Hall v. Printing and Graphic Arts Union, Local #3

• Decision Date: 21 December 1982
• Docket Number: No. 82-1109,82-1109
• Citation: 112 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2151,696 F.2d 494
• Parties: Page 494 696 F.2d 494 112 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2151, 96 Lab.Cas. P 13,935 Ann HALL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PRINTING AND GRAPHIC ARTS UNION, LOCAL # 3, et al., Defendants-Appellees. United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 494

696 F.2d 494

112 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2151, 96 Lab.Cas. P 13,935

Ann HALL, Plaintiff-Appellant v PRINTING AND GRAPHIC ARTS UNION, LOCAL # 3, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 82-1109.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 29, 1982.

Decided Dec. 21, 1982.

Richard J. Prendergast, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.

Robert E. Fitzgerald, Jr., David L. Carden, Coffield, Ungaretti, Harris & Slavin, Chicago, Ill., Donald F. Sugerman, Miller, Cohen, Martens & Sugerman, Detroit, Mich., for defendants-appellees.

Before CUMMINGS, Chief Judge, COFFEY, Circuit Judge, and HILL, Senior District Judge. ^*

CUMMINGS, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff Hall was discharged from employment with defendant Consolidated Accounting Systems, Inc. ("Consolidated") when she refused to perform certain newly assigned work. She complained to her union, Printing and Graphic Arts Union, Local No. 3 ("the Local"), and the union initiated discussions with Consolidated on her behalf. ¹ Dissatisfied with the course of those discussions, Hall threatened legal action against the Local if it did not take her grievance to arbitration. She also notified the Local's national affiliate, International Printing and Graphic Communications Union ("the International"), of her dissatisfaction with the Local's handling of her grievance. The International requested that Hall desist from commencing legal action so that it might investigate the matter and "attempt to get the situation corrected" if necessary. Hall affidavit, exhibit 6. Discussions continued and on November 11, 1980, the Local informed Hall that it would pursue her grievance no further. Hall subsequently informed the International of the Local's decision and requested that the International intervene on her behalf and "promptly demand that the employer [Consolidated] mediate this dispute." Hall affidavit, exhibit 8. The International denied Hall's request on the ground that it lacked any authority to make any such demand upon Consolidated. Some ten months after the Local's refusal to arbitrate her grievance and eight months after the International's refusal to intervene, Hall commenced this action in federal district court under Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (29 U.S.C. Sec. 185).

In her complaint, Hall charges that Consolidated violated its collective bargaining agreement with the Local when it fired her, that the Local breached its duty of fair representation when it declined to take her grievance to arbitration, ² and that the International breached the same duty when it refused to intervene on her behalf. She seeks compensatory and punitive damages against all three defendants and reinstatement with back pay against Consolidated. In the district court below, Consolidated and the Local moved for summary judgment on the grounds that (1) Hall had failed to exhaust internal union remedies prior to seeking legal remedy in federal court and (2) Hall's claims were time-barred by Illinois' 90-day statute of limitations governing actions to vacate arbitration awards. ³ The International also moved for summary judgment on the grounds that (1) it owed Hall no duty of fair representation because it was not a party to the collective bargaining agreement between the Local and Consolidated and (2) it had neither ratified nor authorized the Local's decision not to arbitrate her grievance. In separate minute orders, the district court granted defendants' motions "for the reasons set forth in the [defendants'] memoranda." This appeal followed.

I. Plaintiff's Claim Against Consolidated

We are asked to choose an appropriate statute of limitations for a federal claim not expressly governed by any federal statute. To do this we must consider " the nature of the federal claim and the federal policies involved." United Parcel Service, Inc. v. Mitchell, 451 U.S. 56, 60-61, 101 S.Ct. 1559, 1562-63, 67 L.Ed.2d 732. Consolidated argues that plaintiff's claim is analogous in nature to one to vacate an arbitration award. Plaintiff argues that her claim is more analogous to a breach of contract suit than an action to vacate an arbitration award because her grievance against Consolidated was never arbitrated. Both concede that federal labor policy favors prompt resolution of labor disputes, but plaintiff argues that notwithstanding that policy we should apply Illinois' 10-year statute of limitations governing breach of contract suits. Consolidated contends that the 90-day limitations rule in Illinois' Arbitration Act is better suited for quick dispute resolution and that we should therefore apply it.

