Allen v. Csx Transp., Inc.

• Citation: 325 F.3d 768
• Decision Date: 04 April 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-6074.,No. 01-6073.,No. 01-6075.,01-6073.,01-6074.,01-6075.
• Parties: Arthur ALLEN et al. (01-6073), Randall S. Ballard et al. (01-6074), and Joe K. Fannin (01-6075), Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC. and United Transportation Union, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

325 F.3d 768

Arthur ALLEN et al. (01-6073), Randall S. Ballard et al. (01-6074), and Joe K. Fannin (01-6075), Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC. and United Transportation Union, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 01-6073.

No. 01-6074.

No. 01-6075.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Submitted February 4, 2003.

Decided and Filed April 4, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

A.V. Conway II (briefed), Conway & Conway, Hartford, KY, Joseph A. McGee (briefed), Busald, Funk & Zevely, P.S.C., Florence, KY, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Ronald M. Johnson (briefed), Michael E. Ferrans (briefed), Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, Washington, DC, Kevin C. Brodar (briefed), United Transportation Union, Cleveland, OH, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: GILMAN and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges; POLSTER, District Judge.^*

OPINION

GILMAN, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiffs, all of whom are locomotive engineers, brought three separate suits against their employer, CSX Transportation, Inc.(CSX), and against the United Transportation Union (UTU), which represents trainmen in collective bargaining with CSX. They alleged that UTU had breached its duty of fair representation in reaching a particular collective bargaining agreement with CSX, and that CSX had colluded with UTU to breach that duty. The district court granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment after consolidating the three cases. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual background

Under the Railway Labor Act, railroad employees are classified by their crafts for the purposes of collective bargaining. 45 U.S.C. § 152, Fourth ("The majority of any craft or class of employees shall have the right to determine who shall be the representative of the craft or class for the purposes of this chapter.") Locomotive engineers constitute one class. Conductors and brakemen make up another, collectively known as trainmen.

CSX, the surviving entity resulting from the consolidations of multiple railroad companies, employs both engineers and trainmen. UTU is the exclusive bargaining representative for trainmen employed by CSX. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE) is the engineers' exclusive bargaining representative.

Engineers are promoted from the ranks of trainmen. An engineer may return to a trainman position only if furloughed as an engineer by CSX; he may not do so voluntarily. By virtue of the collective bargaining agreements, a trainman who becomes an engineer continues to accrue seniority as a trainman in the event that he is ever furloughed.

In 1993, CSX and UTU negotiated an agreement concerning the composition of train crews operating in the territory formerly controlled by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company (C & O). The agreement gave CSX the right to reduce to one the number of trainmen on a C & O crew. In exchange, CSX agreed to pay eligible employees a lump sum of $23,000 and allow them to sell their share of certain previously established funds for an additional $20,000 payment. Eligible employees were defined as those "in active train service as of the signing date of the Agreement." The agreement further provided: "The definition of active train service employee includes employees holding regular or pool assignments, extra lists, Reserve Pool positions, and protected trainmen who are eligible without restriction of any kind to be holding a turn in train service."

B. Procedural background

A number of locomotive engineers applied for the $43,000 compensation package established by the 1993 agreement. After CSX denied their claims, they proceeded to arbitration. Most took their claims before the National Railroad Adjustment Board. One went instead to the Public Law Board. All lost.

In January of 1999, 23 of these engineers filed suit against CSX and UTU in the federal district court for the Eastern District of Kentucky (the Allen action). They appealed the adverse arbitration decisions, alleged that UTU had breached its duty of fair representation in reaching the 1993 agreement, and asserted that CSX had colluded with UTU in doing so. In May of 1999, 18 other engineers filed essentially the same lawsuit in the Middle District of Florida (the Ballard action). Joe K. Fannin subsequently filed a third action alleging these claims, among others, in the Middle District of Florida (the Fannin action).

