Rentschler v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Company

• Decision Date: 23 March 1934
• Docket Number: 28768
• Citation: 253 N.W. 694,126 Neb. 493
• Parties: ADAM G. RENTSCHLER, APPELLEE, v. MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, APPELLANT
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

253 N.W. 694

126 Neb. 493

ADAM G. RENTSCHLER, APPELLEE, v. MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, APPELLANT

No. 28768

Supreme Court of Nebraska

March 23, 1934

APPEAL from the district court for Cass county: JAMES T. BEGLEY JUDGE. Affirmed.

AFFIRMED.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. " Collective labor agreement" and " trade agreement" are terms used to describe a bargaining agreement, as to wages and conditions of work, entered into by groups of employees, usually organized into a brotherhood or union, on one side, and groups of employers, or corporations, such as railroad companies, on the other side.

2. Such a collective agreement, being a general offer, becomes a binding contract when it is adopted into, and made a part of, the individual contract of each employee. A breach of its terms will give rise to a cause of action by either party.

3. The terms of the collective agreement, as included in an individual labor contract, ought not to be construed narrowly and technically, but broadly, so as to accomplish its evident aims and protect both the employer and the employee.

4. An employee is not deprived of his right to seek redress in the courts because his contract of employment contained a provision providing a method of arbitration of disputes.

Appeal from District Court, Cass County; Begley, Judge.

Action by Adam G. Rentschler against the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. From a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, the defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

ROSE, J., dissenting.

Kennedy, Holland & De Lacy, for appellant.

J. M. Patton and Rosewater, Mecham, Burton, Hasselquist & Chew, contra.

Heard before GOSS, C. J., ROSE and PAINE, JJ., and CHASE and ELDRED, District Judges. ROSE, J., dissents.

OPINION

PAINE, J.

This is an action brought to recover wages by a member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees against the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, by reason of plaintiff being laid off at a time when he had seniority rights above an employee who was retained. The jury returned a verdict for $ 1,000.

Adam G. Rentschler, plaintiff and appellee, a member of a bridge gang, was let out on account of a reduction of the forces. Plaintiff claims that this was contrary to, and in violation of, a written agreement, dated January 1, 1928, between the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company and the brotherhood to which he belonged, and that his seniority rights were superior to a member of the bridge gang who was retained in service. He therefore brought suit on said agreement, and claims as damages the loss of wages from the time he was let out.

The amended petition set out that plaintiff has for a long time been employed by the defendant railroad company as an iron worker in bridge gang No. 1, and that on September 13, 1930, he was discharged from service, while a member in good standing of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees; that since January 1, 1928, there has been in full force and effect an agreement between the railroad company and the brotherhood, and certain paragraphs of said agreement are incorporated in the petition. That the seniority roster for the year 1930 listed the plaintiff, on January 1 of said year, and continuously until the time of his discharge, and after his name the date November 6, 1928, and listed W. Stone, another employee, as of March 1, 1929, such dates being their seniority under the written agreement, and plaintiff claims that under said roster he should not have been discharged until after W. Stone had been discharged. He alleges that he has fully complied with said agreement as to all hearings and appeals. That he is able and willing to continue in said employment, and that he has lost the salary he would have earned had he been retained according to the rules of seniority, as set out in said agreement. That, because of said unlawful discharge, he is now, on account of his age, forever barred from seeking future employment with any railroad company on account of the unlawful act of the defendant.

The amended answer admits the execution of the agreement January 1, 1928, between the carrier and the brotherhood; admits the employment of the defendant, and his suspension on the date mentioned; alleges that W. Stone was the swing line man of a crew of a derrick car, and that, by custom and practice, the holder of such a position has not been subject to displacement on account of seniority by other workmen not trained in said capacity; admits that rule 3-a of said agreement provides: "When force is reduced, the senior man in the sub-department, on the seniority district, capable of doing the work, shall be retained." Defendant insists that plaintiff did not have the ability, training, and experience for the position of swing line man, and that the judgment of the defendant governed in such matters, and asks that the plaintiff's action be dismissed.

The defendant assigns as error the refusal of the court to direct a verdict for the railroad company, and the giving of instructions Nos. 2 and 8, and claims that plaintiff should not have resorted to courts until he had exhausted the arbitration plan of adjusting grievances provided in the contract.

The next proposition of law presented by the defendant is that a contract between a brotherhood and a railroad company does not establish a contract between the individual members of that brotherhood and the railroad company, a breach of which will sustain an action by the individual, and that mutuality is lacking between the parties to this suit.

The last proposition of law presented by the defendant for reversal is that if said agreement be construed as taking away from the management the question of the capability of an employee, and leaving the decision of that question with a jury, it is void as against public policy.

In the collective agreement between the union and the company, article 2 covers seniority, and rule 2 thereunder provides: "a. Seniority begins at the time the employee's pay starts. Rights accruing to employees under their seniority entitle them to consideration for positions in accordance with their relative length of service with the railroad."

A large part of the evidence, as disclosed in the bill of exceptions of nearly 200 pages, relates to the duties of a swing line man on a derrick car. It is clear that the issue contested in the evidence was whether the company was justified in retaining Stone and letting Rentschler out. It appears from the evidence that the crew of the derrick car, consisting of the engineer, fireman and swing line man, are simply employees of the same bridge gang, and two of them are under the engineer, and that the balance of the bridge gang work on the side of the track, or on the bridge being constructed, or wherever the pieces of steel to be moved happen to be.

The evidence shows that Rentschler's seniority is superior to that of Stone's, and that plaintiff had on former occasions filled the position of swing line man on this identical derrick, and had long been employed as an engineer on derricks, having a swing line man and fireman under his charge, and was qualified to perform the duties of a swing line man in the position in which W. Stone had been retained by the company. This evidence was very hotly contested, and submitted to the jury, and the jury by their verdict decided this question of fact in favor of the plaintiff.

The trial court, in instruction No. 7, said: "You are instructed that, even though you find from a preponderance of the evidence that the plaintiff was capable of filling the job as swing line man, still you cannot find for the plaintiff if you further find that the railroad company in the exercise of a reasonable discretion had reasonable grounds for believing that the plaintiff was not capable of filling said position, and that Stone was the better man for the job."

The consideration of this case requires this court, for perhaps the first time, to pass on the rights of parties under a collective agreement. A trade agreement, or a collective labor agreement, is a term used to describe a bargaining agreement entered into by a group of employees, usually organized into a brotherhood or union, on one side, and a group of employers, or a corporation, as a railroad company, on the other side. Such agreement may be a brief statement of hours of labor and wages, or, on the other hand, it may take the form of a book, as exhibit 2, furnished to plaintiff in this case, or often an exhaustive pamphlet regulating, in the greatest minuteness, every condition under which labor is to be performed, and touching upon such subjects as strikes, lockouts, walkouts, seniority, apprentices, shop conditions, safety devices, and group insurance. In France such agreements are treated as contracts, while in America they were at first considered as binding in morals, but not in law, and few attempts were made to bring them before the courts. In fact, the term contract was rarely applied to them because, the majority of unions being unincorporated, they could not be competent parties to a contract. It is said that government reports show that, of the larger labor unions in 1929, only 14 out of 148 of them were incorporated. The public has always been greatly interested in these agreements because their purpose was to sustain proper relations between capital and labor, and thereby tend to prevent strikes, lockouts, or walkouts.

While no two of such agreements are alike and the decisions rarely set them out at length, yet the purpose of these collective agreements was, in general, to regulate hours of work and wages to be paid, yet the individual members of a union, while protected on these questions, could stop work at pleasure.

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