Mulvihill v. Top-Flite Golf Co.
Decision Date | 02 July 2003 |
Docket Number | No. 02-2494.,02-2494. |
Citation | 335 F.3d 15 |
Parties | Martin J. MULVIHILL, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. The TOP-FLITE GOLF COMPANY, f/k/a Spalding Sports Worldwide, Inc., et al., Defendants, Appellees. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Edward J. McDonough, Jr., with whom Egan, Flanagan and Cohen, P.C. was on brief, for appellant.
Jay M. Presser, with whom Skoler, Abbott & Presser, P.C. was on brief, for appellee Spalding Sports Worldwide, Inc.
G. Gordon Atcheson, with whom Blake & Uhlig, P.A. was on brief, for appellee Int'l Bhd. of Boilermakers, Etc., Local 1851.
Before SELYA, Circuit Judge, COFFIN and PORFILIO,* Senior Circuit Judges.
Having become convinced that Spalding Sports Worldwide, Inc. (Spalding) had terminated his employment without proper cause,1 plaintiff-appellant Martin J. Mulvihill asked his union — Local 1851 of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers (the Union) — to prosecute a grievance against Spalding pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement then in effect (the CBA). The Union did so. But when Spalding rejected the grievance, the Union refused to bring the matter to arbitration.
Mulvihill subsequently brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts against Spalding and the Union. In due course, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of both defendants. Mulvihill appeals. Concluding, as we do, that Spalding acted with proper cause, we affirm the judgment below.
We present the facts derived from the record in the light most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment (here, the plaintiff). See Plumley v. S. Container, Inc., 303 F.3d 364, 367 (1st Cir.2002).
Mulvihill began his tour of duty at Spalding in 1969. At the times material hereto, a CBA was in effect between Spalding and the Union. The CBA included a management rights provision, which stated, inter alia, that Spalding would "continue to direct working forces, including the right to ... discharge [employees] for proper cause." The CBA also mapped out a standard grievance mechanism. Under it, an offended employee could lodge a grievance with a Union-organized committee and expect the grievance committee to press Spalding to resolve the complaint. If that failed, the Union had the right to compel Spalding to proceed to binding arbitration.
Mulvihill, a long-time Union member, held a job within the bargaining unit. In 2000, a coworker, Amy Charest, accused him of sexual harassment. Acting on Charest's formal complaint, Spalding conducted an investigation. The results of that probe led it to terminate Mulvihill's employment. Contending that Spalding had discharged him without proper cause, Mulvihill submitted a grievance.
Buoyed by Mulvihill's thirty-two years of service, the Union's grievance committee lobbied Spalding to reconsider its decision, reinstate Mulvihill, and award him back pay. The main thrust of the Union's argument was that discharge was "too serious" a remedy for the asserted misconduct. Spalding rejected the Union's importunings, pointing to Charest's complaint and the results of its investigation.
In her complaint, Charest had accused Mulvihill of: spreading "false rumors" within the company to the effect that she was "having an affair" with a fellow employee named Mike Rattell; telling Rattell's wife — who also worked for Spalding — about the alleged affair; "interfering with [Charest's] personal life" and making her feel "violated"; and creating a situation in which Charest found it "emotionally and physically ... hard [to] concentrat[e] on [her] work." Spalding's investigation into these remonstrances revealed the following undisputed facts. On September 7, 2000, Charest's husband, Todd, had gone to Mulvihill's home on matters unrelated to this dispute. The two discussed Charest's putative involvement in a sexual relationship with Rattell and Mulvihill agreed to give Todd Charest's telephone number to Rattell's wife (Melissa) so that she could contact him regarding their spouses' suspected infidelity. Mulvihill passed the telephone number to Melissa Rattell at work the following day. He proceeded to tell two other Spalding employees (Domenic Montessi and Ray Perreault) about the alleged affair. According to them, he supplied graphic detail.
