Central Metal Products v. INTERNATIONAL UNION, ETC.

• Decision Date: 15 June 1961
• Docket Number: No. J 61 C 12.,J 61 C 12.
• Parties: CENTRAL METAL PRODUCTS, INC., Plaintiff v. INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT, AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA, (UAW-CIO), LOCAL NO. 1249; and Grievants William Whitney, John Allgood, Orlan B. Thorn, Ralph Bennett, and J. C. Brents, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

195 F. Supp. 70

CENTRAL METAL PRODUCTS, INC., Plaintiff v. INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AIRCRAFT, AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA, (UAW-CIO), LOCAL NO. 1249; and Grievants William Whitney, John Allgood, Orlan B. Thorn, Ralph Bennett, and J. C. Brents, Defendants.

No. J 61 C 12.

United States District Court E. D. Arkansas, Jonesboro Division.

June 15, 1961.

Vincent E. Skillman, Jr., Skillman & Webb, West Memphis, Ark., for plaintiff.

James E. Youngdahl, McMath, Leatherman, Woods & Youngdahl, Little Rock, Ark., for defendants.

YOUNG, District Judge.

This is an action to vacate the award entered on a labor grievance voluntarily submitted to arbitration pursuant to the terms of the collective bargaining agreement between plaintiff and defendant, Local 1249. The action was commenced in the Circuit Court of Mississippi County, Arkansas, and was removed to this court by defendants upon the theory that it presented a violation of a contract between an employer and a labor organization representing employees in an industry affecting commerce within the meaning of 29 U.S.C.A. § 185(a), thereby presenting a claim or right arising under a law of the United States within the original jurisdiction of this court, removable under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a, b). Plaintiff has moved to remand; upon consideration of this motion upon the briefs and pleadings, the motion to remand is denied.

The allegation in the petition for removal that this suit is between parties affiliated to an industry affecting commerce within the definition of the Taft-Hartley Act has not been denied, and indeed, has been admitted in plaintiff's answer to the counterclaim filed in this court by defendants. Plaintiff does deny, however, that this is a suit for a violation of contract within the meaning of § 185. Jurisdiction cannot be established upon the cause of action asserted in the counterclaim, for in this District the rule has been long established to the contrary. See Trullinger v. Rosenblum, D.C.E.D.Ark.1955, 129 F. Supp. 12; accord, Ingram v. Sterling, D.C.W.D.Ark.1956, 141 F.Supp. 786, and defendants do not dispute this. Clearly, however, any right of defendants to seek a federal forum cannot be defeated by the wording of plaintiff's complaint below, if otherwise it is clear that the cause of action asserted therein is one within the original jurisdiction of a federal court. Though it is sometimes said that federal jurisdiction must be shown by the complaint without reference to the petition for removal, Willingham v. Creswell-Keith, Inc., D.C.W.D.Ark.1958; 160 F. Supp. 741; accord, Pan American Petroleum Corporation v. Superior Court, 1961, 366 U.S. 656, at page 663, 81 S.Ct. 1303, at page 1307, clearly this is too broad a statement of the rule apart from the circumstances of the cases in which it is applied. The familiar examples of fraudulent joinder being contested by the petition for removal, or of diversity residence being set out by such petition though not appearing in the complaint, demonstrate that such statement of the rule, if not too broad, is at least not without its exceptions. Here plaintiff's complaint does not disclose whether he relies upon state or federal law, but even assuming...