Air Line Dispatchers Ass'n v. CALIFORNIA EASTERN AIR.

• Decision Date: 15 December 1954
• Docket Number: No. 33772.,33772.
• Citation: 127 F. Supp. 521
• Parties: AIR LINE DISPATCHERS ASSOCIATION, A. F. of L., et al., Plaintiffs, v. CALIFORNIA EASTERN AIRWAYS, Inc., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

127 F. Supp. 521

AIR LINE DISPATCHERS ASSOCIATION, A. F. of L., et al., Plaintiffs, v. CALIFORNIA EASTERN AIRWAYS, Inc., et al., Defendants.

No. 33772.

United States District Court, N. D. California, S. D.

December 15, 1954.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

James F. Galliano, Oakland, Cal., for plaintiffs.

Cooper, White & Cooper, San Francisco, Cal., for defendant.

MURPHY, District Judge.

Defendant moves to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction; to dismiss or stay the action so that arbitration and adjustment proceedings can be had; for a more definite statement and to quash or to limit certain depositions heretofore noticed by plaintiff.

The plaintiffs are two former employees of the defendant airline and a voluntary unincorporated international labor organization who bring this action on behalf of themselves and for thirteen other discharged employees of defendant company. The plaintiffs allege that this class action is brought because "there are common questions of law and fact affecting the several rights of the plaintiffs herein and a common relief is herein sought on their behalf".

The complaint alleges the existence of a collective bargaining agreement entered into between the defendant company and the fifteen discharged flight dispatchers represented by the plaintiff union. It alleges that the defendant during January of 1954 contracted with another airline to perform its dispatching services. The fifteen employee dispatchers were discharged. Each of the fifteen were receiving "a monthly salary of over $500.00 per month" and as a result of the subcontracting of the dispatch service the "fifteen dispatch employees have been and continue to be deprived of their salaries amounting to $7,500.00 per month for the months of February, March, April, May of 1954 and continuing". The collective bargaining agreement was effective on September 1, 1952 to be effective for one year and was to be "automatically renewed under the same terms and conditions for consecutive yearly periods thereafter. Either party desiring to amend or modify any provision of the agreement shall serve 30 day notice preceding September 1st of any year".

Plaintiffs pray for a mandatory injunction requiring defendant to reemploy the fifteen discharged dispatchers and for a money judgment.

The problem of jurisdiction is fundamental. The plaintiffs assert two alternate bases of jurisdiction: (1) that the action arises under an Act of Congress regulating commerce—the Railway Labor Act, made applicable to airline employees by 45 U.S.C.A. §§ 181-188; and, (2) Diversity of citizenship. I shall take these up in order:

Federal Question

Portions of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C.A. §§ 151, 152, 154, 163, enjoin upon the owners and their employees the duty to make and maintain agreements covering rates of pay, rules and working conditions. But a suit to enforce a right which has its origin in the laws of the United States is not for that reason alone within the federal jurisdiction. For suit to "arise under Act of Congress" it must involve a dispute or controversy respecting the validity, construction or effect of such a law, upon the determination of which the result depends. Shultis v. McDougal, 1912, 225 U.S. 561, 32 S.Ct. 704, 56 L.Ed. 1205; Gully v. First National Bank, 1936, 299 U.S. 109, 57 S.Ct. 96, 81 L.Ed. 70; Marshall v. Desert Properties, 9 Cir., 1939, 103 F.2d 551.

The complaint here alleges a breach of the agreement. The employment and the agreement may have been inspired by the Act but the right of action does not arise from the Act but only from the consequent contractual relations of the parties. Such a breach does not confer jurisdiction upon the Federal Court. Barnhart v. Western Maryland Ry. Co., 4 Cir., 1942, 128 F.2d 709; Strawser v. Reading Co., D.C.E.D. Pa.1948, 80 F.Supp. 455; Hayes v. Union Pac. R. Co., 9 Cir., 1950, 184 F. 2d 337, affirming D.C.N.D.Cal.1950, 88 F.Supp. 108; Starke v. New York, Chicago & St. Louis R. Co., 7 Cir., 1950, 180 F.2d 569; Burke v. Union Pac. R. Co., 10 Cir., 1942, 129 F.2d 844.

I am aware that many of these cases buttress this conclusion on the fact that Congress has established appropriate tribunals, other than the Federal Courts, in which relief from breaches of performance of collective bargaining agreements can be had. See e. g. Hayes v. Union Pac. R. Co., supra; Starke v. New York, Chicago & St. Louis R. Co., supra, 180 F.2d at pages 572-573; Strawser v. Reading Co., supra.

These other remedies are presently unavailable to airline employees. But the dispute either arises under the Act or it does not. The existence of other remedies goes to the point that Congress did not confer Federal jurisdiction over these breaches within the four corners of the Railway Labor Act itself. I find nothing in the Act extending the coverage of the Railway Labor Act to airline employees which would indicate that Congress intended by that Act to confer jurisdiction over this type of breach.

Diversity of Citizenship

The complaint alleges that the plaintiff Union has its principal office in the State of Virginia, that the individual plaintiffs are all citizens of California and that the defendant corporation is organized under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Delaware. As I construe this, the reference to the individual plaintiffs refers to the two dispatchers who bring this action.

The Union must be dismissed as a party for two reasons. First, assuming the validity of bringing a class action here, i. e., that there are common questions of law and fact affecting the rights of the members of the class, Rule 23(a) (3) F.R.C.P., 28 U.S.C., the Union is not one of such parties. It was not discharged nor does it seek any relief for itself. It certainly has an interest in seeing that collective bargaining agreements in which it is the employee's representative are upheld. But that interest is not the right asserted here. The class is asking a remedy for wrongful discharges.

The Union was not given the right to sue employers for breach of employment contracts by the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(b). That right is limited to sue an "employer" as that word is defined in that Act. The definition excludes those employers covered by the Railway Labor Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 152 (2). In short, the Union is not a member of the class suing.

Secondly, requisite diversity of the Union is not alleged....