Fort Wayne Community Schools v. Fort Wayne Educ. Ass'n, Inc.
| Decision Date | 22 March 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-3316,90-3316 |
| Citation | 977 F.2d 358 |
| Parties | 141 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2514, 61 USLW 2230, 78 Ed. Law Rep. 29 FORT WAYNE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. FORT WAYNE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, INC., Defendant-Appellant, and United States Postal Service, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
James P. Fenton, William Sweet (argued), Barrett & McNagny, Fort Wayne, Ind., for plaintiff-appellee.
Daniel E. Serban, Shambaugh, Kast, Beck & Williams, Fort Wayne, Ind., Deborah C. Malamud, Robert H. Chanin (argued), Bredhoff & Kaiser, Washington, D.C., Richard J. Darko, Richard S. Pitts, Lowe, Gray, Steele & Hoffman, Indianapolis, Ind., for defendant-appellant.
Tina Nommay, Asst. U.S. Atty., Office of the U.S. Atty., Fort Wayne, Ind., Jonathan R. Siegel, Michael J. Singer, Lisa A. Olson, Dept. of Justice, Civil Div., Appellate Section, Washington, D.C., William Sweet (argued), Barrett & McNagny, Fort Wayne, Ind., for defendant-appellee.
Before COFFEY and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges, and WISDOM, Senior Circuit Judge. *
A collective bargaining agreement between the Fort Wayne Community Schools (the School Corporation) and the Fort Wayne Education Association, Inc. (the Association), the exclusive representative of the teachers employed by the School Corporation, provided that the Association could use the School Corporation's interschool mail delivery system to communicate with the teachers. The School Corporation brought a declaratory judgment action naming the Association and the United States Postal Service (Postal Service) as defendants in order to determine whether its carriage of the Association's letters to the teachers violated 18 U.S.C. § 1694. 1 The district court held that it did, and the Association appeals. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm in part and vacate and remand in part.
The Fort Wayne Education Association is the exclusive bargaining representative of the teachers in the Fort Wayne Community Schools. The collective bargaining agreement between the Association and the School Corporation provided that the Association R. 58, Ex. 1 at 8. The agreement also provided that no competing teacher organization was to be allowed to use the interschool mail delivery service or school mailboxes.
The Association's office was made a regular stop on the School Corporation's route, and for several years the School Corporation carried not only Association mail addressed to the School Corporation and the School Corporation's letters to the Association, but also the Association's mail to and from the teachers. However, after it learned of the Supreme Court's decision in Regents of the University of California v. Public Employment Relations Board, 485 U.S. 589, 108 S.Ct. 1404, 99 L.Ed.2d 664 (1988), the School Corporation notified the Association that its carriage of Association correspondence without the payment of postage might violate federal statutes prohibiting private postal service (the Private Express Statutes). The School Corporation continued to deliver its own mail to the Association's office, but stopped carrying the Association's mail. The Association filed a grievance, and the grievance was submitted to binding arbitration. The arbitrator held that delivery of the following kinds of Association correspondence was permissible under the Private Express Statutes and directed the School Corporation to resume delivery of them:
1. Letters specifically addressed to the Association, its agents, representatives, and members, from the Schools, its agents and representatives, letters addressed to the Schools, its agents and representatives, from the Association, its agents, representatives, and members, and letters addressed to Association agents, representatives, and members from the Association, its agents and representatives, having anything whatsoever to do with (a) administration and enforcement of the collective bargaining agreement, (b) education or education-related workshops, seminars, information and materials, and (c) non-education matters concerning the teachers for which the Schools receive benefits; and
2. Flyers and other such non-specifically addressed materials between any of the entities, their agents, representatives, or members, described in 1 above which relate to 1(a), (b) and (c) above.
R. 57. Impermissible under the arbitrator's award is the carriage by the School Corporation of Association correspondence concerning only the business of the Association, such as letters or flyers "notifying the teachers of Association meetings and workshops." R. 2, Ex. A.
The School Corporation informed the Postal Service of the arbitrator's determination. The Postal Service then formally notified the School Corporation that delivery without payment of postage of much of the Association correspondence specified in the arbitrator's award would violate federal criminal law and would subject the School Corporation, the Association and persons acting in their behalf to criminal and civil penalties. The School Corporation then brought suit against the Association and the Postal Service for declaratory judgment, asking the court to determine which Association mail, if any, it might lawfully carry. All parties moved for summary judgment. Although the Postal Service was joined as a defendant, its motion for summary judgment was brought as a cross claim against the Association.
The District Court determined that, under Regents, the School Corporation was prohibited from carrying the Association's mail. Regents dealt with correspondence addressed to university faculty from a union that was attempting to organize the faculty into a collective bargaining unit, rather than, as is the case here, mail to teachers from a union that was their exclusive bargaining representative. However, the district court held that this distinction was of no significance for the purposes of the Private Express Statutes. Characterizing the correspondence at issue as Association correspondence to teachers, not in their capacity as employees of the School Corporation, but in their "capacity as dues-paying members of the local teachers union," the district court found that the correspondence did not relate to the current business of the School Corporation and that therefore the "letters of the carrier" exception to the Private Express Statutes did not apply. 742 F.Supp. 1031, 1033 (N.D.Ind.1990). Accordingly, the district court held that the School Corporation's carriage of the Association's mail was contrary to federal law, and granted summary judgment to the Postal Service and the School Corporation.
We review de novo a district court's grant or denial of summary judgment. Hayes v. Otis Elevator Co., 946 F.2d 1272, 1277 (7th Cir.1991); Campbell v. White, 916 F.2d 421, 422 (7th Cir.1990), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 1314, 113 L.Ed.2d 248 (1991). The party moving for summary judgment bears the burden of establishing that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 159, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 1609, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970).
In the present case, the underlying facts are not in dispute; the issues presented for our review in this case are primarily legal.
We first turn to an examination of the statute at issue. The "letters of the carrier" exception to the federal government's monopoly on postal services is contained in 18 U.S.C. § 1694:
Whoever, having charge or control of any conveyance operating by land, air, or water, which regularly performs trips at stated periods on any post route, or from one place to another between which the mail is regularly carried, carries, otherwise than in the mail, any letters or packets, except such as relate to some part of the cargo of such conveyance, or to the current business of the carrier, or to some article carried at the same time by the same conveyance, shall, except as otherwise provided by law, be fined not more than $50.
Chief Justice Rehnquist elaborated on the reason for this statute and its companion sections, known collectively as the Private Express Statutes, in Air Courier Conference of America v. American Postal Workers Union, 498 U.S. 517, 111 S.Ct. 913, 915, 112 L.Ed.2d 1125 (1991):
The monopoly was created by Congress as a revenue protection measure for the Postal Service to enable it to fulfill its mission. See Regents of University of California v. Public Employment Relations Board, 485 U.S. 589, 598, 108 S.Ct. 1404, 1410, 99 L.Ed.2d 664 (1988). It prevents private competitors from offering service on low-cost routes at prices below those of the Postal Service, while leaving the Service with high-cost routes and insufficient means to fulfill its mandate of providing uniform rates and service to patrons in all areas, including those that are remote or less populated.
He further noted:
The legislative history of the sections of the Act limiting private carriage of letters shows a two-fold purpose. First, the Postmaster General and the States most distant from the commercial centers of the Northeast believed that the postal monopoly was necessary to prevent users of faster private expresses from taking advantage of early market intelligence and news of international affairs that had not yet reached the general populace through the slower mails. S.Doc. No. 66, 28th Cong., 2d Sess., 3-4 (1845). Second, it was thought to be the duty of the Government to serve outlying, frontier areas,...
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