Chapman v. INTERNATIONAL LADIES'GARMENT WORKERS'UNION

• Decision Date: 25 September 1968
• Docket Number: No. 12530-12535.,12530-12535.
• Citation: 401 F.2d 626
• Parties: Ruth C. CHAPMAN, Appellee, v. INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, Local 581, Appellants. Ruth C. CHAPMAN, Appellee, v. SPARTAN UNDIES, INC., and Jonathan Logan, Inc., Appellants. Betty J. PETTY, Appellee, v. INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, Local 581, Appellants. Betty J. PETTY, Appellee, v. SPARTAN UNDIES, INC., and Jonathan Logan, Inc., Appellants. Hazel S. MURRAY, Appellee, v. SPARTAN UNDIES, INC., and Jonathan Logan, Inc., Appellants. Evelyn V. HYATT, Appellee, v. SPARTAN UNDIES, INC., and Jonathan Logan, Inc., Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

401 F.2d 626 (1968)

Ruth C. CHAPMAN, Appellee, v. INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, Local 581, Appellants.

Ruth C. CHAPMAN, Appellee, v. SPARTAN UNDIES, INC., and Jonathan Logan, Inc., Appellants.

Betty J. PETTY, Appellee, v. INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, Local 581, Appellants.

Betty J. PETTY, Appellee, v. SPARTAN UNDIES, INC., and Jonathan Logan, Inc., Appellants.

Hazel S. MURRAY, Appellee, v. SPARTAN UNDIES, INC., and Jonathan Logan, Inc., Appellants.

Evelyn V. HYATT, Appellee, v. SPARTAN UNDIES, INC., and Jonathan Logan, Inc., Appellant.

Nos. 12530-12535.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

September 25, 1968.

Thomas C. Bradley, Jr., Thomas A. Evins, Spartanburg, S. C., for appellees.

E. W. Mullins, Columbia, S. C., for appellants.

Before SOBELOFF, CRAVEN and BUTZNER, Circuit Judges.

SOBELOFF, Circuit Judge:

The question presented for determination is whether an order of the District Court denying defendants' motion to stay plaintiffs' actions pending arbitration is an "injunction" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a) (1) and so an immediately appealable interlocutory order.

The four plaintiffs who initiated these proceedings are employees of the defendants, Jonathan Logan, Inc., and Spartan Undies, Inc. The plaintiffs allege a wrongful withholding of certain vacation pay benefits which they claim inure to their benefit under a collective bargaining agreement between the defendant-employers and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and its Local 581. In these actions the plaintiffs seek compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys' fees, and an injunction against the defendants' illegal withholding of vacation pay in the future. The Union and its local, who were also named defendants in two of these actions, joined with the employers in a motion in the District Court for a stay pending arbitration. The District Court denied the motion and thereupon the defendant-employers and the union sought leave to prosecute a discretionary appeal under § 1292(b). The District Judge signed the requisite certificate but leave to appeal was denied by this court without opinion on April 4, 1968.

Additionally, the defendants filed notices of an appeal as of right under § 1292(a) (1), asserting that the order of the District Court was an "injunction" within the meaning of that section. Before us now is the plaintiffs' motion to dismiss the appeal.

We think the motion to dismiss the appeal must be granted. In a series of decisions, the Supreme Court has endeavored to establish guidelines for determining when an order granting or denying a stay pending arbitration is an appealable interlocutory order under § 1292(a) (1). In its most recent consideration of the problem, in Baltimore Contractors v. Bodinger, 348 U.S. 176, 75 S.Ct. 249, 99 L.Ed. 233 (1955), an action for an equitable accounting, the Court held that the denial of the defendant's motion for a stay pending arbitration was not appealable under § 1292(a) (1). In dictum, Justice Reed, writing for the majority, indicated that where the plaintiff seeks legal as opposed to equitable relief, an order refusing a stay pending arbitration would be an appealable "injunction." The Court, in announcing that the appealability of an order would depend entirely on the form of the plaintiff's action, adhered to its prior holdings in City of Morgantown v. Royal Ins. Co., 337 U.S. 254, 69 S.Ct. 1067, 93 L.Ed. 1347 (1949), Ettelson v. Metropolitan Ins. Co., 317 U.S. 188, 63 S.Ct. 163, 87 L.Ed. 176 (1942), and Enelow v. New York Life Ins. Co., 293 U.S. 379, 55 S.Ct. 310, 79 L.Ed. 440 (1935).¹ Justices Black and Douglas, dissenting in Baltimore Contractors, criticized the majority's approach as a "jurisdictional `incongruity * * * springing from the persistence of outmoded procedural differentiations' that have `elements of fiction' in this modern day." 348 U.S. at 186, 75 S.Ct. at 255. In their view the order was appealable, notwithstanding that the plaintiff there was seeking only equitable relief, because the denial of the stay had "the substantial effect of an interlocutory injunction order."

