Hill v. Norfolk and Western Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 13 May 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-2202,86-2202 |
| Citation | 814 F.2d 1192 |
| Parties | 124 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3057, 55 USLW 2551, 106 Lab.Cas. P 12,248, 7 Fed.R.Serv.3d 492 Morton M. HILL, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Daniel J. Harrigan, Bayliff, Harrigan, Cord & Maugans, P.C., Kokomo, Ind., for plaintiff-appellant.
Linzey D. Jones, Sidley & Austin, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee.
Before POSNER and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges, and PARSONS, Senior District Judge. *
Hill, a brakeman fired by the Norfolk and Western railroad, took the matter to arbitration before a public law board, see 45 U.S.C. Sec. 153 Second, which unanimously rejected his claim that he had been fired in violation of the collective bargaining agreement between the railroad and his union. He then brought this suit under 45 U.S.C. Sec. 153 First (q) to set aside the board's decision, lost in the district court, and appeals to us. The appeal has no merit; indeed, it reveals a serious misunderstanding of the scope of federal judicial review of arbitration decisions.
As we have said too many times to want to repeat again, the question for decision by a federal court asked to set aside an arbitration award--whether the award is made under the Railway Labor Act, the Taft-Hartley Act, or the United States Arbitration Act--is not whether the arbitrator or arbitrators erred in interpreting the contract; it is not whether they clearly erred in interpreting the contract; it is not whether they grossly erred in interpreting the contract; it is whether they interpreted the contract. See, e.g., Dreis & Krump Mfg. Co. v. International Ass'n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, 802 F.2d 247, 253 (7th Cir.1986), and cases cited there; Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry., 768 F.2d 914, 921 (7th Cir.1985). If they did, their interpretation is conclusive. By making a contract with an arbitration clause the parties agree to be bound by the arbitrators' interpretation of the contract. A party can complain if the arbitrators don't interpret the contract--that is, if they disregard the contract and implement their own notions of what is reasonable or fair. A party can complain if the arbitrators' decision is infected by fraud or other corruption, or if it orders an illegal act. But a party will not be heard to complain merely because the arbitrators' interpretation is a misinterpretation. Granted, the grosser the apparent misinterpretation, the likelier it is that the arbitrators weren't interpreting the contract at all. But once the court is satisfied that they were interpreting the contract, judicial review is at an end, provided there is no fraud or corruption and the arbitrators haven't ordered anyone to do an illegal act.
An operating rule of the Norfolk and Western railroad, incorporated by reference in the collective bargaining agreement with Hill's union, provides that "the conduct of any employee leading to conviction of any felony, or of any misdemeanor involving the unlawful use, possession, transportation, or distribution of narcotics or dangerous drugs, or of any misdemeanor involving moral turpitude is prohibited." In 1982 Hill was charged in a criminal court with a felony violation of Indiana's drug laws. At first he pleaded not guilty; but in September 1983, pursuant to a plea bargain, he filed with the court a motion to plead guilty to possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor. In the motion he said that He asked the court to sentence him under an Indiana statute that allows a court to sentence a criminal defendant without entering a "judgment of conviction." Indiana Code Sec. 35-48-4-12. Pursuant to this provision the judge suspended further proceedings in the case and sentenced Hill to probation. He also imposed a $500 fine (the proceeds to go to the police department, which wanted a new camera). But he did not enter a formal judgment. A few months later the prosecutor dismissed the criminal charge.
Shortly before it was dismissed, the railroad got wind of Hill's plea of guilty, and after verifying the plea and sentence from court records, it suspended him on January 5, 1984. At the same time it notified him that, pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement, the railroad would conduct an investigatory hearing on January 13 (later postponed to January 27). At the hearing, Hill's lawyer in the criminal action testified that Hill had told him that a malicious neighbor had seeded Hill's corn patch with marijuana, which had grown into the "mere sprouts" (18 inches high) seized by the authorities, and that Hill did not know how other marijuana had found its way into his unlocked shed, where it was also seized. On February 8 the railroad notified Hill that he was fired. The arbitration proceeding before the public law board followed. The board held that the word "conviction" in the collective bargaining agreement encompassed the disposition of Hill's criminal case and that the railroad had not violated the agreement by firing him.
