Gordon v. Winpisinger

• Citation: 581 F. Supp. 234
• Decision Date: 27 January 1984
• Docket Number: No. 82 CIV 0529.,82 CIV 0529.
• Parties: Carl GORDON, Daniel Healy, Rod Boyes and Michael Warfield, Plaintiffs, v. William WINPISINGER, individually and as International President of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

581 F. Supp. 234

Carl GORDON, Daniel Healy, Rod Boyes and Michael Warfield, Plaintiffs, v. William WINPISINGER, individually and as International President of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Defendants.

No. 82 CIV 0529.

United States District Court, E.D. New York.

January 27, 1984.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Hall, Clifton & Schwartz, New York City, for plaintiffs.

Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, P.C., New York City (Seymour M. Waldman, Daniel Engelstein, of counsel), New York City, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

McLAUGHLIN, District Judge.

FACTS

Plaintiffs are present or retired members of the defendant International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers ("IAM"). Plaintiff Gordon is also a member of Air Transportation District Lodge 142 ("District 142"), a subordinate body of IAM.

Plaintiffs published and distributed a newsletter entitled "Hot Line" throughout the Trans World Airlines system. In 1975, District 142 came to suspect the union loyalty of plaintiffs and appointed a committee to investigate their activities. The investigation culminated on March 29, 1978 with internal union disciplinary charges being preferred against plaintiffs and three other members of IAM. The investigation committee recommended that defendant William Winpisinger, IAM's International President ("IP"), appoint a special trial committee to conduct a full hearing on the matter. On April 12, 1978, the IP took jurisdiction and two days later appointed a special trial committee.

The charges against plaintiffs were: (1) dual unionism, in encouraging District 142 to secede from IAM in favor of "AMFA," a rival labor organization; (2) disclosing or exchanging mailing lists with AMFA in an effort to promote dual unionism; (3) disclosing to AMFA matters of negotiation between Trans World Airlines and District 142; and, (4) activities endangering the good and welfare of the local and district lodges of IAM.

After a formal hearing, at which plaintiffs presented no defense, the trial committee dismissed the first three more particularized charges, but found plaintiffs guilty of the fourth more generalized charge. Even though AMFA was engaging in activity against District 142 and TWA, there was no evidence to connect plaintiffs with AMFA, notwithstanding that "Hot Line" was being published simultaneously with the AMFA activities.

Having so found, the trial committee sent its report to the IP, recommending: that all charges be dismissed as to plaintiff Boyes, (since he was charged as an officer or representative, which he is not); that a note be placed in plaintiff Healy's membership record (since he had retired); that plaintiff Gordon be prevented from holding any office within IAM for five years; and, that plaintiff Warfield receive a severe reprimand and a note be placed in his membership record.

In response to these recommendations, plaintiffs Healy, Boyes and Warfield countered by filing their own charges with the IP against various IAM officials for the infringement of rights provided in the IAM Constitution. The IP, however, dismissed plaintiffs' charges because of their failure to raise these allegations during the formal hearing. The IP adopted in full the recommendation of the trial committee.

A series of unsuccessful appeals followed. On January 31, 1979 Gordon appealed to the IP by letter. Boyes, Healy and Warfield appealed to the IAM General Secretary-Treasurer on February 1, 1979 and Gordon appealed to the IAM on February 10. The General Secretary-Treasurer informed each plaintiff on April 5, 1979 that the IAM Executive Council had voted to sustain the IP's decision.

Plaintiffs filed suit in this Court on March 2, 1982 seeking injunctive relief and damages on three claims. First, plaintiffs allege a violation of § 101(a)(2) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act ("LMRDA"), 29 U.S.C. § 411(a)(2),¹ and base their claim for relief on LMRDA §§ 102 and 609. 29 U.S.C. §§ 412² and 529.³ The second and third claims rest on § 301(a) of the Labor-Management Relations Act ("LMRA"), 29 U.S.C. § 185(a), which gives this Court jurisdiction to hear cases involving violation of contracts between an employer and labor organizations or between any such labor organizations.⁴ Plaintiffs argue that although they are neither a labor organization nor an employer, they may nevertheless sue under § 301. In addition, plaintiffs allege that the IAM Constitution is a contract which defendants violated by disciplining plaintiffs for reasons not authorized in Article L, § 3 of the Constitution,⁵ and by the failure of the IP and General Secretary-Treasurer to act on the plaintiffs' charges against the IAM officials pursuant to Article L, § 15.⁶

Defendants move for summary judgment on the grounds that: (1) all three of plaintiffs' claims are time-barred; and (2) this court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs' second and third claims. In response, plaintiffs have made cross-motions for partial summary judgment, on their first and second claims. The matter was referred to Magistrate Jordan, before whom the parties argued their motions on December 7, 1982. The Magistrate then submitted his Report and Recommendation to this Court on June 30, 1983. The parties thereafter filed memoranda in support of and in opposition to the Magistrate's Report.