Baltimore Contractors teaches that where the underlying action is at law, the grant or denial of a stay pending arbitration is equivalent to the equity side of the court enjoining an action at law, in effect an "injunction" within § 1292(a) (1). If the underlying action is in equity, however, the grant or denial of a stay is said not to be an "injunction" on the theory that "the fiction of a court with two sides, one of which can stay proceedings in the other, is not applicable where there is no other proceeding in existence to be stayed." City of Morgantown v. Royal Ins. Co., supra, 337 U.S. at 257-258, 69 S.Ct. at 1069.

Foreshadowing the dissent in Baltimore Contractors, Justices Black and Rutledge dissenting in Morgantown pressed the view that Enelow and Ettelson were controlling because the effect of the orders in those cases, as in Morgantown, was injunctive in nature. The persistent conflict, then has been between the majority in Morgantown and Baltimore Contractors which fixes on the nature of the relief sought, and the dissenters who maintain that an appeal lies under § 1292(a) (1) in any case, regardless of the relief sought, whenever the order appealed from is tantamount to an injunction. Lower courts have expressed dissatisfaction with the prevailing view. See, e. g., Penoro v. Rederi A/B Disa, 376 F.2d 125, 131 (2 Cir. 1967), cert. denied sub nom., Rederi A/B Disa v. Cunard S/S Co., 389 U.S. 852, 88 S.Ct. 78, 19 L.Ed.2d 676 (1968), in which Judge Anderson terms the Enelow - Ettelson - Morgantown - Baltimore Contractors doctrine a "thicket."

We note in passing an anomaly implicit in a recent case in which the equitable relief sought by the plaintiff was an injunction against arbitration proceedings. A. & E. Plastik Pak Co., Inc. v. Monsanto Co., 396 F.2d 710 (9 Cir. 1968). There, A. & E. brought an action in the District Court for temporary and permanent injunctions against arbitration proceedings which Monsanto had demanded. An order denying A. & E.'s motion for the temporary injunction was held an appealable interlocutory order under § 1292(a) (1). Yet the identical legal issue might have been presented if the defendant Monsanto had moved for and been denied a stay of the litigation pending arbitration. In the latter procedural context, the order would not be appealable since it was passed in an action for equitable relief and Baltimore Contractors would be controlling. There is room for dissatisfaction with a rule that tolerates opposite results depending upon the pure fortuity of the outcome of the race to the courthouse.

Whatever the merit of the Court's reasoning, it is not for us to refuse to follow its decisions in the absence of some indication that, if presented with the question, the Court would no longer follow its repeatedly announced doctrine. Although Justices Black and Douglas, dissenting from the denial of certiorari in Rederi A/B Disa v. Cunard S/S Co., supra, have expressed dissatisfaction with the "confusion and technicality" introduced by Baltimore Contractors and Morgantown, we find no indication that a majority of the Court is prepared to depart from the law-equity approach. We are therefore required to analyze and ascertain the proper classification of the complaint in the instant case in order to resolve the issue of whether the order of the District Court is subject to an interlocutory appeal under § 1292(a) (1).

The Supreme Court has not addressed itself to the precise question this case raises — whether when a complaint seeks both legal and equitable relief the action should be treated as legal or equitable....