Hilton International Co. v. Union De Trabajadores De La Industria Gastronomica De Puerto Rico, Local 610

• Decision Date: 29 January 1987
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 84-3116 HL.
• Citation: 652 F. Supp. 1259
• Parties: HILTON INTERNATIONAL CO., d.b.a. Caribe Hilton Hotel, Plaintiff, v. UNION DE TRABAJADORES DE LA INDUSTRIA GASTRONOMICA DE PUERTO RICO, LOCAL 610, et al., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

652 F. Supp. 1259

HILTON INTERNATIONAL CO., d.b.a. Caribe Hilton Hotel, Plaintiff, v. UNION DE TRABAJADORES DE LA INDUSTRIA GASTRONOMICA DE PUERTO RICO, LOCAL 610, et al., Defendant.

Civ. No. 84-3116 HL.

United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico.

January 29, 1987.

Lespier, Muñoz Noya & Ramirez, San Juan, P.R., for plaintiff.

Francisco Aponte Pérez, Santurce, P.R., for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

LAFFITTE, District Judge.

Plaintiff Hilton International Co., d.b.a. Caribe Hilton Hotel ("Caribe Hilton"), brings the present action under Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C. sect. 185 (hereinafter "LMRA"), to set aside and vacate an adverse arbitration award. The award, issued on May 31, 1983 pursuant to an arbitration held under the parties' Collective Bargaining Agreement ("Agreement"), ordered the plaintiff to alter its method of scheduling and paying union employees' holidays and days off. Plaintiff alleges that such a mandate exceeds the arbitrator's authority and is therefore unenforceable.

Defendant Unión de Trabajadores de la Industria Gastronómica de Puerto Rico, Local 610 ("the Union"), contends the award is proper in scope because it derives from the essence of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Union also asserts that plaintiff's claim is time-barred, arguing that a six-month statute of limitations applies to an action seeking vacation of an arbitration award. Accordingly, defendant moves for summary judgment and/or dismissal of this action, with concurrent enforcement of the award.

After careful consideration of the pleadings in this case, particularly defendant's moving papers and plaintiff's response in opposition, we conclude that plaintiff's claim is indeed time-barred. We therefore hold that plaintiff's action to review and set aside the arbitration award shall be dismissed. We also order the Caribe Hilton to comply with the terms of the arbitration award.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On July 6, 1982, plaintiff Caribe Hilton Hotel and defendant Unión Local 610 executed a Collective Bargaining Agreement to govern all terms and conditions of employment between the parties through June 9, 1985. Article XV of the Agreement contains a grievance and arbitration procedure clause, whereby all disputes arising under the contract are to be resolved by binding arbitration proceedings. The Agreement also imposes certain substantive limitations on the authority of the arbitrator, including a proviso that "no award of the arbitrator may vary or alter the provisions of this contract." (Article XV, Section 7.)

Subsequent to the execution of the contract in 1982, the parties reached an impasse concerning the holiday scheduling and overtime payment of union employees by the Caribe Hilton. The hotel was assigning employees an additional day off on weeks containing holidays, for the sole purpose of avoiding overtime payment. Because the union contract provided that holidays were paid at a "doubletime" rate, each employee received sixteen hours of pay for an eight-hour holiday shift. This would result in a forty-eight hour workweek, eight hours of which had to be paid at an overtime rate. To compensate for the automatic augmentation of hours provided by a holiday, the hotel scheduled each employee an additional day off, thereby keeping the hours down to a forty hour work-week, and avoiding all payment of overtime wages. The Hotel contended that this practice was within the scope of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Union, however, maintained that the contract entitled its employees to forty-eight hours' pay in weeks containing a holiday.

As provided by the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the parties submitted their dispute to the Arbitration and Conciliation Bureau of the Commonwealth's Department of Labor for resolution. On May 31, 1983, arbitrator Fernando Hernández Benítez issued a decision in favor of the Union. The award held that the Caribe Hilton's practice of exchanging holidays and days off did indeed violate the terms of the Agreement. The arbitrator, therefore, ordered the Caribe Hilton Hotel to cease and desist from such practices.

Plaintiff contends that the arbitrator exceeded his permissible authority by amending the Collective Bargaining Agreement to include a new restriction which "limits management rights to control and direct the business of the hotel." In so doing, plaintiff argues, the arbitrator bestowed an additional benefit which was not bargained for in the parties' contract upon the union employees; e.g., a guaranteed work-week.