In February of 2000, the Ballard and Fannin actions were transferred to the Eastern District of Kentucky. Allen, Ballard, and Fannin were then consolidated for the purposes of discovery and consideration of summary judgment motions. Before the close of discovery, UTU and CSX separately moved for summary judgment. The engineers opposed the motions, both on the merits and because they had not yet completed all of the discovery they desired. Pursuant to Rule 56(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, they submitted an affidavit by their attorney, setting forth the facts that they hoped yet to discover. The district court, however, granted the motions by CSX and UTU for summary judgment without allowing further discovery, deciding that additional discovery would not alter the court's legal conclusions. These timely appeals followed.

II. ANALYSIS

A. The district court did not err in deciding that CSX and UTU were entitled to summary judgment

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Sperle v. Michigan Dep't of Corr., 297 F.3d 483, 490 (6th Cir.2002). Summary judgment is proper where no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(c). In considering such a motion, the court construes all reasonable factual inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). The central issue is "whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

On appeal, the engineers argue that the district court erred in deciding that UTU owed them no duty of fair representation. They first claim that because they have trainmen's seniority rights, they are part of the craft of trainmen, at least with respect to their seniority rights. Alternatively, they contend that even if they are not members of the craft, UTU nevertheless owed them a duty of fair representation. (The engineers do not challenge the district court's award of summary judgment on their arbitration appeals, so that issue is not before us. Priddy v. Edelman, 883 F.2d 438, 446 (6th Cir.1989) ("We normally decline to consider issues not raised in the appellant's opening brief.").)

1. Claim premised upon a bargaining representative's duty to members of the craft it represents

The Railway Labor Act "impose[s] on the bargaining representative of a craft or class of employees the duty to exercise fairly the power conferred upon it in behalf of all those for whom it acts, without hostile discrimination against them." Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 202-03, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173 (1944). "A breach of the statutory duty of fair representation occurs only when a union's conduct toward a member of the collective bargaining unit is arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith." Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 190, 87 S.Ct. 903, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967). The engineers allege that UTU owed them a duty of fair representation and that it breached that duty in negotiating the 1993 agreement.

Because, as Vaca explains, a union breaches its duty only through conduct "toward a member of the collective bargaining unit," the engineers' first hurdle is to articulate why they should be considered members of the craft represented by UTU. They answer by pointing to their retention of trainmen seniority rights, arguing as follows: "Thus, the Plaintiffs' trainmen seniority rights should be within the exclusive province of the UTU, while the Plaintiffs' engineer rights should be within the exclusive province of the BLE." They cite no authority to support this conception of union representation, however, nor are we aware of any.

The statutory language counsels against the engineers' position. Under the Railway Labor Act, "[e]mployees shall have the right" to bargain collectively through craft representatives, 45 U.S.C. § 152, Fourth (emphasis added), and the Act defines "employee" to include "every person in the service of a carrier...." id. § 151, Fifth (emphasis added). The Act thus contemplates that unions represent people skilled in a particular craft, not those people's partial rights or interests. Indeed, because collective bargaining with multiple crafts involves the distribution of finite employee benefits among those crafts, a union would face a conflict of interest if it was required to represent not only the members of its own craft, but also certain interests of those belonging to another craft.

Precedent, moreover, weighs against the engineers. In McTighe v. Mechanics Educational Society of America Local 19, 772 F.2d 210 (6th Cir.1985) (per curiam), this court considered whether a mechanics' union owed a duty of fair representation to a supervisor who had been promoted from the ranks of the union members. The supervisor "assert[ed] that the Union had an established past practice of allowing foremen, upon loss of that position, to return to the bargaining unit based on seniority." Id. at 212. Such seniority rights, however, were held insufficient to generate a duty of fair representation. The court concluded that "McTighe, as a supervisor, was not a member of the collective bargaining unit and consequently the Union owed him no duty of fair representation at the time of his termination." Id. at 213.

McTighe cannot be...