National Post Office Mail Handlers, Watchmen, Messengers, and Group Leaders Div. of Laborers' Intern. Union of North America, AFL-CIO v. American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO

• Decision Date: 03 July 1990
• Docket Number: Nos. 89-5272,89-5273,AFL-CIO,s. 89-5272
• Citation: 907 F.2d 190
• Parties: 134 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2690, 285 U.S.App.D.C. 120 NATIONAL POST OFFICE MAIL HANDLERS, WATCHMEN, MESSENGERS, AND GROUP LEADERS DIVISION OF the LABORERS' INTERNATIONAL UNION OF NORTH AMERICA,, et al. v. AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION,, et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 190

907 F.2d 190

134 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2690, 285 U.S.App.D.C. 120

NATIONAL POST OFFICE MAIL HANDLERS, WATCHMEN, MESSENGERS,

AND GROUP LEADERS DIVISION OF the LABORERS'

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF NORTH AMERICA, AFL-CIO, et al. v. AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION, AFL-CIO, et al.

Nos. 89-5272, 89-5273.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued March 22, 1990.

Decided July 3, 1990.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Civil Action No. 88-01697).

Darryl J. Anderson, Washington, D.C., for appellant.

Orrin Baird, Washington, D.C., for appellee Mail Handlers, Watchmen, Messengers, and Group Leaders Div. of Laborers' Intern. Union of North America, AFL-CIO.

Kevin B. Rachel, Atty., U.S. Postal Service, with whom Edward F. Ward, Jr., Asst. Gen. Counsel, U.S. Postal Service, Jay B. Stephens, U.S. Atty., John D. Bates, R. Craig Lawrence, and John C. Cleary, Asst. U.S. Attys., were on the brief for appellee U.S. Postal Service.

Before MIKVA and D.H. GINSBURG, Circuit Judges, and GESELL, ^* District Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge D.H. GINSBURG.

D.H. GINSBURG, Circuit Judge:

Appellant American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO (APWU) represents clerks, and appellee National Post Office Mail Handlers, Watchmen, Messengers and Group Leaders Division, Laborers' International Union of North America, AFL-CIO (Mail Handlers Union) represents mailhandlers, employed by appellee United States Postal Service (USPS). The issue in this case is whether Sec. 1208(b) of the Postal Reorganization Act, 39 U.S.C. Sec. 1208(b), authorizes the district court to order the APWU to submit to tripartite arbitration, with the Mail Handlers and the USPS, of its jurisdictional grievances against the USPS under a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that provides only for two-party arbitration. Because we find that the APWU is precluded from relitigating this issue, which was resolved against it by the Ninth Circuit in an indistinguishable case, we affirm without reaching the merits.

I. BACKGROUND

The APWU filed two jurisdictional grievances with the USPS. Each protests a USPS decision to assign certain types of work to employees represented by the Mail Handlers, rather than to employees represented by the APWU; one arises from Dubuque, Iowa, the other from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Until 1981, the two unions negotiated jointly with the USPS and were parties to the same CBA, which expressly provided for tripartite arbitration of jurisdictional disputes. Since 1981, however, the two unions have bargained separately, and the resulting contracts, which do provide for arbitration of grievances, make no provision for tripartite arbitration. Even so, the parties have consented to tripartite arbitration of some of the jurisdictional grievance cases that have arisen under these contracts.

In the two grievances at issue here, however, the APWU objected to the Mail Handlers' attempts to intervene in arbitrations that the APWU had initiated. When the arbitrators held that they had no authority, under the APWU's CBA, to order a tripartite arbitration, the Mail Handlers went to the district court here in the District of Columbia in order to compel the APWU (and the USPS) to accept such an arrangement.

The USPS admitted all of the allegations of the Mail Handlers' complaint, and cross-claimed against the APWU for the same relief, asserting that the APWU's claim is collaterally estopped by a decision of the District Court for the Northern District of California. The D.C. district court noted that the parties to that case were identical and the motions before it "nearly identical" to those decided in the California district court, but it did not address the USPS's claim of collateral estoppel. Cf. 18 WRIGHT, MILLER & COOPER, FEDERAL PRACTICE & PROCEDURE Sec. 4433, at 305-12 & n. 8 (1981) (federal rule is to grant preclusive effect to final judgment even when appeal is pending).

