Ruby v. American Airlines, Inc.

• Decision Date: 14 February 1964
• Docket Number: No. 178,Docket 28473.,178
• Citation: 329 F.2d 11
• Parties: Charles H. RUBY, as President of the Air Line Pilots Association, International, and Air Line Pilots Association, International, an unincorporated association, Plaintiffs, v. AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC., Defendant-Appellant, and Nicholas J. O'Connell, Jr., individually and as Chairman of the Master Executive Council of the pilots in the service of American Airlines, Inc., and the Negotiating Committee of said pilots, consisting of Richard Lyons, Robert T. Guba, Joseph Garvey, Paul Atkins and Nicholas J. O'Connell, Jr., ex officio, Additional Defendants-Additional Appellants. Joseph V. Manning, as President of the American Airlines Chapter, Flight Engineers' International Association, AFL-CIO, and American Airlines Chapter, Flight Engineers' International Association, AFL-CIO, an unincorporated association, Intervenors-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

329 F.2d 11 (1964)

Charles H. RUBY, as President of the Air Line Pilots Association, International, and Air Line Pilots Association, International, an unincorporated association, Plaintiffs, v. AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC., Defendant-Appellant, and Nicholas J. O'Connell, Jr., individually and as Chairman of the Master Executive Council of the pilots in the service of American Airlines, Inc., and the Negotiating Committee of said pilots, consisting of Richard Lyons, Robert T. Guba, Joseph Garvey, Paul Atkins and Nicholas J. O'Connell, Jr., ex officio, Additional Defendants-Additional Appellants Joseph V. Manning, as President of the American Airlines Chapter, Flight Engineers' International Association, AFL-CIO, and American Airlines Chapter, Flight Engineers' International Association, AFL-CIO, an unincorporated association, Intervenors-Appellees.

No. 178, Docket 28473.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued October 22, 1963.

Decided February 14, 1964.

Arthur M. Wisehart, New York City (George A. Spater and H. Wayne Wile, New York City, on the brief), for defendant-appellant.

Martin C. Seham, New York City, for additional defendants-appellants.

Asher W. Schwartz, New York City (Walter N. Kaufman and O'Donnell & Schwartz, New York City, on the brief), for intervenors-appellees.

Before LUMBARD, Chief Judge, and MEDINA and FRIENDLY, Circuit Judges.

MEDINA, Circuit Judge.

Over the years the principal airlines in the United States have sought a solution to a congeries of controversies arising out of what is generally described as "the crew complement issue." Several phases of this controversy came to a head in the present case tried by Judge Wyatt. In the interest of brevity we may describe the parties as ALPA, the nationwide collective bargaining representative of the pilots, the Chapter, the collective bargaining representative of the flight engineers employed by American, and certain pilots of American who broke away from ALPA and finally formed a new organization, Allied Pilots Association. The action was commenced on March 1, 1963 by ALPA challenging the right of American to bargain with the new Allied Pilots Association. On March 12, 1963 the flight engineers intervened seeking declaratory relief, and, on March 21, 1963 they were permitted to amend their pleading so as to pray for the injunctive relief that is the subject matter of this appeal. The pilots are described in the title of the action as "Additional Defendants." The upshot was a decision by Judge Wyatt having a triple aspect: (1) a holding in substance that ALPA was out and that American was entitled to bargain and enter into a collective bargaining agreement with Allied Pilots Association, already affirmed by this Court in Ruby v. American Airlines, Inc., 2 Cir., 1963, 323 F.2d 248; (2) a holding that American must continue its checkoff of dues for the benefit of the flight engineers, affirmed by the opinion of my brother Friendly, writing for a unanimous court in an opinion filed herewith, Manning v. American Airlines, Inc., 2 Cir., 329 F.2d 32; and (3) a holding in effect requiring American to bargain with the Chapter with respect to rules, rates of pay and working conditions of the flight engineers, based upon a finding of persistent and long continued refusal to bargain, which is the subject matter of the bargaining appeal discussed in this opinion.

The lengthy opinion of Judge Wyatt, based upon a thorough mastery of the facts as disclosed in a voluminous record of thousands of pages of testimony, supplemented by numerous exhibits, is reported at 227 F.Supp. 674. We affirm in all respects the judgment appealed from requiring American to bargain with the flight engineers and granting certain incidental relief to make the injunction effective.

We shall assume familiarity with the "crew complement issue" and other matters described in Judge Friendly's opinion in the Ruby case.