Plaintiff filed an initial action with this court, civil case number 83-2124, on September 2, 1983, requesting vacatur of the arbitration award. However, the claim was dismissed without prejudice on August 24, 1984, by Judge Gierbolini, for lack of prosecution. Plaintiff then filed the present action on December 12, 1984, again seeking that the arbitration award be set aside and vacated.

The defendant Union now moves for summary judgment and/or dismissal of this action, and enforcement of the arbitrator's final determination. The Union alleges that the arbitration award draws its essence from the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and therefore, this court has no authority to review the merits of the dispute. Defendant also asserts that plaintiff's action is time-barred, in that a suit to vacate an arbitration award must be filed within six months of the issuance of the award under the strictures of Del Costello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983).

We turn first to the applicable statute of limitations, since that question, if adjudicated in defendant's favor, would render the remaining issues moot.

II. THERE IS NO STATUTORY LIMITATIONS PERIOD FOR VACATION OF AN ARBITRATION AWARD IN A LABOR-MANAGEMENT DISPUTE.

The field of labor arbitration is one that belongs uniquely to the federal courts. They, more than the legislature, are charged with shaping a uniform and appropriate body of governing law under Section 301(a) of the L.M.R.A., 29 U.S.C. sect. 185. Textile Workers Union of America v. Lincoln Mills of Alabama, 353 U.S. 448, 77 S.Ct. 912, 1 L.Ed.2d 972 (1957). Thus, where the legislature has failed to promulgate a specific procedural or substantive rule, it is up to the federal tribunals to undertake "the interstitial fashioning of remedial details." Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U.S. 392, 394, 66 S.Ct. 582, 583, 90 L.Ed. 743 (1946).

The federal courts have generally followed the shibboleth of judicial construct that where the legislature has failed to articulate a federal statute of limitations expressly applicable to a federal cause of action, Congress intended the courts to apply the most closely analogous statute of limitations under state law. Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U.S. 696, 86 S.Ct. 1107, 16 L.Ed.2d 192 (1966). However, this is not to say that the court must mechanically graft a state statute of limitations period onto a Section 301 action in every instance:

The Court has not mechanically applied a state statute of limitations simply because a limitations period is absent from the federal statute. State legislatures do not devise their limitations periods with national interests in mind, and it is the duty of the federal courts to assure that the importation of state law will not frustrate or interfere with the implementation of national policies.

Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U.S. 355, 367, 97 S.Ct. 2447, 2455, 53 L.Ed.2d 402 (1977).

In other words, the federal courts must look to the nature of the cause of action to determine whether it is an integral part of a federal scheme, or more closely related to a state claim. Only in the latter case is it proper to appropriate a state-designated period. Where the issue parallels a federal action, or derives from a federal framework, the courts should rely more properly upon related federal statutes. Board of County Commissioners v. United States, 308 U.S. 343, 352, 60 S.Ct. 285, 289, 84 L.Ed. 313 (1939).

The case before us presents just such a need for the rulemaking process of federal tribunals, as applied in the labor arbitration context. There is no federal statute concerning the timeliness of an action to vacate an arbitration award deriving from a Collective Bargaining Agreement. Moreover, the First Circuit has never had occasion to address this issue. We must therefore look to analogous actions in a labor arbitration setting and related federal statutes, in order to determine the most practicable limitations period.

Thus, we are presented with three possible statute of limitations periods for consideration. First, we have the option of invoking the timeliness rule of the most closely analogous cause of action in the Commonwealth legislation: Puerto Rico's thirty day period for the confirmation of arbitration awards.¹ In the alternative, we may adopt the three month statutory limit provided by the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. sect. 12.² Finally, and perhaps most cogently, we may look to the six month period set forth in the Labor-Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. sect. 160(b), which governs the period within which a complaint of unfair labor practice may be filed.³

We begin with an examination of the most recent pronouncement by the Supreme Court on this issue: Del Costello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983). The Supreme Court in Del Costello held that a union employee's "hybrid" claim, e.g., a dual action against his employer for wrongful termination and his union for breach of duty of fair representation, was subject to the six month statute of limitations contained in Section 10(b).

In so holding, the Supreme Court rejected both the three year statute of limitations available under state law for malpractice actions, and the ninety day period allowed for vacation of...