Pilot Freight Carriers, Inc. v. International Broth. of Teamsters
| Decision Date | 15 January 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 74-1031,74-1031 |
| Citation | 506 F.2d 914 |
| Parties | 88 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2408, 76 Lab.Cas. P 10,645 PILOT FREIGHT CARRIERS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS et al., Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Robert J. Higgins, Washington, D.C., Frank E. Hamilton, Jr., Tampa, Fla., for Int'l Brotherhood, etc.
Thomas J. Dorsey, Miami, Fla., Thomas A. Larkin, Jacksonville, Fla., L.N.D. Wells, Jr., Dallas, Tex., for Local Unions.
Granville Alley, Jr., V. James Facciolo, Cody Fowler, Ronald D. McCall, Thomas T. Steele, Tampa, Fla., for plaintiff-appellee.
Robert H. Cowan, Nashville, Tenn., for R. V. Pulliam.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Before DYER, SIMPSON and CLARK, Circuit Judges.
Subject to certain restrictions not here relevant, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1) on its face grants a plaintiff an unconditional right to dismiss his complaint by notice and without order of the court at any time prior to the defendant's service of an answer or motion for summary judgment. On this appeal, we are invited to narrow the express parameters of this right by holding that such a dismissal is unavailable to a plaintiff who has argued, and lost, a motion for preliminary injunctive relief. We decline the invitation, and affirm the district court's refusal to vacate a notice of dismissal filed by a plaintiff who had been served with neither an answer nor a motion for summary judgment.
Pilot Freight Carriers, Inc. (Pilot) is a common carrier of general commodity freight operating primarily in the eastern United States with lines as far west as Ohio. Its labor relations with non-supervisory personnel are in the main controlled by the National Master Freight Agreement (NMFA), a nationwide collective bargaining agreement periodically negotiated between the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America (IBT) on behalf of its locals and a multiemployer association of which Pilot is a member. In August, 1970, Pilot received authorization from the Interstate Commerce Commission to extend its lines south into Florida, and shortly thereafter established terminals in Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and Miami which were linked up to existing lines terminating in the Carolinas. Florida IBT locals at these points took the position that, because of this extension, the non-supervisory personnel automatically became subject to the terms of the NMFA by virtue of an accretion clause in the contract, while Pilot countered that its Florida operation, which utilized drivers and dockworkers employed by independent labor contractors rather than by Pilot directly, was sufficiently distinct to be outside the scope of the national agreement.
In an attempt to enforce their respective positions, the Florida locals in April, 1972, filed grievances pursuant to the NMFA, which under the contract were taken to arbitration before the Southern Multi-States Grievance Committee (Southern Committee), claiming that they were entitled to represent the Florida employees; on May 24, Pilot in turn filed a unit clarification petition with the NLRB asking that the Board construe its bargaining unit to exclude the Florida terminals. On June 12, Pilot also filed suit in the Middle District of Florida seeking, inter alia, to enjoin the Southern Committee from hearing the Unions' grievances until the NLRB had acted on its unit clarification petition. When the Southern Committee ruled adversely to Pilot on the Unions' grievances on June 22, Pilot amended its action to ask that the Unions be enjoined from enforcing their award through a strike or other concerted activity. A hearing on this amended motion was held on July 7, and the request for injunction denied on the following day.
On July 16, the Florida locals struck to enforce the Southern Committee award, and picketing was extended to Pilot's operations in other states. The strike continued until July 28, when it was temporarily enjoined by a federal district court in North Carolina on the ground that contractual grievance procedures had not been exhausted. This injunction was subsequently dissolved on September 8, 1972, following a decision in the Unions' favor by the National Grievance Committee, the final arbiter of disputes under the NMFA.
With minor exceptions, both the Florida and North Carolina actions were then allowed to languish for almost a year, until in August, 1973, IBT filed a set of interrogatories in Florida and the following month moved to stay proceedings in North Carolina pending resolution of the Florida suit. Pilot's response was to file a notice of voluntary dismissal of its Florida action under F.R.C.P. 41(a)(1). The Unions then moved to vacate the notice of dismissal on essentially the same grounds urged before this Court, which motion was denied. This appeal ensued.
The Unions' most obvious hurdle on this appeal is of course the...
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...Winterland Concessions Co. v. Smith, 706 F.2d 793, 795 (7th Cir. 1983); Carter, 547 F.2d at 259; Pilot Freight Carriers, Inc. v. Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, 506 F.2d 914, 916 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 422 U.S. 1048 (1975); D.C. Elecs. v. Nartron Corp., 511 F.2d 294 (6th Cir. 1975). 42. See Dav......
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