Independent Union of Flight Attendants v. PAN AM., 88-3120.

• Decision Date: 30 October 1992
• Docket Number: No. 88-3120.,88-3120.
• Citation: 810 F. Supp. 263
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California
• Parties: INDEPENDENT UNION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS, Plaintiff, v. PAN AMERICAN WORLD AIRWAYS, INC., et al., Defendants.

810 F. Supp. 263

INDEPENDENT UNION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS, Plaintiff, v. PAN AMERICAN WORLD AIRWAYS, INC., et al., Defendants.

No. 88-3120.

United States District Court, N.D. California.

October 30, 1992.

Bredhoff & Kaiser, Washington, DC, Altsauler & Berzon, San Francisco, CA, for plaintiff.

Bronson, Bronson & McKinnon, San Francisco, CA, for defendants.

ORDER RE MOTION TO VACATE DECISION

CONTI, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Independent Union of Flight Attendants ("IUFA") seeks an order of this court vacating its prior decision on the ground that the case was mooted while on appeal.

II. FACTS

IUFA brought this action in 1988 against defendants Pan American World Airways, Inc. and Pan American Corporation ("Pan Am"), seeking to compel arbitration of a grievance concerning work assignments on the now-terminated European operations of Pan American Express, Inc. a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pan Am Corp. At issue in that case was whether Section 204 of the Railway Labor Act ("RLA"), 45 U.S.C. § 184, applied to international operations. Judge Schwarzer dismissed the action by order dated April 7, 1989, holding that there exists no extra-territorial jurisdiction under the RLA, and thus that this court had no subject matter jurisdiction. Independent Union of Flight Attendants v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 132 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2520, 113 Lab.Cas. (CCH) ¶ 11,672 (N.D.Cal.1989).

IUFA appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the decision on January 10, 1991. Independent Union of Flight Attendants v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 923 F.2d 678 (9th Cir.1991) (vacated). IUFA then petitioned for rehearing en banc. The Ninth Circuit, however, found that it was precluded from acting on that petition, as Pan Am had declared bankruptcy on January 8, 1991.¹ IUFA then withdrew its original, underlying grievance, and requested that the Ninth Circuit vacate its January 8 order and direct this court to vacate as moot its original dismissal.

In response, the Ninth Circuit vacated its January 8 order, finding that

because IUFA has withdrawn its grievance, we have been "deprived ... of the ability to redress IUFA's injuries." citation. We conclude that this appeal is now moot. Because this appeal became moot while the petition for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc were still pending and before the mandate issued, the appropriate disposition is to vacate the panel's opinion and dismiss the appeal.

Independent Union of Flight Attendants v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 966 F.2d 457, 459 (9th Cir.1992) (citations

omitted).² The court, however, declined to order vacatur of this court's decision, instead remanding the case for a determination of whether the judgment should be vacated.

III. DISCUSSION

In cases that become moot during the appeal process, the normal procedure is for the appellate court to both dismiss the appeal and order the district court to vacate the underlying decision. United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 39, 71 S.Ct. 104, 106, 95 L.Ed. 36 (1940). The rationale behind this procedure is clear; having been denied by circumstances beyond its control the opportunity to fully litigate its case, the appellant should not be bound by the original (and non-final) judgment.

There exists an important exception to this rule, however; where, as here, it is the appellant itself that has mooted the appeal, that appellant has not been deprived of a chance to litigate its case. Instead, it has waived that chance, just as if it had chosen not to appeal in the first place, and thus the appellate court will not order the original judgment vacated. This exception finds its best articulation in Ringsby Truck Lines v. Western Conference of Teamsters, 686 F.2d 720, 721 (9th Cir.1982):

We find the distinction between litigants who are and are not responsible for rendering their case moot at the appellate level persuasive. If the effect of post-judgment settlements were automatically to vacate the trial court's judgment, any litigant dissatisfied with the trial court's findings would be able to have them wiped from the books. "it would be quite destructive to the principle of judicial finality to put such a litigant in a position to destroy the collateral conclusiveness of a judgment by destroying his own right of appeal." 1B Moore's Federal Practice ¶ 0.4166 at p. 2327 (2d ed. 1982). That possibility would undermine the risks inherent in taking any controversy to trial and, in cases such as this one, provide the dissatisfied party with an opportunity to relitigate the same issues.

As in the Munsingwear rule, "the rationale behind this exception is clear, that a dissatisfied litigant should not be allowed to destroy the collateral consequences of an adverse judgment by destroying his own right to appeal." Allard v. DeLorean, 884 F.2d 464, 467 (9th Cir.1989). Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit in this case followed the practice articulated in National Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Seafirst Corp., 891 F.2d 762, 769 (9th Cir.1989), and remanded the case to this court to balance the relative equities and hardships attendant to either vacating or leaving undisturbed the original opinion.

IUFA attempts to argue that it was Pan Am's bankruptcy, and not the withdrawal of its own grievance, that rendered this case moot. While it is true that Pan Am is no longer flying, however, the bankruptcy did not moot the appeal. Rather, it merely stayed proceedings pending the at least theoretical possibility that Pan Am would subsequently emerge from that bankruptcy. As the Ninth Circuit held, "here the case was made moot not by happenstance, but by the conduct of IUFA alone in withdrawing its grievance." IUFA, 966 F.2d at 460 (emphasis added). The legal posture of the underlying dispute was unaltered by the stay.³

In light of the above, therefore, this court must assess the equities involved in either vacating or leaving undisturbed the original opinion. IUFA, however, has not and can not identify any direct prejudice should the order stand. After all, the case is now moot. IUFA seeks to vacate an order dismissing their own suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Were this court to do so, however, it would then have to dismiss the case anew, this time on mootness grounds. As there is no other judgment in place, IUFA's substantive position would remain entirely unchanged by the exercise.

IUFA's real purpose here, of course, is not to undo the result, but to erase the rationale for that result. It is the precedent (that the RLA is inapplicable in extra-territorial disputes) that IUFA seeks to avoid; while Pan Am is no longer flying, flight attendants are, and are likely to face the same issues in litigation with other carriers. Were this court to vacate the earlier opinion, IUFA would in effect have been allowed to "depublish" a fully litigated opinion adverse to it on a question of pure law, simply by waiving its own right to appeal that decision. Such a result can only encourage...