Chrysler Motors Corp. v. International Union, Allied Indus. Workers of America, AFL-CIO, AFL-CIO

• Decision Date: 02 August 1990
• Docket Number: AFL-CIO,Nos. 90-1423,90-1804,s. 90-1423
• Citation: 909 F.2d 248
• Parties: 135 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2137, 59 USLW 2184, 116 Lab.Cas. P 10,230 CHRYSLER MOTORS CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellant, Cross-Appellee, v. INTERNATIONAL UNION, ALLIED INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF AMERICA,; and Local 793 thereof, Defendants-Appellees, Cross-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 248

909 F.2d 248

135 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2137, 59 USLW 2184,

116 Lab.Cas. P 10,230

CHRYSLER MOTORS CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellant, Cross-Appellee, v. INTERNATIONAL UNION, ALLIED INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF AMERICA,

AFL-CIO; and Local 793 thereof,

Defendants-Appellees, Cross-Appellants.

Nos. 90-1423, 90-1804.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Submitted June 29, 1990.

Decided Aug. 2, 1990.

Gregory S. Muzingo and K.C. Hortop, Highland Park, Mich., for plaintiff-appellant.

Kenneth R. Loebel, Previant, Goldberg, Uelman, Gratz, Miller & Brueggeman, Milwaukee, Wis., for defendants-appellees.

Before BAUER, Chief Judge, and POSNER and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

We write to untangle some complications of appellate jurisdiction presented by the union's motion to dismiss the employer's appeal.

The employer fired one of its employees because he had sexually harassed--indeed, sexually assaulted--a female employee. The union took the matter to arbitration on behalf of the fired employee, and the arbitrator, while not denying that the assault had occurred, thought discharge too harsh a remedy and ordered the employee reinstated with back pay to be determined at a subsequent hearing. The employer brought suit under section 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act to set aside the arbitrator's award as contrary to public policy. The district judge rejected the employer's argument, confirmed the arbitrator's award, and returned the matter to the arbitrator for the hearing on the amount of back pay due. The court also turned down the union's request for attorney's fees.

The employer filed a notice of appeal, and the union cross-appealed from the denial of attorney's fees. Shortly afterward the employer rehired the employee in question and on the same day fired him again. The union asked the district court to hold the employer in contempt, but the judge refused to do this, on the ground that the filing of the appeal had divested him of jurisdiction. The union then filed with us this motion to dismiss the employer's appeal, hoping by this means to clear the way for the district judge to consider the motion for contempt.

The ground of the motion to dismiss the employer's appeal is that the order confirming the arbitrator's award is not final, since the matter of back pay remains to be determined by him. It is final in the district court, but under our cases that may not be good enough. Provided that the matter left for determination is not merely ministerial, a matter for mechanical computation--and the determination of back pay is not such a matter, at least on the facts of this case so far as we are able to determine--an order that does not determine the entire substantive relief to which the plaintiff is entitled is not a final decision even if the loose ends remain to be tied up by a decision-maker other than the district judge. United Steelworkers of America v. Aurora Equipment Co., 830 F.2d 753 (7th Cir.1987); Shearson Loeb Rhoades, Inc. v. Much, 754 F.2d 773, 776-77 (7th Cir.1985).

But final decisions do not exhaust the domain of appealable orders, even in the federal courts, strongly committed though they are to the final-order doctrine. Injunctions are appealable without regard to finality, 28...