Instead, the district court ruled on the merits, holding that although the relevant CBA contemplates only two-party arbitration, the court has authority to order tripartite arbitration under Sec. 1208(b) of the Postal Reorganization Act. That statute provides:

Suits for violation of contracts between the Postal Service and a labor organization representing Postal Service employees, or between any such labor organizations, may be brought in any district court of the United States having jurisdiction of the parties, without respect to the amount in controversy.

39 U.S.C. Sec. 1208(b). The district court discerned its authority by analogy to cases interpreting Sec. 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 185, which is identical to Sec. 1208 except that it applies not to labor contracts concerning postal employees but to "contracts between an employer and labor organization in an industry affecting commerce."

The APWU appealed. After it had filed its opening brief, but before the appellees had filed their answering briefs, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the California district court decision compelling tripartite arbitration on the authority of the Postal Reorganization Act. United States Postal Serv. v. American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, 893 F.2d 1117 (9th Cir.1990). The USPS therefore adhered to its position that the APWU is collaterally estopped from pursuing this appeal. Unfortunately, the APWU did not file a reply brief, but relied solely upon oral argument to join issue on the question of collateral estoppel. As we understand it, the APWU also argues that even if it is collaterally estopped on the issue of tripartite arbitrability, the court should defer to the arbitrator's determination of whether tripartite arbitration is desirable in a particular case.

II. ANALYSIS

The doctrine of issue preclusion, commonly invoked under the less precise heading of collateral estoppel, bars a party from relitigating an issue of fact or of law that was actually litigated and necessarily decided, by a final disposition on the merits, in a previous litigation between the same parties. National Treasury Employees Union v. IRS, 765 F.2d 1174, 1176 (D.C.Cir.1985). The legal issue decided by the district court in California, as affirmed by the Ninth Circuit--"whether a district court may order parties to submit a dispute to tripartite arbitration despite their contractual agreements which provide only for bipartite arbitration," 893 F.2d at 1118--is precisely the issue that the APWU appeals here. The Ninth Circuit's decision is a final disposition on the merits, involving the same three parties before the court in this case, interpreting the same CBA that we are asked to interpret. That the particular facts of the underlying jurisdictional disputes differ is of no significance: the legal issue is the same one, and it has already been resolved by our sister circuit in the West.

The APWU makes three arguments against precluding it from litigating this case notwithstanding the Ninth Circuit's decision. None of them is persuasive.

A. Mail Handlers' Cause of Action

The APWU argues first from the premise that because the Mail Handlers Union is not a party to the CBA between the APWU and the USPS, and because it has no contract of its own with the APWU, the Mail Handlers Union can have, and has, no cause of action under Sec. 1208. From this it reasons that the court lacks jurisdiction over the Mail Handlers' claims against the APWU and the USPS. APWU concedes that the USPS's cross-claim against it is viable, but contends that there is no actual case or controversy between the USPS and the Mail Handlers because the USPS, which has not taken the work away from the Mail Handlers, has given the union no cause for filing a grievance. Thus, we are told, the court properly has before it only the dispute between the APWU and the USPS (which also seeks to compel tripartite arbitration), and that dispute does not present the issue decided by the Ninth Circuit, which counsel states as "whether, in a suit by the employer against two unions, which under separate collective bargaining agreements assert a claim ... to an interest in the same jobs, ... the court should order tripartite arbitration at the behest of the plaintiff employer." In order to accept the premise of this argument, however, we would have to hold that Sec. 1208 does not enable a non-party union to compel tripartite arbitration under a CBA that provides only for two-party arbitration. In effect, however, that would require us to resolve the merits of the case already decided by the Ninth Circuit.

The Ninth Circuit, while noting that "[t]he Mail Handlers could not actually invoke the arbitration procedures under its agreement until the work was taken from its jurisdiction," held that "the Mail Handlers' attempt to intervene in the arbitration was essentially an invocation of its agreement with the USPS." 893 F.2d at 1121. The USPS, of course, had a contractual relationship with each of the unions it...