Gunther v. San Diego Arizona Eastern Railway Company

• Decision Date: 08 December 1965
• Docket Number: No. 27,27
• Citation: 86 S.Ct. 368,15 L.Ed.2d 308,382 U.S. 257
• Parties: F. J. GUNTHER, Petitioner, v. SAN DIEGO & ARIZONA EASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

382 U.S. 257

86 S.Ct. 368

15 L.Ed.2d 308

F. J. GUNTHER, Petitioner,

v SAN DIEGO & ARIZONA EASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY.

No. 27.

Argued Nov. 8, 1965.

Decided Dec. 8, 1965.

Charles W. Decker, San Francisco, Cal., for petitioner.

Waldron A. Gregory, San Francisco, Cal., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioner, Gunther, worked as a fireman for respondent railroad for eight years, from 1916 to 1924, and as an engineer for 30 years, from 1924 until December 30, 1954. On that date, shortly after his seventy-first birthday, he was removed from active service because of an alleged physical disability. The railroad's action was taken on the basis of reports made by its physicians, after physical examinations of petitioner, that in their opinion he was no longer physically qualified to work as a locomotive engineer because his 'heart was in such condition that he would be likely to suffer an acute coronary episode.' Dissatisfied with the railroad doctors' findings, Mr. Gunther went to a recognized specialist who, after examination, concluded that petitioner was qualified physically to continue work as an engineer. On the basis of this report petitioner requested the railroad to join him in the selection a three-doctor board to re-examine his physical qualifications for return to service. The railroad refused. This disagreement led to prolonged litigation which has reached us 11 years after the controversy arose.

When the railroad refused to consent to the appointment of a new board of doctors to re-examine petitioner or to restore him to service, he filed a claim for reinstatment and back pay with the Railroad Adjustment Board, which was created by § 3 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended,¹ to adjust, among other things, disputes of railroads and their employees 'growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements concerning * * * rules, or working conditions * * *.'² The Adjustment Board, over the protests of the railroad, decided it had jurisdiction of the grievance and then, referring to past practice in similar cases, proceeded, as its findings show, to appoint a committee of three qualified physicians, to re-examine petitioner, 'one chosen by carrier and one by the employe and the third by the two so selected, for the purpose of determining the facts as to claimant's disability and the propriety of his removal from service * * *.' Subsequently, this committee of doctors examined petitioner and decided by a majority vote that he was physically qualified to act as an engineer, contrary to the prior findings of the railroad's doctors. Upon the basis of these findings the Adjustment Board decided that the railroad had been wrong in disqualifying petitioner for service and sustained his claim 'for reinstatement with pay for all time lost from October 15, 1955 * * *.' The railroad refused to comply with the Board's order and petitioner as authorized by the Act³ filed this action in a district court of the United States for an appropriate court order to enforce the Adjustment Board's award. After hearings the District Court, in its third opinion in the case, held the award erroneous and refused to enforce it.⁴ The District Court's refusal was based on its conclusion that there were no express or implied provisions in the collective bagaining contract which in the court's judgment limited in any way what it found to be the absolute right of the railroad, in absence of such provisions, to remove petitioner from active service whenever its physicians found in good faith 'that plaintiff was physically disqualified from such service.' The Court of Appeals affirmed, agreeing with the interpretation put upon the contract by the District Court, and thereby rejected the Board's interpretation of the contract and its decision on the merits of the dispute. 336 F.2d 543. We granted certiorari because the holding of the two courts below seemed, in several respects, to run counter to the requirements of the Railway Labor Act as we have construed it. 380 U.S. 905, 85 S.Ct. 890, 13 L.Ed.2d 793.

I. Section 3, First (i) of the Railway Labor Act provides that 'disputes between an employee or group of employees and a carrier or carriers growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements' are to be handled by the Adjustment Board. In § Congress has established an expert body to settle 'minor' grievances like petitioner's which arise from day to day in the railroad industry. The Railway Adjustment Board, composed equally of representatives of management and labor is peculiarly familiar with the thorny problems and the whole range of grievances that constantly exist in the railroad world. Its membership is in daily contact with workers and employers, and knows the industry's language, customs, and practices. See Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W.R. Co., 339 U.S. 239, 243—244, 70 S.Ct. 577, 94 L.Ed. 795. The Board's decision here fairly read shows that it construed the collective bargaining provisions which secured seniority rights, together with other provisions of the contract, as justifying an interpretation of the contract guaranteeing to petitioner 'priority in service according to his seniority and pursuant to the agreement so long as he is physically qualified.' The District Court, whose opinion was affirmed by the Court of Appeals, however, refused to accept the Board's interpretation of this contract. Paying strict attention only to the bare words of the contract and invoking old common-law rules for the interpretation of private employment contracts, the District Court found nothing in the agreement restricting the railroad's right to remove its employees for physical disability upon the goodfaith findings of disability by its own physicians. Certainly it cannot be said that the Board's interpretation was wholly baseless and completely without reason. We hold that the District Court and the Court of Appeals as well went beyond their province in rejecting the Adjustment Board's interpretation of this railroad collective bargaining agreement. As hereafter pointed out Congress, in the Railway Labor Act, invested the Adjustment Board with the broad power to arbitrate grievances and plainly intended that interpretation of these controversial provisions should be submitted for the decision of railroad men, both workers and management, serving on the Adjustment Board with their long experience and accepted expertise in this field.

II. The courts below were also of the opinion that the Board went beyond its jurisdiction in appointing a medical board of three physicians to decide for it the question of fact relating to petitioner's physical qualifications to act as an engineer. We do not agree. The Adjustment Board, of course, is not limited to common-law rules of evidence in obtaining information. The medical board was composed of three doctors, one of whom was appointed by the company, one by petitioner, and the third by these two doctors. This not only seems an eminently fair method of selecting doctors to perform this medical task but it appears from the record that it is commonly used in the railroad world for the very purpose it was used here. In fact the record shows that under respondent's present collective bargaining agreement with its engineers provision is made for determining a dispute precisely like the one before us by the appointment of a board of doctors in precisely the manner the Board used here. This Court has said that the Railway Labor Act's 'provisions dealing with the Adjustment Board were to be considered as compulsory arbitration in this limited field.'⁵ On a question like the one...