American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO v. U.S. Postal Service

• Decision Date: 04 August 1987
• Docket Number: P,86-5612,AFL-CI,Nos. 86-5611,s. 86-5611
• Citation: 823 F.2d 466
• Parties: 126 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2263, 56 USLW 2107, 8 Fed.R.Serv.3d 648 AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION,laintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 466

823 F.2d 466

126 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2263, 56 USLW 2107,

8 Fed.R.Serv.3d 648

AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION, AFL-CIO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, Defendant-Appellee.

Nos. 86-5611, 86-5612.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 4, 1987.

Joseph H. Kaplan, Kaplan, Sicking & Bloom, P.A., Miami, Fla., Charlene Miller Carres, Tallahassee, Fla., for plaintiff-appellant.

Leon B. Kellner, U.S. Atty., Wendy A. Jacobus and Linda Collins Hert, Asst. U.S. Attys., Miami, Fla., Kevin Rachel, U.S. Postal Service, Office of Labor Law, Washington, D.C., for defendant-appellee.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before GODBOLD and HILL, Circuit Judges, and ESCHBACH, ^* Senior Circuit Judge.

ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge:

This case requires us to undertake the sometimes hazardous task of choosing an appropriate limitations period to govern a federal statutory action that provides none. The plaintiff, American Postal Workers Union ("the Union"), brought suit in two cases to vacate arbitration awards rendered pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement with the United States Postal Service ("the Postal Service"). The district court dismissed the complaints, holding them both to be untimely, and in Appeal No. 86-5611, holding that the Local Union lacked standing to sue under the national collective bargaining agreement. For the reasons that follow, we disagree on both points and reverse.

I

The Postal Service and the National Union operate under a collective bargaining agreement, which has been in effect since 1984. ¹ The National Union is made up of various local unions throughout the country. While the bulk of the agreement is national in scope, Article 30 of the agreement lists items for which local bargaining is permitted (so long as the local understandings reached are not inconsistent with the national agreement). In late 1985, the Miami Area Local requested bargaining under Article 30 over certain proposals regarding the Homestead and Opa-Locka, Florida Postal facilities. No agreement could be reached on many of the Union's proposals, and in each case, arbitration under the agreement was invoked. Under Article 30 and a memorandum of understanding, which amplified and, in respects not relevant here, amended that article, arbitration of matters that are appropriate for local bargaining is not permitted unless the National Union President authorizes it. The Postal Service did not contest whether the requisite authorization was sought and obtained, and in fact affirmatively asserts that "[t]he disputes were properly taken to arbitration by the National Union." Appellee's Brief in No. 86-5611 at 6; in No. 86-5612 at 5. However, each of the arbitration awards is, on its face, directed to the Local.

The arbitration award in Appeal No. 86-5611 was issued on September 30, 1985, and delivered to appellant the same day. Appellant filed an action in the district court seeking to vacate the award on December 30, 1985, but only served a local official of the Postal Service. Service on the Postmaster General, the Attorney General, and the U.S. Attorney was perfected within 120 days of the filing of the complaint. ² Appellant amended its complaint to allege authorization by the National Union to bring this suit in response to the Postal Service's motion to dismiss, before the district court's ruling on that motion.

In No. 86-5612, the arbitration award was issued on October 3, 1985. Appellant asserts in its brief that the award was not delivered to it until October 7, 1985. ³ The complaint seeking to vacate the award was filed on January 6, 1986. Again, service at that time was only made on a local postal official. Service on the Postmaster General, the Attorney General, and the U.S. Attorney was perfected within 120 days of the filing of the complaint. ⁴ As in No. 86-5611, appellant's amended complaint, filed in response to the Postal Service's motion to dismiss, specifically alleges authority from the National Union to prosecute the suit.

No. 86-5612 was dismissed by the district court as untimely. No. 86-5611 was dismissed on the twin grounds of untimeliness and lack of standing. Appellee urges lack of standing as an alternative ground of affirmance in No. 86-5612.

