Lorenz-Schneider Co. v. BAKERY & PASTRY DRIVERS & HELP. U.

• Decision Date: 21 June 1962
• Docket Number: No. 62 C 310.,62 C 310.
• Citation: 208 F. Supp. 77
• Parties: LORENZ-SCHNEIDER CO., Inc., Plaintiff, v. BAKERY AND PASTRY DRIVERS AND HELPERS UNION, LOCAL 802, affiliated with International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

208 F. Supp. 77

LORENZ-SCHNEIDER CO., Inc., Plaintiff, v. BAKERY AND PASTRY DRIVERS AND HELPERS UNION, LOCAL 802, affiliated with International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Defendant.

No. 62 C 310.

United States District Court E. D. New York.

June 21, 1962.

Herbert A. Levy, New York City (Cohen & Weiss, New York City, of counsel), for defendant, in support of motion.

Godfrey P. Schmidt, New York City, for plaintiff, opposed.

DOOLING, District Judge.

In an action commenced by an employer against a labor organization under Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (29 U.S.C.A. § 185) to recover damages for the alleged breach of a no-strike clause in a collective bargaining agreement, the defendant moves to dismiss on the alternative "jurisdictional" grounds that there was no contract in force at the relevant time and that if there had been a contract in force, its arbitration clause would have covered the dispute of the complaint and therefore precludes relief by civil action in the Courts.

Plaintiff and defendant made a collective bargaining agreement under date of July 1, 1951 and that agreement was extended by formal writings to June 30, 1956. The parties disagree about the further extension of the contract. Plaintiff alleges that the contract continued in effect because the defendant's steward continued to function until September 1957, check-off requests referring plaintiff to "your contract" were received monthly as (perhaps) contemplated by Article 14(a), and when the particular employee discharge that touched off the strike occurred, the Union invoked the contract to prove the irregularity of the firing and did not claim that the contract had expired until plaintiff demanded arbitration of the firing. Defendant asserts that the contract was not extended beyond June 30, 1956.

On August 28, 1959 plaintiff discharged a route salesman without giving the notice that would have been required by Article 8(b) of the contract, if the contract subsisted. The defendant protested the manner of the firing; plaintiff claimed that the clause in the collective bargaining agreement, relied on by defendant, had been waived in practice; reinstatement was apparently refused, a strike threat made and a counterdemand for arbitration interposed. Then defendant asserted that the collective bargaining agreement had long since expired and the men were free to cease work. On the next morning a picket line was formed up outside plaintiff's plant and an eleven day strike ensued. It seems that at some point the particular discharge was sustained in an arbitration (Levy aff'd. 4/17/62, Ex. E) and, ultimately a new contract was worked out (ibid.).

Jurisdiction in the sense of Fed.Rules Civ.Proc., Rule 12(b) (1), 28 U.S.C.A., exists (United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 1960, 363 U.S. 574, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409); the question of fact, whether there was a contract in effect, cannot be determined as such under Rule 56 on the present papers, and so there remains only the question whether plaintiff admits so much by its pleading that it is possible to conclude that no contract is really claimed to have existed. The Statute of Frauds, in spite of Hamilton Foundry & Machine Co. v. International Molders & Foundry Workers, 6th Cir. 1952, 193 F.2d 209, appears not to settle the matter. Rabouin v. N. L. R. B., 2d Cir. 1952, 195 F.2d 906, 910; Cf. Local 174, etc., v. Lucas Flour Co., 1962, 369 U.S. 95, 103, 82 S.Ct. 571, 7 L.Ed.2d 593. But little in what plaintiff alleges tends to show the existence at the time in question of a contract in the terms of the 1951 collective bargaining agreement. What is alleged evidences belief that a contract existed, shows action taken on that assumption but...