Board. In his claim, Moseley accused both ARSA and SP of violation of Rules 7(a) and 7(c) of the Agreement. Further, he charged the union with "failure to properly represent" him and the company with failure to investigate the "non-advertising of the ... seniority list."9

After receiving submissions from Moseley and SP, the NRAB dismissed without consideration of the merits. In its opinion of November 9, 1982, the Board stated that "the claim presented to the Board was not filed and progressed in the usual manner on the property as required under Section 3, First (i) of the Railway Labor Act, as amended." Six months and some days later, plaintiff filed this suit in federal court (May 18, 1983).10

Preliminaries past, we are ready for the main event, the pinning of a limitations period to plaintiff's suit.

THE APPLICABLE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

Pleonastic though it may be, we reiterate here that this is a railwayman's suit against his union for a breach of its duty of fair representation and against his employer for a breach of the collective bargaining agreement governing the plaintiff. DelCostello applied the six-month limitations period of section 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA"), 29 U.S.C. § 160(b), to suits of the same type by steelworkers and teamsters under section 301 of the LMRA, 29 U.S.C. § 185, and the NLRA. 103 S.Ct. 2281. Motivated in part by a desire for uniformity in national labor policy and a conviction that the limitations periods borrowed from ostensibly analogous state statutes was often too short to provide an aggrieved employee with a satisfactory opportunity to vindicate his rights, the Supreme Court selected a limitations...

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