In Mitchell, supra, the Supreme Court adopted New York's 90-day limitations rule governing suits to vacate arbitration awards as the appropriate measure of the timeliness of an employee's claim against his former employer for wrongful discharge. The only difference between that case and the one before us is that there the employee's grievance had been previously arbitrated and here it has not. We think that insufficient cause to apply a different limitations rule.

To choose a limitations rule in this case is to strike a balance between the right of an ex-employee to seek legal redress for an unlawful discharge from employment and the rights of an employer to be free of the risk of forever having to make salary payments to discharged employees and of the public to be free of the disruptive effects of lingering instability in labor relations. The longer the length of time following an employee's discharge, the greater the magnitude of risk to his former employer ⁴ and the greater the likelihood of possible inconvenience to the public. The greater the opportunity for the employee to challenge his discharge prior to commencing suit, the less essential it is that he be afforded a chance to challenge his discharge in court.

Plaintiff herein had a prior opportunity to challenge the lawfulness of her discharge from employment. The collective bargaining agreement between the Local and Consolidated establishes a procedure by which aggrieved employees may challenge actions by Consolidated. Hall availed herself of that procedure by filing a grievance with the Local. That makes her present suit against Consolidated analogous in nature to one to vacate an arbitration award. Like the plaintiff in a suit to vacate an arbitration award, Hall is attempting to resurrect a grievance previously laid to rest. And, no less than if Hall's grievance had been fully arbitrated, to allow Hall's suit against Consolidated would be to subject Consolidated to the considerable future risk of having to reinstate and pay up to ten years of back wages to discharged employees.

Nothing in the language of the collective bargaining agreement convinces us that decisions by the Local not to pursue an employee's grievance all the way to arbitration are any less final or reliable than arbitration awards. ⁵ It may be argued, however, that it should be easier for an employee to seek redress in court for an allegedly unlawful discharge when his grievance has not been fully arbitrated than when it has been fully arbitrated. The necessity of allowing suit might theoretically vary with the extent of an employee's prior opportunity to contest his discharge. This of course assumes--improperly, we think--that private collective bargaining often affords too little procedure to grievances that have merit. In any case, it would be exceedingly unwise to apply a 90-day rule when an employee's grievance has been pursued by his union all the way to arbitration and a 10-year rule when, as here, it has been pursued but not to arbitration. The deterioration of evidence over time is the same regardless of arbitration and the importance to an employer of being able to rely upon a settlement reached after negotiation with a union is no less than the importance of being able to rely upon a settlement reached after arbitration. In both cases, the employer needs to know how many employees it is carrying on its payroll so that it may plan its operations accordingly. To apply a longer limitations rule to claims challenging arbitrated settlements than to non-arbitrated settlements would be to provide employers with a strong incentive to arbitrate every labor grievance regardless of merit. "This would greatly increase the cost of the grievance machinery and could so overburden the arbitration process as to prevent it from functioning successfully." Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 192, 87 S.Ct. 903, 917, 17 L.Ed.2d 842. Limitations rules should not promote costly and time-consuming adjudicative processes, especially in the field of labor relations where federal policy strongly favors the "relatively rapid disposition of labor disputes." Mitchell, 451 U.S. at 63, 101 S.Ct. at 1564; quoting Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U.S. 696, 707, 86 S.Ct. 1107, 1114, 16 L.Ed.2d 192.

II. Plaintiff's Claim Against The Local

Plaintiff argues that her damage claim against the Local for breach of its fair representation duty is analogous in nature to a common law tort claim. Defendant Local argues that it is more analogous to a suit to vacate an arbitration award or to an unfair labor practice claim under the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq. For the sake of uniformity, plaintiff urges us to apply to her would-be tort claim against the Local the same statute of limitations governing breach of contract suits that she urges us to apply to her would-be contract claim against Consolidated. Defendant Local argues that either the 6-month limitation in Section 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act or the 90-day limitation in Illinois' Arbitration Act would better serve the federal policy favoring quick termination of labor disputes.

This Circuit, other federal Circuits, and the National Labor Relations Board have all held that breach by a labor union of its statutory duty of fairly representing members is an unfair labor practice...