Larocque v. R.W.F., Inc.
Decision Date | 04 October 1993 |
Docket Number | No. 93-1473,93-1473 |
Citation | 8 F.3d 95 |
Parties | 144 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2649, 126 Lab.Cas. P 10,897 Edward LAROCQUE, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. R.W.F., INC., et al., Defendants, Appellees. . Heard |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Thomas J. Young with whom Young & LaPuzza, Omaha, NE, Thomas J. McAndrew, Providence, RI, and Patricia E. Andrews, Washington, DC, were on brief, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Marc B. Gursky, Providence, RI, for appellee, Teamsters Local 251.
James M. Green with whom Powers, Kinder & Keeney, Inc., Providence, RI, were on brief, for defendants-appellees R.W.F., Inc. and Wetterau, Inc.
Before CYR, Circuit Judge, ROSENN, * Senior Circuit Judge, and STAHL, Circuit Judge.
Appellants challenge a district court judgment directing the enforcement of a labor arbitration award upholding a proposed "dovetailing" of the separate seniority lists maintained by the defendant-appellee, R.W.F., Inc. prior to the consolidation of its two divisions. Because we conclude that the
arbitral award was within the scope of the parties' arbitral submission and drew its essence from their collective bargaining agreements, we affirm the district court judgment.
Appellants were employed at Laurans Standard Grocery Company (Laurans), in Cranston, Rhode Island, an unincorporated division of defendant-appellee R.W.F., Inc. (RWF), which also operated a second division, Roger Williams Foods, Inc. (Roger Williams), a separate corporation, in Cumberland, Rhode Island. 1 Each division had a separate collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with Teamsters Local 251.
After acquiring RWF in 1988, appellee Wetterau, Inc. announced plans to relocate the Roger Williams division operations outside of Rhode Island, and transfer the Roger Williams workers to the Laurans operation. RWF proposed to "dovetail" (i.e., integrate) the Roger Williams seniority list into the Laurans seniority list. The alternative would have been to "endtail" the Roger Williams workers; that is, treat them as new employees and eliminate their Roger Williams seniority. 2
After the workers at the Laurans plant [collectively: LaRocque] filed a grievance protesting the "dovetailing" proposal, the matter was submitted to arbitration. The basic dispute that drove the arbitration was whether Laurans and Roger Williams were separate "employers" or whether RWF should be considered the "employer" of the workers at both divisions. Under both CBAs, the term "employer" was defined as the division; "seniority" as "continuous service with the Employer"; and RWF was not mentioned. The arbitrator found, nonetheless, that RWF was the de facto employer of the workers at both divisions, based on, inter alia, the history of RWF's development, the shared administrative and executive operations of the two divisions, and the fact that "Laurans" was merely an unregistered tradename, not a separate legal entity. LaRocque sought judicial review of the arbitral award in federal district court pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 185, and the district court ultimately granted summary judgment directing enforcement. See Larocque v. R.W.F., Inc., 793 F.Supp. 386 (D.R.I.1992).
The highly deferential standard governing judicial review of labor arbitration awards is described in El Dorado Technical Servs., Inc. v. Union General de Trabajadores de Puerto Rico, 961 F.2d 317, 319 (1st Cir.1992):
[A] court should uphold an award that depends on an arbitrator's interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement if it can find, within the four corners of the agreement, any plausible basis for that interpretation.
Like many a party aggrieved by an arbitral award, LaRocque comes poorly clad for the challenge, with only three appellate claims meriting brief discussion. First, LaRocque contends that the award exceeded the scope of the arbitrator's authority, a claim that flies in the face of the joint arbitral submission:
Did RWF, Inc. violate the [CBAs] between the parties by proposing to dovetail the seniority lists of its employees under the Laurans Standard Agreement and its employees under the Roger Williams Agreement for competitive status seniority upon consolidating its regional operations? If so, what shall the remedy be?
Thus, the parties mutually agreed that the arbitrator should reconcile the language in the separate CBAs, neither of which afforded definitive guidance in the context of an unforeseen consolidation of the two divisions, and determine an appropriate remedy. See Challenger Caribbean, 903 F.2d at 860-61; Georgia-Pacific Corp. v. Local 27, United Paperworkers Int'l Union, 864 F.2d 940, 944 (1st Cir.1988). Moreover, "[a]n arbitrator's view of the scope of the issue ... is entitled to the same ... deference ... normally accorded to the arbitrator's interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement itself." El Dorado, 961 F.2d at 321. Furthermore, once having agreed to the arbitral submission, it was too late for Laurans' workers to say that the arbitrator acted ultra vires merely because the remedy was not what they had hoped.
LaRocque next insists that the arbitrator's finding that RWF was the de facto employer of the workers at both locations is without evidentiary support. This tactic, too, is unavailing.
Few aggrieved parties surmount the deferential standard of judicial review accorded factual findings within the scope of an arbitral submission:
[T]he standard of review is unrelenting: as a general proposition, an arbitrator's factual findings are not open to judicial challenge. Even if the arbitrator was seriously mistaken about some of the facts, his award must stand.
El Dorado, 961 F.2d at 320 (citing cases). As the evidence presented to...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
In re Merrimack Cnty.
...challenge to arbitral authority requires the reviewing court to consider both the CBA and the arbitral submission." Larocque v. R.W.F., Inc., 8 F.3d 95, 96 (1st Cir.1993) ; see Appeal of Police Comm'n of City of Rochester, 149 N.H. 528, 534, 823 A.2d 757 (2003) (extent of arbitrator's juris......
-
In re Merrimack County (Nh Pelrb), 2006-525.
...to arbitral authority requires the reviewing court to consider both the CBA and the arbitral submission." Larocque v. R.W.F., Inc., 8 F.3d 95, 96 (1st Cir.1993); see Appeal of Police Comm'n of City of Rochester, 149 N.H. 528, 534, 823 A.2d 757 (2003) (extent of arbitrator's jurisdiction is ......
-
Christus St. Vincent Reg'l Med. Ctr. v. Dist. 1199NM
...‘reinforc[ing] the admonition ... that legitimate arbitral awards draw their essence from the contract’ " (quoting LaRocque v. R.W.F., 8 F.3d 95, 97-98 (1st Cir. 1993) ) ).Section 30.19.5 also does not change the Court's standard of review under the Steelworker Trilogy. That CBA section sta......
-
Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical v. S.D. Warren, No. CIV. 03-225-B-W.
...modification' clause." Id. This Court concludes the CBA here contains a standard "no-modification" clause.13 See Id.; Larocque v. R.W.F., Inc., 8 F.3d 95, 97 (1st Cir.1993)(describing language virtually identical to the language in the PACE-Sappi CBA as a "standard `no-modification' clause"......