Maine Cent. R. Co. v. BROTH. OF MAIN. OF WAY EMP., Civ. No. 86-0366-P.

• Decision Date: 29 July 1988
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 86-0366-P.
• Citation: Maine Cent. R. Co. v. BROTH. OF MAIN. OF WAY EMP., 691 F.Supp. 509 (D. Me. 1988)
• Parties: THE MAINE CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY and the Portland Terminal Company, Plaintiffs, v. BROTHERHOOD OF MAINTENANCE OF WAY EMPLOYES, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

691 F. Supp. 509

THE MAINE CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY and the Portland Terminal Company, Plaintiffs, v. BROTHERHOOD OF MAINTENANCE OF WAY EMPLOYES, Defendant.

Civ. No. 86-0366-P.

United States District Court, D. Maine.

July 29, 1988.

Randolph Lee Elliott, Richard T. Conway, Ralph Moore, Shea & Gardner, Washington, D.C., Charles S. Einsiedler, Pierce, Atwood, Scribner, Allen, Smith & Lancaster, Portland, Me., for plaintiffs.

John O'B Clarke, Jr., Highsaw & Mahoney, Washington, D.C., Craig J. Rancourt, Biddeford, Me., for defendant.

OPINION

GENE CARTER, District Judge.

In this action Plaintiffs seek to impeach an arbitration award entered on October 30, 1986 as a resolution to a long labor dispute between the parties. By order dated June 3, 1987, this Court granted Defendant's motion for summary judgment on Counts II, III, IV, and V, but denied the motion as to Count I, which alleges that the arbitrator failed to provide a fair hearing. Count I was tried to this Court, without a jury, on July 14, 1988.

Review of arbitration awards under the Railway Labor Act is "among the narrowest known to the law." Union Pacific Railroad v. Sheehan, 439 U.S. 89, 91, 99 S.Ct. 399, 401, 58 L.Ed.2d 354 (1978). The RLA explicitly permits impeachment of an award only in three situations: if

(a) ... the award plainly does not conform to the substantive requirements laid down by this chapter for such awards, or that the proceedings were not substantially in conformity with this chapter;

(b) ... the award does not conform, nor confine itself, to the stipulations of the agreement to arbitrate; or

(c) ... a member of the board of arbitration rendering the award was guilty of fraud or corruption; or ... a party to the arbitration practiced fraud or corruption, which fraud or corruption affected the result of the arbitration.

45 U.S.C. § 159 Third. Implicit in the statute is the power of the Court to review the proceedings for violations of due process. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. St. Louis Southwestern Ry., 757 F.2d 656 (5th Cir.1985); Southern Pacific Co. v. Wilson, 378 F.2d 533 (5th Cir.1967).

Section 7 Third of the RLA, 45 U.S.C. § 157 Third (b) provides that:

The board of arbitration shall organize and select its own chairman and make all necessary rules for conducting its hearings: Provided, however, That the board of arbitration shall be bound to give the parties to the controversy a full and fair hearing, which shall include an opportunity to present evidence in support of their claims, and an opportunity to present their case in person, by counsel, or by other representative as they may respectively elect.

Plaintiffs allege that the arbitration award should be invalidated because the arbitrator failed to conform with this provision of the RLA and failed to conduct the hearing in accordance with constitutional due process requirements. Specifically, they allege that the arbitration board denied them the opportunity to present evidence on their claim that certain individuals were not eligible for the protective allowances which had been recommended by Emergency Board 209 for all employees "currently active" on March 3, 1986, the day the underlying strike began.

Findings of Fact

In determining whether Plaintiffs had an opportunity to present evidence in support of their claims,¹ the Court finds the facts, as developed in the documents and the testimony presented, as follows.

Job protection was a major issue precipitating the union's strike against the railroad. In its report concerning resolution of that strike, Presidential Emergency Board 209 recommended that the railroad's proposal for job protection for those employees currently active on March 3, 1986 be accepted, the protective allowance to be $26,000. The union had asked for, and finally received in July, a list of those employees the railroad thought were eligible for protection. The union sought information from the railroad to verify the accuracy of the list, and there was some discussion among the parties that there might be other eligible employees. Tr. 30.

On September 30, 1986, Congress passed, and the President signed, Public Law 99-431, making the Emergency Board's recommendation binding on the parties and mandating binding arbitration if implementing issues remained unresolved more than ten days after the date of the law's enactment. One such issue was the eligibility of employees for protection.

