TRUCK DRIVERS & H. LOC. U. NO. 728 v. Georgia Highway Express
Decision Date | 31 January 1964 |
Docket Number | No. 19902.,19902. |
Citation | 328 F.2d 93 |
Parties | TRUCK DRIVERS & HELPERS LOCAL UNION NO. 728, Affiliated with International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America, Appellant, v. GEORGIA HIGHWAY EXPRESS, INC., B. C. Truck Lines, Inc., and B. C. Cartage Company, Inc., Appellees. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Edwin M. Pearce, John S. Patton, Poole, Pearce & Hall, Thomas L. Carter, Atlanta, Ga., for appellant.
John W. Wilcox, Jr., Wilson, Branch & Barwick, Alexander E. Wilson, Jr., Atlanta, Ga., for appellees, Georgia Highway Express, Inc., B. C. Truck Lines, Inc., B. C. Cartage Company, Inc.
Before JONES and BELL, Circuit Judges, and GROOMS, District Judge.
Under Count I of the complaint, appellant (plaintiff below) seeks the enforcement of an award made to twelve discharged or laid-off employees of appellees, B. C. Truck Lines, Inc., and B. C. Cartage Company, Inc., by the Joint State Committee under Article X of the Southern Conference Local Freight Forwarding, Pickup and Delivery Agreement, executed by the appellant and the appellee, B. C. Truck Lines, Inc., on March 3, 1958, and alleged to be binding upon all appellees.
Under Count II, appellant seeks an injunction requiring appellees to arbitrate grievances with respect to nine other employees of the Truck Line and the Cartage Company whose services were terminated as of January 30, 1960.
On October 20, 1961, the trial Court overruled a motion to dismiss filed by the appellees, Truck Lines, and Georgia Highway Express, Inc., but by its order of May 24, 1962, the order on this motion was vacated and an order was entered dismissing the plaintiff's action as set forth in Count I upon the ground that it was without jurisdiction. The Court considered the motion as to Count II as one for summary judgment; and, holding that the agreement nowhere provided for compulsory arbitration, entered a summary judgment for the defendants as to that count.
COUNT ONE.
The learned trial Court noted that it was impossible to reconcile, on the one hand, the large number of cases following Association of Westinghouse Salaried Employees v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 348 U.S. 437, 75 S.Ct. 489, 99 L.Ed. 510 ( ), and, on the other hand, those cases relied on by the appellant holding that a district court has jurisdiction to enforce the award of arbitrators. The Court also noted that the question had run a strange course in this Court and in the Supreme Court, pointing out that this Court, in Mississippi Valley Electric Company v. Local 130 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, 5 Cir., 278 F.2d 764, had followed Westinghouse, then reversed itself, 285 F.2d 229, following United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel and Car Co., 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424. The trial Court further observed that subsequently this Court, in International Association of Machinists v. Central Airlines, Inc., 5 Cir., 295 F.2d 209, had spelled out the legislative history of Section 301 which clearly showed that the legislative intent was to deprive the district courts of jurisdiction. The case of General Drivers, Warehousemen and Helpers v. Riss & Co., 6 Cir., 298 F.2d 341, was considered as being directly in point. Relying upon Riss, as well as upon Westinghouse and Central Airlines, the lower Court concluded that the appellant union could not recover the individual awards made to the employees, members of the union.
However strange the course of the question involved, it had by no means run its full course at the time of the lower Court's decision of May 24, 1962.
On December 10, 1962, the Supreme Court, in the case of Doyle Smith v. Evening News Association, 371 U.S. 195, 83 S.Ct. 267, 9 L.Ed.2d 246, said:
"* * * subsequent decisions here have removed the underpinnings of Westinghouse and its holding is no longer authoritative as a precedent."
After reviewing the later decisions, the Court added:
"The concept that all suits to vindicate individual employee rights arising from a collective bargaining contract should be excluded from the coverage of § 301 has thus not survived."
On March 18, 1963, the Court reversed Riss,1 372 U.S. 517, 83 S.Ct. 789, 9 L.Ed. 2d 918, saying:
On April 15, 1963, Central Airlines was likewise reversed, 372 U.S. 682, 83 S.Ct. 956, 10 L.Ed.2d 67, the Court holding that the district court had jurisdiction over a nondiversity suit brought by an airline union to enforce an arbitration award of an airline system board of adjustments created under § 204 (45 U.S. C.A. § 184) of the Railway Labor Act.
It need hardly be said that these later cases have swept the legal supports from the lower Court's decision as to Count One.
By Article X of the Agreement, the parties agreed to utilize the grievance procedures created under the Southeastern Area Over-the-Road Motor Freight Agreement. By Article VIII, incorporated in Article X, the parties agreed as follows:
"(e) * * * failure to comply with any final decision withdraws the benefits of Article VIII. * *"
The award was made by the Joint State Committee. Appellees insist that by their own failure to comply with the award they are released therefrom by the quoted provision of Section 1(e). If this be true, the parties have erected a device that has worked its own undoing. We agree with the lower Court that the appellees' contention calls for a strange interpretation of Section 1(e). It does not comport with basic contract law, that a party cannot urge as a defense to a suit on the contract his own noncompliance with its provisions.
Under Section 1(e), the failure to comply with a final decision withdraws...
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