Derwin v. General Dynamics Corp., 82-1934

• Decision Date: 30 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-1934,82-1934
• Citation: 719 F.2d 484
• Parties: 114 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3076, 99 Lab.Cas. P 10,507 Frank DERWIN, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION, Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 484

719 F.2d 484

114 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3076, 99 Lab.Cas. P 10,507

Frank DERWIN, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 82-1934.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Argued May 5, 1983.

Decided Sept. 30, 1983.

Warren H. Pyle, Boston, Mass., with whom Nancy B.G. Lassen, Cambridge, Mass., and Angoff, Goldman, Manning, Pyle & Wanger, P.C., Boston, Mass., were on brief, for plaintiffs, appellants.

Arthur G. Telegen, Boston, Mass., with whom Henry M. Kelleher, P.C., Kevin J. Fitzgerald, and Foley, Hoag & Eliot, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for defendant, appellee.

Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, BOWNES, Circuit Judge, and RE, ^* Chief Judge.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Chief Judge.

This appeal is from a judgment of the district court, 551 F.Supp. 1128, holding that an application to confirm an arbitration award, brought by representatives of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers and its Local 5 (the "union") against General Dynamics Corporation (the "company"), is time barred. The district court ruled that in the absence of an appropriate Massachusetts state statute of limitations, the one-year statute of limitations set out in the United States Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. Sec. 9, is applicable.

We disagree with the district court's ruling and hold that the federal one-year statute of limitations is not binding in this suit to confirm. Rather we look to the Massachusetts state statute of limitations in formulating federal substantive law, and hold that the present action is not time barred. Nonetheless we affirm the district court's judgment on the ground that confirmation is unwarranted.

I.

Since the mid-1960's, the union and the company have been at loggerheads over the scope of the right of union stewards to take time off from their own work for the purpose of investigating employee grievances and related matters. The collective bargaining agreement for the 1977-80 term contained the following pertinent provisions:

Article IV--Grievance Procedure

* * *

Section 4. Grievances shall be handled and processed in accordance with the procedure set forth in the following steps. The Union, by its representatives ...., shall have the exclusive right to process, settle, withdraw, or appeal grievances .... However, whenever practicable, prior to the filing of a grievance, the Steward of that department shall encourage the employe involved to discuss matter with his immediate supervisor.

* * *

Section 10. (a) If any Steward of the Union shall so request of his Department Head ..., he shall be granted an off-the-job pass for such time off with pay at his normal rate as he may reasonably require within the Yard for the purpose of investigating the facts with regard to and endeavoring to settle any matter or grievance.

* * *

The above section shall apply notwithstanding past practice.

Shortly after these provisions went into effect, the company issued guidelines to its supervisors regulating the issuance of off-the-job passes to stewards. Claiming the guidelines violated both past practice and the new contract, the union grieved immediately and the dispute went to arbitration before Robert Stutz who issued the 1979 award now sought to be confirmed. In the award, Stutz upheld the company's right to issue guidelines and to re-introduce an off-the-job pass system. He went on to state certain principles and to approve or disapprove various practices with respect to such a system.

Neither party challenged the Stutz award, nor does either party now challenge it. From the date of its issuance, April 20, 1979, until August, 1981, the parties appear to have accepted the guidance of the Stutz award when resolving individual grievances. In 1980, when a collective bargaining agreement for the 1980-1983 term was negotiated, the same provisions as those in the 1977 agreement relating to off-the-job passes were retained without amendment. The company states it has issued approximately 15,000 off-the-job passes to stewards since the Stutz award, and the union agrees that, at least until the latter part of 1981, the company had generally complied with the award.

Recently there has been renewed controversy over stewards' passes. From December, 1981 until June, 1982, the union filed seventeen grievances challenging the company's failure to issue stewards' passes. Affidavits filed below suggest that the union believes the company's supervisors often refuse passes for reasons improper under the Stutz award. The company, on the other hand, claims that it fully adheres to the award.