The union submitted a proposal for resolution of the outstanding issues to the railroad. The proposal included the same list of employees previously prepared by the railroad as a list of employees in active service on March 3, 1986, and a proposal for determining eligibility of other individuals. Shortly thereafter, the railroad submitted its proposal, which included the same list with eleven names deleted. The deletions had been made by Bradley Peters, the railroad's Director of Human Resources, and represented people not considered by the railroad to be eligible for protective benefits.

On October 9, 1986, the parties met to try once again to resolve the remaining problems. At that meeting, the union contested the accuracy of the list the carrier had provided and asserted that more people were eligible under the statutory definition than those on the list. Tr. 36-37, 85. At the meeting, the union specifically discussed the issue of vacation as bearing on eligibility determinations under the "currently active" definition. William LaRue, the union's vice-president, also specifically addressed the circumstances of employees Coffin, White, and Emerson, telling the railroad's representatives at the meeting that those individuals were on vacation, were paid for vacation, and "therefore they were on the payroll and under pay on March 2nd." Tr. 87.

As a result of the dispute over eligibility of various individuals, at the October 9 meeting the parties decided to present the issue to the arbitrator in the form of three questions to which they both agreed. Tr. 86-87. The question presented to the arbitration board pertinent to the issue now being tried was:

(b) Does Recommendation No. 1 as set forth in the EB 209 Report, disqualify an employee for job protection when such employee was not working on the property on March 3, 1986, but was under pay by the Carrier by virtue of payment for vacation, personal leave, suspension, sickness, injury, etc.?

The railroad's representatives at the October 9th meeting reported to Mr. Peters on the topics discussed at the meeting. They told him that the union had claimed that more people than those originally listed were eligible for protection and that particular names had been discussed. Tr. 36-37. Peters suspected that at the arbitration hearing the union would present a claim for protection for those extra people. Tr. 37. Peters apparently was not told the specific names of Coffin, White and Emerson.

The procedure set for the arbitration hearing included the presentation of written submissions. Bradley Peters was the official charged with preparing the railroad's submission. Although he suspected that the union might present protection claims for individuals other than those on the list, Peters affirmatively decided not to include any evidence dealing with people that the union might contend were eligible but were not already named on the list, Tr. 38, because he did not want "to introduce evidence that would provide a basis for employee protection which did not exist in some other form." Tr. 39. Neither party saw the other side's submission until the day of the arbitration hearing. The union's submission contained information sheets on twenty-four individuals whose eligibility was disputed, including Coffin, Emerson, and White, as well as one other person, Henry, disputed because of his vacation status. Plaintiffs' submission suggested eight categories of disputed workers on the initial list and discussed the circumstances of the individual workers they had sought to delete from the list.

The arbitration hearing mandated by Public Law 99-431 was held on October 20-21, 1986. The arbitration board consisted of two partisan members, Robert Rice for the railroad and William LaRue for the union, and neutral arbitrator Arthur Van Wart. The hearing was in the form of a group discussion rather than a formal presentation of evidence, and arbitrator Van Wart administered the oath to all participants at the beginning of the proceeding.²

At the hearing on October 21st, Mr. Peters said that based on previous discussions, he had thought the union would come up with four or five additional individuals that "they claimed were sick, on vacation or whatever." Jt.Ex. 1 at 40. He expressed surprise that the union, in its submission, had proposed twenty-five actually twenty-four names and said that although he knew the circumstances of most of those proposed, there were a few question marks. There was both general discussion of how the arbitrator should decide which employees were to be considered protected and some more specific discussions of individual cases. The arbitrator asked whether the three questions posed in the union's submission covered the various categories of disputed workers, and the railroad agreed that they did. Id. at 42, and Ex. 3 at 15.

At the proceedings on October 21st, there was continued discussion about how the arbitrator would resolve the protection issue. When the railroad's representatives suggested that he was to determine the names of individuals who are to be given protective benefits, he stated that he did not view that as his role. He stated that he did not have the time to go over those issues. Jt.Ex. 2 at 114. Peters then said that the railroad had no problem with the arbitrator devising concepts of the individuals as long as the concepts were nailed down. Id. at 116. The arbitrator then stated that he would not say whether he was doing that or not, but that he would try to follow the...