Austin v. Owens-Brockway Glass Container, Inc.

• Decision Date: 12 March 1996
• Docket Number: OWENS-BROCKWAY,Nos. 94-1213,94-1265,s. 94-1213
• Citation: 78 F.3d 875
• Parties: 151 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2673, 70 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 272, 67 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,970, 64 USLW 2586, 5 A.D. Cases 488, 15 A.D.D. 166, 7 NDLR P 394 Linda AUSTIN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.GLASS CONTAINER, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Equal Employment Advisory Council, Amici Curiae. Linda AUSTIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.GLASS CONTAINER, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellant. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Equal Employment Advisory Council, Amici Curiae.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 875

78 F.3d 875

151 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2673, 70 Fair

Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 272,

67 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,970, 64 USLW 2586,

5 A.D. Cases 488, 15 A.D.D. 166, 7

NDLR P 394

Linda AUSTIN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. OWENS-BROCKWAY GLASS CONTAINER, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Equal Employment

Advisory Council, Amici Curiae.

Linda AUSTIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. OWENS-BROCKWAY GLASS CONTAINER, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellant.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Equal Employment

Advisory Council, Amici Curiae.

Nos. 94-1213, 94-1265.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 3, 1995.

Decided March 12, 1996.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Danville. Jackson L. Kiser, Chief District Judge. (CA-93-51-D).

ARGUED: Barbara Rubin Hudson, Danville, Virginia, for Appellant. Karen Marie Moran, Office of General Counsel, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae EEOC. Thomas Michael Lucas, Mary Chapman Hamilton, Vandeventer, Black, Meredith & Martin, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: James R. Neely, Jr., Deputy General Counsel, Gwendolyn Young Reams, Associate General Counsel, Vincent J. Blackwood, Assistant General Counsel, Samuel A. Marcosson, Office of General Counsel, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae EEOC. Robert L. O'Donnell, Vandeventer, BLACK, Meredith & Martin, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellee. Douglas S. McDowell, Ann Elizabeth Reesman, McGuiness & Williams, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae Advisory Council.

Before WIDENER and HALL, Circuit Judges, and CHAPMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed as modified and remanded by published opinion. Judge WIDENER wrote the majority opinion, in which Senior Judge CHAPMAN joined. Judge HALL wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

WIDENER, Circuit Judge:

Linda Austin filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia against Owens-Brockway Glass Container, Inc., alleging violations of Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act (Disabilities Act or ADA). The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Owens-Brockway because Miss Austin failed to submit her claims to mandatory arbitration under a collective bargaining agreement. Miss Austin appeals, claiming that the district court incorrectly held that she was required to arbitrate her statutory claims. Finding no error, we affirm with only slight modification.

I.

Because the district court disposed of Miss Austin's claims on a motion for summary judgment, all justifiable inferences of relevant facts are drawn in favor of the plaintiff. The grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2513-14, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). Miss Austin worked for Owens-Brockway for approximately 14 years until she was injured on the job in 1992. Her physician released her for light-duty work in August 1992, but Owens-Brockway informed her that no light-duty employment was available. Instead, Miss Austin was put on medical leave and provided with workers' compensation benefits. While Miss Austin was on leave, Owens-Brockway eliminated Miss Austin's job classification of equipment cleaner/oiler-greaser. In June 1993, Miss Austin met with Robert McCauley, the Director of Industrial Relations at Owens-Brockway. She learned that Owens-Brockway had terminated her employment and that she would not be reassigned to light-duty work.

Miss Austin filed suit against Owens-Brockway on October 13, 1993. She alleged Owens-Brockway violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq ., and Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., by refusing to offer her light-duty work and by terminating her employment while a male employee, the only other employee in her eliminated job classification, was reassigned to another position at the plant.

Owens-Brockway filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The company argued that Miss Austin failed to file her claim with the EEOC and had not obtained a right to sue letter, both prerequisites to filing Disabilities Act and Title VII claims in court. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-5(b), 12117(a). Further, Owens-Brockway took the position that Miss Austin's claims were subject to mandatory arbitration under a collective bargaining agreement covering her employment with Owens-Brockway. Because Miss Austin failed to file a claim under the grievance-arbitration procedure, Owens-Brockway maintained that she was precluded from filing suit in federal court.