Spalding's sexual harassment policy prohibits "sexual discrimination or harassment which undermines the employment relationship by creating an intimidating, hostile, and offensive work environment." The policy specifically defines verbal harassment to include "spreading rumors about a coworker's sex life" and forbids any such conduct that may "unreasonably interfere[ ] with an employee's work performance." The executive in charge of the investigation, Robert Bourdeau, concluded that Mulvihill's behavior transgressed the policy and created a working environment that Charest reasonably found offensive. After consulting with senior management, Bourdeau terminated Mulvihill's employment.
As said, the Union initially processed a grievance on Mulvihill's behalf. When Spalding resisted, the Union accepted Spalding's response, ignored Mulvihill's protests, and allowed the matter to die on the vine. After the deadline for submitting the grievance to arbitration had passed, Mulvihill filed suit against Spalding and the Union. His complaint asserted, inter alia, that (1) Spalding had violated section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. § 185, by cashiering him without proper cause (in derogation of the CBA), and (2) the Union had failed to heed its duty fairly to represent him with respect to Spalding's breach.
This sort of double-barreled suit is known as a hybrid section 301 action. See, e.g., Arriaga-Zayas v. Int'l Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, 835 F.2d 11, 12 (1st Cir.1987). While it is composed of two causes of action — one against the employer and the other against the union — the claims are inextricably intertwined. See DelCostello v. Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 164-65, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983). This imbrication is underscored by the fact that in order to prevail against either defendant, the employee must establish that the employer breached the CBA. Id. at 165, 103 S.Ct. 2281.
The district court determined, at the summary judgment stage, that Spalding had acted with proper cause in discharging Mulvihill (and, therefore, had not breached the CBA). On this basis, the court disposed of the section 301 claims. Mulvihill also had asserted a defamation claim, and the court found that claim wanting as well. This appeal ensued.
We begin our analysis with a reiteration of the by-now-familiar summary judgment standard. We then provide an overview of the interaction between hybrid section 301 actions and Title VII. Finally, we turn to the merits of Mulvihill's claims.
The role of summary judgment is to look behind the facade erected by the pleadings and assay the parties' proof in order to determine whether a trial will serve any useful purpose. Plumley, 303 F.3d at 368. Conventional summary judgment practice requires the moving party to assert the absence of a genuine issue of material fact and then support that assertion by affidavits, admissions, or other materials of evidentiary quality. Quintero de Quintero v. Aponte-Roque, 974 F.2d 226, 227-28 (1st Cir.1992). Once the movant has done its part, the burden shifts to the summary judgment target to demonstrate that a trialworthy issue exists. Suarez v. Pueblo Int'l, Inc., 229 F.3d 49, 53 (1st Cir.2000). When all is said and done, summary judgment will lie only if the "pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(c).
In conducting this tamisage, the district court must scrutinize the record in the light most flattering to the party opposing the motion, indulging all reasonable inferences in that party's favor. Morris v. Gov't Dev. Bank, 27 F.3d 746, 748 (1st Cir.1994). This standard is notoriously liberal — but its liberality does not relieve the nonmovant of the burden of producing specific facts sufficient to deflect the swing of the summary judgment scythe. Id. Moreover, the factual conflicts relied upon by the nonmovant must be both genuine and material. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). For this purpose, "genuine" means that the evidence is such that a reasonable factfinder could resolve the point in favor of the nonmoving party, and "material" means that the fact is one that might affect the outcome of the suit under the applicable law. Morris, 27 F.3d at 748.
This same paradigm governs our de novo review of a district court's summary judgment rulings. Plumley, 303 F.3d at 369. There is, however, one important distinction. The court of appeals "is not restricted to the district court's reasoning but can affirm a summary judgment on any independently sufficient ground" made manifest in the record. Mesnick v. Gen. Elec. Co., 950 F.2d 816, 822 (1st Cir.1991).
Federal common law supplies the substantive rules for adjudicating interlocked claims against an employer and a trade union for breach of a CBA. See Crider v. Spectrulite Consortium, Inc., 130 F.3d 1238, 1242 (7th Cir.1997); see also Fant v. New Engl. Power Serv., 239 F.3d 8,14 (1st Cir.2001) () (internal quotation marks omitted).
In this case, the CBA allowed Spalding to take certain personnel actions (including...
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