II

In its timeliness analysis, the district court concluded that the United States Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. Sec. 1 et seq. (1982) ("the USAA" also sometimes referred to as the "Federal Arbitration Act" or "FAA"), applied and that the failure to serve the complaint on the Postal Service, United States Attorney, and Attorney General within the three-month period allowed by 9 U.S.C. Sec. 12 barred the suit. The court noted alternatively that the complaint was not timely served under the most analogous Florida limitations period, which is 90 days. See Fla.Stat.Ann. Sec. 682.13(2) (West Supp.1987). We must disagree with the district court's analysis for two reasons: (1) the USAA does not, by its terms, apply to labor arbitrations of this type; ⁵ and (2) while we find it appropriate to "borrow" the period set out in the USAA rather than the Florida Statute, that borrowing does not include the service provision of the USAA. Thus, the period was tolled when the action was "commenced" under Fed.R.Civ.P. 3, by the filing of the complaint, as long as service was properly effected under Fed.R.Civ.P. 4 within 120 days of that filing.

A

We begin by noting that the statute under which this action was brought, the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, Pub.L. No. 91-375, 84 Stat. 719, 1970 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 842 (1970) (codified as amended at 39 U.S.C.), does not contain a limitations period. In fact, the specific section under which this action was brought, 39 U.S.C. Sec. 1208(b), does not even explicitly authorize judicial review or enforcement of arbitration awards. The section simply reads: "Suits for violation of contracts between the Postal Service and a labor organization representing Postal Service employees, or between any such labor organizations, may be brought in any district court of the United States having jurisdiction of the parties without respect to the amount in controversy."

Those schooled in labor law will note a remarkable resemblance of the section to section 301(a) of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 185(a) (1982). The resemblance is not coincidental; Congress intended section 1208(b) of the Postal Reorganization Act to have the same effect within its sphere as the Taft-Hartley Act does elsewhere in labor law. See Abernathy v. United States Postal Service, 740 F.2d 612, 614 (8th Cir.1984); Leach v. United States Postal Service, 698 F.2d 250, 254-55 (6th Cir.1983); National Association of Letter Carriers v. United States Postal Service, 590 F.2d 1171, 1174 (D.C.Cir.1978); see also Bowen v. United States Postal Service, 459 U.S. 212, 232 n. 2, 103 S.Ct. 588, 600 n. 2, 74 L.Ed.2d 402 (1983) (White, J., dissenting). Thus, the parties have cited decisions under the postal statute and the Taft-Hartley Act interchangeably, and we agree that decisions under Taft-Hartley are highly relevant to the outcome of this case. Accordingly, much of our task is to examine the interaction of the USAA and the Taft-Hartley Act, paying especial heed to the historical evolution of the national labor policy.

The argument of the postal service is simple and, superficially, appealing. The USAA applies, argues the Postal Service, because the collective bargaining agreement in these cases is a "contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce" within the meaning of section two of the Act, ⁶ but not a "contract[ ] of employment of ... any ... class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce," and is thus not excluded from the operation of the Act by section one. ⁷ For this latter proposition, the Postal Service cites numerous cases it contends decline to apply the exclusion to collective bargaining agreements "because they are not 'contracts of employment' within the meaning of the statute, or by giving a very restrictive interpretation to the 'class of workers' to which section one applies." Appellee's Brief in No. 86-5611 at 17 n. 9; in No. 86-5612 at 13. The USAA plainly requires service, rather than mere filing, within 3 months of the arbitration award. See 9 U.S.C. Sec. 12. ⁸ The service in these cases, continues the argument, was ineffective because it did not comply with the dictates of Fed.R.Civ.P. 4(d)(4), (5). ⁹ Therefore, the Postal Service concludes, the instant cases were untimely brought.

There are several difficulties with the Postal Service's argument. The first is that it ignores the historical context of the cases cited in support, many of which may no longer be good law. Secondly, the proposition that the Postal Service contends requires us to apply the USAA (by declining to apply the exception) is "double-barreled." That is, courts have declined to apply the exclusion either (a) because collective bargaining agreements are not "contracts of employment," or (b) because the particular class of workers involved was not "engaged in interstate or foreign commerce." The Postal Service has connected these propositions in a manner that is somewhat misleading, tending to overstate the support in the caselaw for the first proposition. Finally, the second proposition, while fairly supported by the caselaw, simply does not help the Postal Service.

B

The USAA was passed in 1925. Prior to that time, for a variety of reasons (not the least of which was what today seems an irrational judicial hostility to arbitration in general), executory agreements to arbitrate contractual disputes had been held unenforceable. Congress, viewing arbitration as a useful alternative to protracted litigation, remedied this situation for the federal courts, at least where there was an independent basis for federal jurisdiction over the dispute. The USAA provided, in...