On January 13, 1982, nearly three years after the Stutz award, the union brought the present suit in the Massachusetts Superior Court, denominating it as an "Application for Confirmation of Arbitration Award." Citing Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 150C, Sec. 10, which provides that the Superior Court "shall confirm an award" (emphasis supplied) unless within 30 days after its delivery application is made to vacate or modify it, the union alleged that no such application to vacate or modify was ever made and that it was therefore entitled to confirmation. The union did not allege any instances where the company purportedly violated or refused to abide by the Stutz award--nor indeed did it allege that the company had ever violated or that it rejected the award. Rather, the union relied on the language of Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 150C, Sec. 10 as conferring an absolute right to confirmation where no party had challenged the award within 30 days after issuance.

General Dynamics removed the state court action to the federal district court on the ground that it was one over which the federal courts had original jurisdiction under section 301 of the LMRA, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 185(a). See 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1441(a). The company then moved to dismiss, arguing that the action to confirm was barred by the statute of limitations (the ground ultimately accepted). The union responded by filing a so-called motion to confirm, reiterating its original prayer for confirmation of the Stutz award. To this the company filed an opposition, raising both the statute of limitations and the further argument that confirmation would be an "abuse" of the court's powers. The latter was said to follow from the fact that the company fully accepted the award. General Dynamics charged that plaintiffs were simply trying to bypass the contract grievance procedure, which calls for arbitration as the exclusive means of resolving all disputes arising under the contract, including disputes concerning the construction and effect of prior arbitration awards.

The case was first heard by a magistrate who recommended that the union's petition to confirm should be allowed. The district court, however, ruled that the one-year statute of limitations set out in the federal arbitration act, 9 U.S.C. Sec. 9, was a bar to the action. Accordingly it dismissed without reaching the question of whether the Stutz award should or should not otherwise be confirmed.

II.

The district court acknowledged that the present action to confirm an arbitration award would normally, under Supreme Court doctrine, be "governed by the relevant state statute of limitations." (Emphasis supplied.) Since, however, the Massachusetts arbitration act provided no limitation on the time for bringing an action to confirm, and since the court could find no other relevant and analogous Massachusetts statute of limitations, it adopted the one-year limitations period provided in the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. Sec. 9. While the issue is complicated, we disagree with the district court's application of the federal limitations period.

We begin, as did the district court, with recognition that, ordinarily, "the timeliness of a section 301 suit ... is to be determined, as a matter of federal law, by reference to the appropriate state statute of limitations." International Union, UAW v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U.S. 696, 704-05, 86 S.Ct. 1107, 1113, 16 L.Ed.2d 192 (1966). See also Service Employees International Union, Local 36 v. Office Center Services, Inc., 670 F.2d 404, 409 (3d Cir.1982) (applying relevant state statute to suit to confirm an arbitration award); Chauffeurs, Local 135 v. Jefferson Trucking Co., 628 F.2d 1023 (7th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1125, 101 S.Ct. 942, 67 L.Ed.2d 111 (1981).

To be sure, this rule is never to be applied mechanically. See Hoosier Cardinal, 383 U.S. at 701, 705 n. 7, 86 S.Ct. at 1110-11, 1113 n. 7. Very recently, in DelCostello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983), involving employees' suits against both employers and unions for violation of a collective bargaining agreement and breach of the duty of fair representation, the Supreme Court rejected as unsuitable certain state statutes of limitation. In their stead, the Court adopted the limitations period of section 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act. --- U.S. at ----, 103 S.Ct. at 2294. The Court found that the state limitations period applicable to the employee's claim against the employer was shorter than the state limitations period applicable to the claim against the union. The application of differing standards of timeliness to claims that are "inextricably interdependent" was, in the Court's view, inconsistent with the realities of labor relations. By contrast the six-month limitation period of section 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act reflected an appropriate balance between the competing interests of according finality to arbitration awards and of providing the employee a reasonable period within which to assert his challenge to the award. Despite this application of a uniform limitations period to employee suits, the Court's detailed analysis of the state limitations periods, together with its explicit reliance on Hoosier Cardinal, show that its decision was not intended to weaken the ordinary presumption of...