Rhine v. Union Carbide Corporation
Decision Date | 17 March 1965 |
Docket Number | No. 15646.,15646. |
Citation | 343 F.2d 12 |
Parties | R. F. RHINE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNION CARBIDE CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
E. H. Rayson, Knoxville, Tenn., for appellant, Adrian H. Terrell, Paducah, Ky., John B. Rayson, Knoxville, Tenn., on the brief, Terrell, Schultzman & Hardy, Paducah, Ky., Kramer, Dye, Greenwood, Johnson & Rayson, Knoxville, Tenn., of counsel.
Francis T. Goheen, Paducah, Ky., for appellee.
Before O'SULLIVAN and EDWARDS, Circuit Judges, and STARR, District Judge.
This appeal results from a judgment for plaintiff in the sum of $18,872.06 entered by a U. S. District Judge in the Western District of Kentucky. The facts and controversies resulting in that judgment are fully set forth in the opinions of the District Judge reported in Rhine v. Union Carbide Corp., 208 F.Supp. 785 (W.D.Ky.1962) and at 221 F.Supp. 701 (W.D.Ky.1963). Since at the moment we deal with only one of the several issues argued on this appeal, we will recite only such facts as are essential to its determination.
Defendant-appellant Union Carbide operates an Atomic Energy Commission plant at Paducah, Kentucky. Prior to December 4, 1956, plaintiff-appellee Rhine was employed by defendant as a chemical operator preparing "food" for the diffusion plant. In the performance of his duties he was exposed to chemicals classified as chlorinated hydrocarbons.
Plaintiff became ill in December 1956. Though the cause of his illness (cirrhosis of the liver) was not diagnosed, he was ultimately told by doctors to whom he had been referred by defendant not to continue to work where he was subjected to the former exposure. Defendant then told plaintiff that they had no other work available for him and discharged him.
At the time defendant had a labor contract with a union1 representing its employees which provided for a grievance procedure terminating in arbitration. Plaintiff contested his discharge through this procedure and through arbitration. The award of the arbitrator, dated July 3, 1957, upheld the discharge on the ground that plaintiff was permanently disabled from his regular work and the company had no obligation under the contract to provide other employment for him. It is clear that no claim had been advanced in the arbitration proceeding that plaintiff's disability was caused by his occupation, since no doctor to that date had told plaintiff any such thing.
Two years later, on the basis of facts which were not before the arbitrator, the Kentucky Workmen's Compensation Board adjudged plaintiff to be totally and permanently disabled as a result of occupational disability suffered in the course of his employment with defendant.
At the time of plaintiff's illness, and at the time of his discharge, the labor-management contract contained an unusual provision:
The same contract's grievance procedure provided for processing a grievance through three grievance steps before proceeding to arbitration. It also provided that a decision of the company at any step of the grievance procedure was deemed to be "final and binding unless the grievance is arbitrable as defined in Article XIV, Section (1), in which case it may be submitted to arbitration."
Article XIV, entitled "Arbitration" provided as follows:
Plaintiff first made a claim on defendant for "Occupational Disability Pay" under this contract in October 1961. This claim was made by letter addressed to defendant by plaintiff's attorney and made no reference to arbitration. When defendant simply disclaimed any liability, plaintiff filed suit on the contract in McCracken County Circuit Court in Kentucky. Defendant thereupon filed a petition to remove the case to the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky on grounds of diversity of citizenship and this petition was granted. Thereafter defendant made a motion to dismiss, claiming, among other things, plaintiff's failure to exhaust his remedies by arbitration. The motion was denied.
After trial to the Court without a jury, the District Judge filed an opinion containing findings of fact and conclusions of law resulting in the judgment for plaintiff previously referred to.
In his opinion on the motion to dismiss (208 F.Supp. 785) the District Judge decided that plaintiff was not barred from maintaining the action by failure to exhaust his remedies by arbitration because "the law of Kentucky makes invalid and unenforceable an agreement between parties to a contract to arbitrate all of the disputes thereafter to arise thereunder as constituting attempt to oust the legally consituted courts of their jurisdiction."2 He relied in this regard upon Gatliff Coal Co. v. Cox, 142 F.2d 876 (C.A. 6, 1944).
In his opinion after trial (221 F.Supp. 701) the District Judge held that the Kentucky Workmen's Compensation Board's award rendered res adjudicata the issue of whether or not plaintiff's disability was occupational; that the provision of the contract relied upon by plaintiff was clear and unambiguous; that on the facts established plaintiff was entitled to the recovery sought and that defendant could not...
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