HK Porter Co. v. United Saw, File & Steel Prod. Wkrs.
Decision Date | 19 June 1964 |
Docket Number | No. 14509.,14509. |
Citation | 333 F.2d 596 |
Parties | H. K. PORTER COMPANY, INC., Appellant, v. UNITED SAW, FILE AND STEEL PRODUCTS WORKERS OF AMERICA, FEDERAL LABOR UNION NO. 22254, AFL-CIO. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Philip H. Strubing, Philadelphia, Pa. (Edward W. Madeira, Jr., Alfred W. Cortese, Jr., Philadelphia, Pa., on the brief), for appellant.
Louis H. Wilderman, Philadelphia, Pa. (Richard H. Markowitz, Wilderman, Markowitz & Kirschner, Philadelphia, Pa., on the brief), for appellee.
Before BIGGS, Chief Judge, and FORMAN and GANEY, Circuit Judges.
H. K. Porter Company (hereafter the Company) acquired in November of 1955 substantially all the assets of Henry Disston & Sons, Inc. (hereafter Disston), who for many years maintained a steel production plant in the Tacony section of Philadelphia. The Company continued to operate this plant there until February of 1959 calling it the Henry Disston Division of the H. K. Porter Company. It then announced that it intended to move a large part of its production facilities from Philadelphia to Danville, Virginia.
Thereafter, United Saw, File and Steel Products Workers of America, Federal Labor Union No. 22254, ALF-CIO (hereafter the Union) and the Company, discussed, among other things, severance pay and pension rights of the employees. They, however, failed to agree thereon.
The Union brought an action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania1 to compel the Company to proceed to arbitration under its collective bargaining agreement of September 15, 1957 as extended on September 15, 1958. The District Court held that the disputes concerning severance pay and pension rights of the employees were arbitrable.2
After hearing the dispute, the Arbitrator,3 on August 17, 1962, among other things, ruled:
The Company filed an action in the District Court attacking the award. The litigation was brought to a head by motions for summary judgment filed by both the Company and the Union. For its part the Company sought to have the award vacated on the grounds that the Arbitrator had "exceeded his authority and the scope of the submission" and that he had "added to, amended and completely disregarded the explicit and unambiguous provisions of the Agreement." The Union, on the other hand, sought, among other things, an order that the Company perform the obligations set forth in the award of the Arbitrator.
The District Court denied the motion of the Company and granted the motion of the Union, ordering enforcement of the arbitration award,4 from which the Company has appealed on the same grounds it asserted in attacking the award.5
In their collective bargaining agreements of September 1, 1950, February 4, 1952 and July 15, 1953, Disston and the Union treated the subject of pensions in part as follows:
Provision was also made for retirement at age sixty with at least thirty years of continuous service.
After the acquisition of the Disston plant by the Company, it entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with the Union, dated September 19, 1956, as of September 1, 1956, containing, among other things, the following provisions:
Approximately a year later, on September 16, 1957, the Company entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the Union containing the following provisions:
Pensioned employees were also entitled to life insurance policies under the Agreement on the following basis:
Other provisions of the Agreement related to arbitration in part as follows:
The Arbitrator ruled that he was without power to grant allowance of severance pay, absent any authority thereon in the collective bargaining agreement. To do so, he reasoned, would be to make an unauthorized addition to the agreement in violation of Section XX-B. He therefore rejected the Union's request for severance pay.
The Arbitrator, however, differentiated his interpretation of the pension clause of the agreement from severance pay on the ground that there were patterns of past practice with regard to pensions, not present in the instance of severance pay. He believed that these practices, although carried out not by the Company but by Disston, demonstrated that the Pension Board had abided by the spirit of Section XX rather than by its exact wording. Consequently, the Arbitrator held that this justified a broader interpretation than a mere literal reading of the eligibility clause which called for sixty-five years of age and twenty-five years of continuous service before the granting of a pension.
After analyzing the evidence submitted to him, the Arbitrator in fact found twenty cases between 1950 and 1955, wherein there was deviation from a strict interpretation of the eligibility requirement. In his opinion he stated:
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