Hill makes four arguments. (1) He was not convicted within the meaning of the collective bargaining agreement. (2) Even if he was, the agreement does not authorize discharge as a sanction for "conduct ... leading to conviction." (3) The railroad denied him due process by failing to comply with certain procedural provisions in the collective bargaining agreement. (4) The public law board's decision is void because untimely.
1. Hill asks us to interpret the collective bargaining agreement and conclude that the arbitrators erred in holding that he engaged in "conduct ... leading to conviction" within the meaning of the agreement. As we said earlier, we have no power to reinterpret the agreement. This is the bedrock principle of federal judicial review of arbitration awards and the failure of Hill's counsel to conform his submission to that principle falls short of minimum professional standards of representation.
Hill's argument that the arbitrators committed some form of lese majeste by refusing to conform the contractual meaning of "conviction" to the meaning that the word bears in the law of Indiana is absurd on two counts. First, the statute under which he was sentenced does not provide that the defendant punished under it is not "convicted," as if it were possible to impose criminal punishment (such as probation and a fine) on a person who had not been convicted of a crime. The statute merely provides that no "judgment of conviction" shall be entered. The collective bargaining agreement says nothing about conduct leading to a judgment of conviction, so there is no inconsistency between Indiana law and the arbitrators' interpretation of the agreement. Second, the agreement is in force in 20 states and there is no indication that the parties intended its words to be interpreted in accordance with the criminal procedure of Indiana.
Hill's further argument that the parties agree that Indiana law governs this case is false. The parties do not agree, and it is unlikely they would, since this case is under the federal Railway Labor Act. But maybe all Hill means is that the collective bargaining agreement requires, as a basis for sanctions under the operating rule in question, that the worker have been duly convicted, necessarily under some state or federal law. If that is what he is arguing, it exposes a second fallacy underlying his attack on the arbitrators' interpretation (the first being his misconception of the scope of judicial review of that interpretation). This fallacy is to suppose that the word "conviction" has a single meaning: and that the one which Hill argues (probably erroneously, as we are about to see) it bears in the Indiana statute under which he was sentenced. The word has three meanings that are potentially relevant to this case. First, it means a formal criminal judgment which becomes a part of one's record and can be used to enhance the punishment for a subsequent crime. Hill was not convicted in this sense. Second, it means a determination of guilt that is used as the predicate for imposing criminal punishment. That is the sense in which Hill was convicted. He was given a criminal punishment--probation--in a criminal proceeding. In no civilized system of criminal justice can you be sentenced without being convicted, whether or not a formal judgment of conviction is entered. Third, "conviction" could mean simply an authoritative determination of guilt, whether or not any punishment followed; in this view, the determination of guilt in a criminal proceeding is a substitute for the railroad's own factfinding.
The second sense was the one used by the Supreme Court in Dickerson v. New Banner Institute, Inc., 460 U.S. 103, 112-14, 103 S.Ct. 986, 991-92, 74 L.Ed.2d 845 (1983), in holding that a man who had pleaded guilty to an offense and been placed on probation, but without entry of a formal judgment, had been "convicted" within the meaning of the federal gun control laws. This is the meaning of "conviction" in Indiana as well. Hill was sentenced, hence "convicted"; he just didn't suffer the indignity of a formal "judgment of conviction." See Schalkle v. State, 272 Ind. 134, 140, 396 N.E.2d 384, 389 (1979).
So far as the Norfolk and Western railroad is concerned, the relevant sense of conviction is either the second or the third, but not the first. For reasons too obvious to dwell on, the railroad doesn't want to employ a brakeman who has been found guilty of violating the drug laws. The railroad doesn't give a hoot whether he is allowed to plead guilty to a...
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