Owens-Brockway offered affidavits in support of its motion to dismiss, so the district court treated the motion as one for summary judgment. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b). The district court found that a significant factual dispute existed as to what actions Miss Austin took to file her complaint with the EEOC, and therefore, without deciding the question, declined to grant summary judgment for failure to file a claim or obtain a right to sue letter. ¹

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Owens-Brockway based on Miss Austin's failure to process her claims under the grievance-arbitration procedure in the collective bargaining agreement. The court held that that agreement subjected Miss Austin's claims to mandatory arbitration. Thus, the court held that under Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U.S. 20, 111 S.Ct. 1647, 114 L.Ed.2d 26 (1991), because she did not submit her claim to arbitration under the collective bargaining agreement, she was precluded from bringing the lawsuit.

II.

A.

Miss Austin first takes the position that she did not have standing under the collective bargaining agreement to arbitrate her dispute with her employer for gender and disability-based claims of discrimination. The argument goes that having no standing, she could not comply with the contract. She now takes the position that she had been discharged and, as a discharged employee, she had no standing to request or demand arbitration of such claims. There is no merit to this position, however. First, the district court found that the alleged discrimination plaintiff complains of occurred on June 1, 1993, the date the defendant terminated Miss Austin's employment. It also found that on June 1, 1993, the April 1, 1993-March 31, 1996 Union Shop Contract was in effect. Plaintiff takes no exception to these findings. So any contractual rights plaintiff may have had on account of that discrimination arose during the term of the collective bargaining agreement in question and plaintiff could assert her rights under that contract. Second, even if plaintiff had been a terminated employee, she could have asserted any rights she had under the collective bargaining agreement even after its termination. Nolde Bros. Inc. v. Local No. 358, Bakery & Confectionery Workers Union, 430 U.S. 243, 97 S.Ct. 1067, 51 L.Ed.2d 300 (1977), affirmed our decision that an employer and employee's "arbitration duties under the [collective bargaining] contract survived its termination with respect to claims arising by reason of the collective bargaining agreement." 430 U.S. at 248, 97 S.Ct. at 1070. Nolde Bros. held that a "Union's claim for severance pay under [an] ... expired collective bargaining agreement [was] ... subject to resolution under the arbitration provision of that contract." 430 U.S. at 255, 97 S.Ct. at 1074. We do not think the case before us is different from Nolde Bros. in any significant degree.

Accordingly, we are of opinion and decide that Miss Austin had standing to assert her claims under the collective bargaining agreement.

B.

The next argument of Miss Austin is that arbitration of her Title VII and disability claims is permissive rather than mandatory. She relies on Section 1, Article 32 of the collective bargaining agreement which states that "[a]ll disputes not settled pursuant to the procedures set forth in Article 31, Grievance Procedures, may be referred to arbitration." She takes the position that the use of the word "may" as just stated makes arbitration permissive rather than obligatory. We are of opinion, however, that the purpose of the word "may" in this section of the collection bargaining agreement is to give an aggrieved party the choice between arbitration and abandonment of his claim, he "may" either arbitrate or abandon the claim. The interpretation urged by Miss Austin would render the arbitration provision meaningless for all practical purposes. If the parties to such an agreement intended for arbitration to be permissive, there would be no reason to include Article 32, the arbitration provision in the contract, for the parties to an existing dispute could always voluntarily submit it to arbitration. Almost identical words ("either party may request arbitration") in a fact situation indistinguishable from that at hand has received the same construction we place upon it by the Eighth Circuit in Bonnot v. Congress of Independent Unions, Local No. 14, 331 F.2d 355, 359 (8th Cir.1964), which followed Deaton Truck Line, Inc. v. Local Union 612, 314 F.2d 418, 422 (5th Cir.1962). See also American Italian Pasta Co. v. Austin Co., 914 F.2d 1103, 1104 (8th Cir.1990).

Thus, we decide that the arbitration provisions in the collective bargaining agreement are obligatory and not permissive.

III.

A.

In deciding whether to enforce the arbitration provision in this collective bargaining agreement, we start with and rely upon the "well-recognized policy of federal labor law favoring arbitration of labor disputes." Adkins v. Times-World Corp., 771 F.2d 829, 831 (4th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1109, 106 S.Ct. 896, 88 L.Ed.2d 930 (1986). In the Steelworkers Trilogy, the Supreme Court established that arbitration is favored in labor disputes. See e.g., United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 80...