Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Csx Transp., No. 07-12624. Non-Argument Calendar.
Decision Date | 04 April 2008 |
Docket Number | No. 07-12624. Non-Argument Calendar. |
Citation | 522 F.3d 1190 |
Parties | BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS AND TRAINMEN GENERAL COMMITTEE OF ADJUSTMENT CSX TRANSPORTATION NORTHERN LINES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC., Defendant-Appellee. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Richard Steven Edelman, O'Donnell, Schwartz & Anderson, P.C., Washington, DC, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Ronald Maurice Johnson, Michael S. McIntosh, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, L.L.P., Washington, DC, for Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Before BIRCH, BLACK and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.
This appeal under the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151, et seq. ("RLA"), concerns when an enforcement action accrues under the statute of limitations after an arbitration award and, alternatively, whether a request for interpretation of an arbitration award tolls the limitations period. Following an arbitration award, the union sought to enforce the award in district court. The district judge determined that the union's petition was outside the two-year, statutory limitations period and dismissed the enforcement action, which has presented first-impression issues for our circuit. We affirm.
On November 19, 2002, T.R. Pitzen, employed by defendant-appellee, CSX Transportation, Inc. ("CSX"), claimed absence from work because of an off-duty neck injury. CSX did not question the legitimacy of Pitzen's claim. After nearly a three-week absence, Pitzen told a supervisor that, during the period when he supposedly was unable to operate trains, he had driven from Ohio to Panama City, Florida, participated in a karate tournament, and won the heavy-weight title at that tournament. Because his claimed injury absence was under false pretenses, CSX charged Pitzen with dishonesty and terminated him.
On behalf of Pitzen, plaintiff-appellant, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen General Committee of Adjustment CSX Transportation Northern Lines ("BLET"), challenged his dismissal and requested his reinstatement. Pursuant to the parties' collective bargaining agreement and a separate arbitration agreement that established Public Law Board 5959 (the "Board"), the parties referred Pitzen's claim to the Board.1 An arbitrator determined that CSX had the burden of proving that Pitzen had been dishonest regarding his absence because of his alleged injury and that it had failed to carry its burden. On June 2, 2004, the arbitrator sustained Pitzen's claim and ordered compliance within thirty days.
CSX reinstated Pitzen but did not pay him back wages for the period of his dismissal. On August 19, 2004, BLET sent a letter to CSX and demanded back pay for Pitzen. CSX responded on October 6, 2004, that the award did not require the payment of back wages. For more than a year, BLET did nothing. In November 2005, BLET sent two more letters to CSX demanding back pay for Pitzen. CSX responded by repeating its position that the award did not include back pay.
On February 9, 2006, BLET requested that the arbitrator clarify whether the award required payment of back wages. BLET had first acknowledged the potential need for such a clarification in its initial letter on August 19, 2004, but delayed making its request for an interpretation for another sixteen months. On April 7, 2006, the arbitrator clarified that, although the award did not provide for back wages expressly, the terms of the parties' collective bargaining agreement required them. Nonetheless, BLET waited almost four more months before filing its petition for enforcement with the district court on August 1, 2006. In lieu of an answer, CSX moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), because the two-year statute of limitations barred BLET's petition to enforce the award.
On the facts pled in BLET's petition, the district judge concluded that the cause of action for enforcement accrued on July 3, 2004, and granted CSX's motion. The judge additionally decided that the Board had issued an interpretation of the award under 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (m), which did not toll the statute of limitations. Accordingly, the district judge determined that BLET filed its August 1, 2006, petition outside the two-year limitations period and dismissed the action. BLET has appealed that order.
Prevailing parties under Public Law Boards can enforce awards in federal district court. 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (p). In reviewing a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the standard of review "is the same for the appellate court as it was for the trial court." Stephens v. Department of Health & Human Servs., 901 F.2d 1571, 1573 (11th Cir.1990). We review a district judge's order granting a motion under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo. Spain v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 363 F.3d 1183, 1187 (11th Cir.2003) (per curiam). We accept the allegations in the complaint as true and construe them in favor of the plaintiff. Hill v. White, 321 F.3d 1334, 1335 (11th Cir.2003) (per curiam). A Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal "on statute of limitations grounds is appropriate only if it is `"apparent from the face of the complaint"' that the claim is time-barred." Tello v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 410 F.3d 1275, 1288 (11th Cir.2005) (citations omitted).