DISCUSSION

I. Statute of Limitations

Defendants' first objection is that all plaintiffs' claims are barred by the statute of limitations. They contend that DelCostello v. International Broth. of Teamsters, ___ U.S. ___, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983) controls, and hence, a six-month limitations period applies. I disagree.

In DelCostello an employee brought a so-called "hybrid" claim: he sued his employer for breach of a collective bargaining agreement and his union for breach of its duty of fair representation. Here, the plaintiffs sue only the union and its President. The employer is not a party. There is, therefore, nothing hybrid about this action. It is, rather, an action against a union for conduct towards its members that is alleged to be arbitrary and unlawful. Accordingly, the six-month period of limitations borrowed by DelCostello from § 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 160(b), does not apply.

The LMRDA contains no statute of limitations. This Court must, therefore, look to state law for the appropriate period of limitations. Copitas v. Retail Clerks Intern. Ass'n 618 F.2d 1370, 1372 (9th Cir. 1980); see also United Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U.S. 696, 704, 86 S.Ct. 1107, 1112, 16 L.Ed.2d 192 (1966); United Parcel Serv. v. Mitchell, 451 U.S. 56, 61, 101 S.Ct. 1559, 1563, 67 L.Ed.2d 732 (1981) (cases applying the LMRA).

Plaintiffs' LMRDA claim (their first claim) is governed by N.Y.C.P.L.R. § 214(2), which applies a three-year limitations period to actions based upon a "liability, penalty or forfeiture created or imposed by statute." Similarly, the plaintiffs' LMRA claims (their second and third claims) are governed by the six-year limitations period applicable to actions based upon a contractual obligation or liability. N.Y.C.P.L.R. § 213(2) (McKinney 1972). The second and third claims are obviously timely. The first claim is more problematical because it is not entirely clear when the three-year statute of limitations began to run.

As mentioned above, the IP adopted the disciplinary report and recommendation of the special trial committee on January 16, 1979. After exhausting intra-union appeals, plaintiffs filed suit in this Court on March 2, 1982. If the LMRDA claim accrued in January, 1979, then it is untimely. I hold, however, that it did not accrue then, but only after the plaintiffs had exhausted their intra-union remedies.

LMRDA § 101(a)(4) generally bars any restriction upon a member's right to sue his labor organization; but "any such member may be required to exhaust reasonable hearing procedures (but not to exceed a four-month lapse of time) within such organization, before instituting legal ... proceedings against such organization or any officer thereof." 29 U.S.C. § 411(a)(4). Consonant with this provision, the IAM Constitution, Article L, § 16 forbids union members to bring a lawsuit to resolve a grievance until all remedies provided in the Constitution have been exhausted. Moreover:

The basic intent and purpose of § 101(a)(4) was to insure the right of a union member to resort to the courts ... without interference or frustration of that right by a labor organization. On the other hand, it was not, and is not, the purpose of the law to eliminate existing grievance procedures established by union constitutions for redress of an alleged violation of their internal governing laws.

2 NLRB, Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 1432 (Senator Kennedy).

As a matter of social policy, "a dispute between a union or other private association and one of its members should in general first be submitted to the association's own tribunals." Libutti v. DiBrizzi, 337 F.2d 216, 219 (2d Cir.1964). It is clear, therefore, that the plaintiffs claim did not accrue—as the defendants would have it— on January 16, 1979. Plaintiffs had an additional period of up to four months to pursue their grievances through the union dispute resolution process. Under this calculus, the first claim would not have accrued until May 1979, and this action was commenced in March 1982. The first claim is, therefore, timely.

II. Subject Matter Jurisdiction

Defendants contend that this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs' second and third claims because plaintiffs, as employees, lack standing to sue under LMRA § 301(a). This contention is based on the language of § 301, which provides federal jurisdiction in suits for violations of contracts between an employer...