The critical finding that lies at the heart of this appeal is:

"From at least as early as January 31, 1963 to July 11, 1963, the Company refused to bargain collectively with the Chapter, and until at least as late as March 15, 1963 the Company instead bargained collectively in respect of flight engineers only with a committee, of which O\'Connell was Chairman, and which the Company claimed represented the flight engineers."

The principal difference between our views and those expressed in the dissent stems from the nature of this finding. We say this is a finding of pure, unadulterated fact, and that it cannot be disregarded or set aside unless clearly erroneous. We also hold that the questions of law, to be discussed in due course, stand out like sore thumbs, as indicated in Judge Wyatt's excellent opinion. That American refused to bargain is matter of fact. That it was under a legal duty to bargain is matter of law.¹

As the matters of fact and the matters of law are thus clearly separated, we do not understand how the finding just quoted can be considered to be such an intermingling of fact and law as to give this Court any so-called power of "full review." See Romero v. Garcia & Diaz, Inc., 2 Cir., 1961, 286 F.2d 347; Castro v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc., 2 Cir., 1963, 325 F.2d 72.

If the power of "full review," otherwise expressed as the power to "review freely," exists in such a case as this, despite the clear separation of fact and law, the inevitable result will be lengthy opinions in which dribs and drabs of testimonial evidence, and quotations of excerpts from exhibits, will be scrambled together with bits of law into an indiscriminate mass, all for the purpose of supporting a conclusion deemed to be economically or socially wise or to be otherwise desirable. And in this hodgepodge reference will be "freely" made to testimony that the trial judge has necessarily rejected as not credible and to statements in documents that he has necessarily found to be unreliable. If true findings are only separate statements of "evidentiary" particulars, rather than the traditional conclusory statements of fact based upon a distillation of the proofs and the making of essential inferences of fact, the result will be a most undesirable confusion. So, at the outset we state the rule to be, especially in this case where the testimonial evidence is conflicting and the trial judge saw and heard the witnesses as they gave their testimony, that a finding of fact by a District Judge in a non-jury case must stand if there is substantial evidence to support it; and it must be assumed that conflicting testimony was rejected and that documents or parts thereof depending on the veracity of the witnesses giving such conflicting testimony were found to be unreliable, even if the trial judge does not make an endless series of detailed statements to the effect that he does not credit the testimony or part of the testimony of each witness.

Accordingly, we shall now address ourselves to a chronological statement of the course of events supplemented by comments and discussion, all for the purpose of demonstrating that the finding quoted above is supported by substantial evidence. In the process we think it will clearly appear that the proofs overwhelmingly support the finding. Some of the law questions will be adverted to briefly as we go along, and the decisive legal principles upon which the injunction is based will be summarized at the end.

I There Was Substantial Evidence to Support the Finding of a Persistent Refusal to Bargain Over a Period of Many Months

From May 25, 1955 the Flight Engineers' International Association (FEIA) had been certified by the National Mediation Board as the bargaining agent for the American flight engineers. While the existing contract effective May 1, 1958 did not expire according to its terms until April 30, 1963, one of its provisions permitted Section 6 "openers" to be served as affecting wages "to be effective not earlier than May 1, 1961." Accordingly, as the flight engineers insisted upon wage increases at the earliest possible date, the Chapter (i. e., the flight engineers) and American each served Section 6 "openers" in February, 1961, as affecting wage demands, as provided in the contract. There were negotiations on the subject of these wage increases from time to time between the flight engineers' team and the American negotiators, but progress was at a snail's pace. On March 14, 1962 the Chapter asked the National Mediation Board for mediation. The Board urged arbitration, the Chapter refused, and on June 21, 1962 the Board terminated its services, leaving the parties after the lapse of 30 days thereafter free from the restrictions of the Railway Labor Act.

Labor Department officials brought the flight engineers and American negotiators together in Washington, D. C., for meetings during the week of July 9, 1962. As found by Judge Wyatt, "The engineers were primarily interested in discussing wages at once," but American representatives "explained privately to the Labor Department officials that the problem on American was not so much with the engineers as with the pilots, this because the American pilots were far more interested in reduction of hours and other benefits (which would be very expensive for the Company) than in crew complement." Indeed, in May, 1962 the American pilots had informed American "that they were not interested in having the Company spend its money to qualify flight engineers * * * they wanted a reduction of hours and other benefits instead."

This in turn led to a series of developments that carry us right up to the threshold of the critical dates mentioned in Judge Wyatt's principal finding quoted above.

We are now in Washington, D. C., in July, 1962. Labor Department officials, Chairman Leverett Edwards of the National Mediation Board, the pilots and American negotiators worked steadily from July 16 until July 25, 1962. The flight engineers "played little part" in these meetings. The net...