We review de novo a district court's legal determination concerning the availability of equitable tolling for a statute of limitations. Drew v. Department of Corrs., 297 F.3d 1278, 1283 (11th Cir.2002). In contrast, the application of that law to the particular facts is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Arce v. Garcia, 434 F.3d 1254, 1260 (11th Cir.2006). There is an abuse of discretion when a district judge bases his or her decision on factual findings that are clearly erroneous. Id.
There is no dispute that the two-year statute of limitations contained in 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (r) applies to BLET's action. This appeal concerns when BLET's enforcement cause of action under 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (p) accrued for the purpose of calculating the running of the statute of limitations. Because the award specifically states that CSX had to comply within thirty days, and the date of the award was June 2, 2004, the district judge concluded that BLET's enforcement cause of action accrued on July 3, 2004. Since BLET did not file its petition for enforcement until August 1, 2006, the judge dismissed BLET's claim as untimely.
The statute of limitations for RLA enforcement actions states that "[a]ll actions at law based upon the provisions of this section shall be begun within two years from the time the cause of action accrues under the award of the division of the Adjustment Board, and not after." 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (r) (emphasis added). To determine when an enforcement cause of action accrues, the statute provides:
If a carrier does not comply with an order of a division of the Adjustment Board within the time limit in such order, the petitioner, or any person for whose benefit such order was made, may file in the District Court of the United States ... a petition setting forth briefly the causes for which he claims relief, and the order of the division of the Adjustment Board in the premises. Such suit in the District Court of the United States shall proceed in all respects as other civil suits, except that on the trial of such suit the findings and order of the division of the Adjustment Board shall be conclusive on the parties ....
45 U.S.C. § 153 First (p) (emphasis added). The plain language of these provisions makes the carrier's failure to comply within the time limit established by the award the triggering event for an enforcement action and the running of the statute of limitations. BLET's interpretation, that "there is a cause of action for enforcement of an award, not when an award issues, or even when it becomes effective, but when the carrier refuses to comply with the award," Appellant's Br. at 10, disregards the subsequent clarifying statutory phrase that a carrier must comply "within the time limit in such order," 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (p).
The primary principle of statutory construction requires courts to give effect to the plain meaning of the words used "in their ordinary and usual sense." Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 485-86, 37 S.Ct. 192, 194, 61 L.Ed. 442 (1917). To the extent possible, the rules of statutory construction require courts to give meaning to every word and clause in a statute. United States v. Menasche, 348 U.S. 528, 538-39, 75 S.Ct. 513, 520, 99 L.Ed. 615 (1955); TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19, 31, 122 S.Ct. 441, 449, 151 L.Ed.2d 339 (2001). Additionally, courts must reject statutory interpretations that would render portions of a statute surplusage. TRW, 534 U.S. at 31, 122 S.Ct. at 449.
Consequently, the plain meaning of "within the time limit in such order" in § 153 First (p) is that a cause of action to enforce an award arises at the end of the time limit set forth in that award. By requiring a carrier to comply by a date certain, the RLA provides plaintiffs with a basis to determine whether they have a cause of action for enforcement. No compliance by the requisite date indicates that a potential plaintiff had time to acquire sufficient factual knowledge for reasonable inquiry to reveal the cause of action. United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111, 122-24, 100 S.Ct. 352, 359-60, 62 L.Ed.2d 259 (1979). In this case, BLET had reasonable basis to know that CSX was not going to pay Pitzen back wages when it did not do so by July 2, 2004, the date specified in the award for compliance. Consequently, BLET's cause of action accrued on the date following the deadline for compliance stated in the award, or July 3, 2004, as the district judge correctly determined.
Other circuits have interpreted § 153 First (p) literally and strictly as did the...
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