Alvado v. General Motors Corporation

• Decision Date: 24 May 1962
• Docket Number: Docket 27113.,No. 303,303
• Citation: 303 F.2d 718
• Parties: James ALVADO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

303 F.2d 718 (1962)

James ALVADO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 303, Docket 27113.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued April 5, 1962.

Decided May 24, 1962.

Harry Montgomery Leet, Washington, D. C. (Sidney S. Berman, New York City, Sheldon E. Bernstein, Washington, D. C., Frank Montgomery, Knoxville, Tenn., Joseph M. Stone, Washington, D. C., on the brief), for plaintiff-appellant.

Edward B. Wallace, New York City (George A. Brooks, Henry F. Hebermann, John J. Higgins, New York City, on the brief), for defendant-appellee.

Before LUMBARD, Chief Judge, and HAYS and MARSHALL, Circuit Judges.

HAYS, Circuit Judge.

This action was brought by plaintiff in behalf of himself and certain other veterans in the employ of defendant to recover additional vacation benefits for the year ending June 30, 1946. The claim is based upon § 8 of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, 50 U.S.C.App. § 308 (1946),¹ which provides:

"(b) In the case of any such person who, in order to perform such training and service, has left or leaves a position, other than a temporary position, in the employ of any employer and who (1) receives such certificate, (2) is still qualified to perform the duties of such position, and (3) makes application for reemployment within ninety days after he is relieved from such training and service or from hospitalization continuing after discharge for a period of not more than one year —

* * * * * *

"(B) if such position was in the employ of a private employer, such employer shall restore such person to such position or to a position of like seniority, status, and pay unless the employer\'s circumstances have so changed as to make it impossible or unreasonable to do so;

* * * * * * "(c) Any person who is restored to a position in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (A) or (B) of subsection (b) shall be considered as having been on furlough or leave of absence during his period of training and service in the land or naval forces, shall be so restored without loss of seniority, shall be entitled to participate in insurance or other benefits offered by the employer pursuant to established rules and practices relating to employees on furlough or leave of absence in effect with the employer at the time such person was inducted into such forces, and shall not be discharged from such position without cause within one year after such restoration."

This case was the subject of a former appeal to this court. In Alvado v. General Motors Corporation, 229 F.2d 408 (2d Cir.1956) the lower court's decision in favor of the defendant on a motion for summary judgment was reversed, and the case was remanded for trial. The trial has now been had and has resulted in a judgment for the defendant, D.C., 194 F.Supp. 314. The plaintiff appeals on the ground that the trial court's findings are clearly erroneous.

The facts are extensively set forth in connection with the opinion in Alvado v. General Motors Corp., supra. Briefly summarized they are as follows:

Beginning in 1940 defendant negotiated successive collective bargaining agreements with the United Auto Workers Union which provided that vacation pay of one or two weeks pay, depending on length of service, be paid to employees who were in the employ of the Company at the end of the vacation year (July 1 to June 30). During the vacation year 1945-46, the employees were on strike from November 21, 1945 to March 19, 1946. In the course of the negotiations for a new collective agreement which would settle the strike, the defendant proposed that the amount to be paid as vacation pay should be based upon the time worked by each employee during the vacation year. This formula would, of course, have reflected the time lost by reason of the strike. After further bargaining a compromise solution was reached by which the amount of vacation pay to be paid for the vacation year 1945-1946 was to be based upon time worked during the calendar year 1945. The following year the former provision for vacation pay based upon weekly earnings was reinstated. Since most of the veterans returned to their jobs after the end of the strike in 1946, they were entitled to no vacation pay for the vacation year ending in June 1946 under the formula applicable to that year, whereas, under the formula used in other years they would have been entitled to one to two weeks of vacation pay.

We do not concern ourselves with difficulties in the interpretation of the statute since this court has expressly held that rights to vacation pay of the type involved in the present case are within the compass of the term "other benefits" as that term is used in the statute. Siaskiewicz v. General Electric Co., 166 F.2d 463 (2d Cir.1948). On the previous appeal in the present case, while the opinion contains language which might be thought to cast doubt on this interpretation of the statute, the court held that the complaint "states a good cause of action under § 308(c)." Alvado v. General Motors Corp., supra, 229 F.2d at p. 411.

In his opinion on the former appeal Judge Frank, speaking for the court, said:

"If the sole evidence of discrimination were the agreement itself, we would feel constrained by the precedents to affirm the summary judgment. But here plaintiff alleged that defendant intended, by means of the agreement, to discriminate against veterans for its own financial gain. Such an allegation of `bad faith\' states a good cause of action under § 308(c), and plaintiff must therefore be given the opportunity at a trial to produce evidence, in addition to the agreement, in support of that allegation.

"In Aeronautical Indus. Dist. Lodge 727 v. Campbell, 337 U.S. 521, 69 S.Ct. 1287, 1291, 93 L.Ed. 1513, the Court significantly ended its opinion thus: `All this presupposes, obviously, that an agreement containing the 1945 provisions expresses honest desires for the protection of the interest of all members of the union and is not a skillful device of hostility to veterans. There is not the remotest suggestion that the 1945 agreement was other than what it purported to be. * * *\' In Ford Motor Company v. Huffman, 345 U.S. 330, 338, 73 S.Ct. 681, 686, 97 L.Ed. 1048, the Court said that, under NLRA, a collective-bargaining agreement is ordinarily not susceptible to attack, because of discrimination, but that this conclusion is `subject always to complete good faith and honesty of purpose. * * *\' Cf. Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 203-204, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173. In Foster v. General Motors Corporation, 7 Cir., 191 F.2d 907, 912, the court said: `There is no allegation in the complaint that the agreement between the defendant and the union was made in bad faith and no allegations of fact which, in our view, could form the basis for any legal discrimination.\' In Dougherty v. General Motors Corporation, 3 Cir., 176 F.2d 561, 563, the court said that plaintiff `makes no allegation that such discrimination was intended, and in fact he affirmatively states that the situation of returning veterans "apparently was not considered."\'

"The complaint in the instant case is markedly different. It explicitly alleges that the adoption of the percentage-of-earnings clause for the single year `was a device of hostility directed at veterans and having a substantial adverse effect on them alone\'; that the defendant `had the purpose\' and `knew and intended\' this result; and that defendant `intended such unlawful discrimination\' for `its own benefit and gain and to the financial injury and loss of plaintiffs.\'" Alvado v. General Motors Corp., supra, 229 F. 2d at p. 411.

The case was returned to the trial court to give the plaintiff "the opportunity to cross-examine the defendant's officials" and to assist the trial court "in its evaluation of their credibility by observing their demeanor while they testify." Id. at p. 412.

We have reviewed the testimony introduced at the trial and the exhibits submitted. They serve to support the conclusion that veterans did not fare as well under the 1946 formula as they would have fared under the formula adopted in other years and that the defendant must have known that the formula would have this result. The evidence falls short of establishing the propositions for consideration of which the court directed that the cause be tried.

The material presented on the original motion for summary judgment showed that veterans received less favorable treatment under the revised formula and that the defendant must have known this. The case was returned for trial for the purpose of permitting the plaintiff an opportunity through cross-examination to establish that defendant's intent in adopting the formula was to discriminate against veterans, that the formula was "a device of hostility directed at veterans." This the plaintiff has failed to do.

If knowledge of the result alone were sufficient to establish the requisite intent this court's action in returning the case for trial would have been without point, and the court would not have held, as it did, that the plaintiff was not entitled to summary judgment. For the knowledge of the defendant that the agreement would have the effect on veterans which it did have was clearly inferable from the material then available, and was not denied by the defendant.

In order to establish a violation of the Act the veteran must show, in addition to knowledge, that there was a purpose or motive to discriminate. In the Supreme Court cases in which disadvantage to veterans was held not to constitute a violation of the Act, there was no doubt that the defendants knew that such a disadvantage would be the result of their arrangements. Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U.S. 330, 73 S.Ct. 681, 97 L.Ed 1048 (1953); Aeronautical Indus. Dist. Lodge 727 v. Campbell, 337 U.S. 521, 69 S.Ct. 1287, 93 L.Ed. 1513 (1949). What was missing was proof of "hostility to veterans," ...