Spaulding v. United Transp. Union

• Decision Date: 05 February 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-3018.,01-3018.
• Parties: James SPAULDING, Lyn Swonger, Donald L. Inman, William N. Nance, and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED TRANSPORTATION UNION and Union Pacific Railroad Company, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

279 F.3d 901

James SPAULDING, Lyn Swonger, Donald L. Inman, William N. Nance, and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED TRANSPORTATION UNION and Union Pacific Railroad Company, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 01-3018.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

February 5, 2002.

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Bruce H. Stoltze of Brick, Gentry, Bowers, Swartz, Stoltze, Schuling & Levis, P.C., Des Moines, IA, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

John A. Edmond of Guerrieri, Edmond & Clayman, P.C., Washington, DC, for Defendant-Appellee United Transportation Union.

Brenda J. Council of Kutak Rock LLP, Omaha, NE, for Defendant-Appellee Union Pacific Railroad Company.

Before EBEL and PORFILIO, Circuit Judges, and SHADUR, District Judge.^*

SHADUR, District Judge.

This appeal stems from the 1996 merger of the Union Pacific Railroad Company ("Union Pacific") with the Southern Pacific Rail Corporation and its subsidiaries (collectively "Southern Pacific"). Acting on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, James Spaulding ("Spaulding"), Lyn Swonger ("Swonger"), Donald Inman and William Nance have brought suit against their union, the United Transportation Union ("Union"), and Union Pacific. Plaintiffs (a collective term used here to embrace the entire putative class, not just the named plaintiffs) are former employees of Southern Pacific now employed by Union Pacific. They charge that Union breached its duty of fair representation in negotiating implementation agreements associated with the 1996 merger and that Union Pacific colluded in that breach and wrongfully interfered with plaintiffs' contractual rights.

After reviewing the parties' submissions on defendants' motions for summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. ("Rule") 56, the district court granted those motions as to all claims. Plaintiffs now appeal, asserting two grounds for reversal:

1. Their claims as to the Kansas City and Saint Louis Hubs are not barred by the statute of limitations.

2. As to the Salinas Hub, the district court had, and we now have, subject matter jurisdiction to hear their claims.

We have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Because we find no error in the rulings of the district court, we AFFIRM its order in all respects.

Standard of Review

We review the grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard as did the district court (Gossett v. Oklahoma ex rel. Bd. of Regents for Langston Univ., 245 F.3d 1172, 1175 (10th Cir.2001)). Under Rule 56(c) summary judgment is appropriate only "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law" (Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323-24, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986); Thiessen v. Gen. Elec. Capital Corp., 267 F.3d 1095, 1108 (10th Cir.2001)). For that purpose, familiar Rule 56 principles impose on defendants as movants the initial burden of establishing the lack of a genuine issue of material fact (Celotex, 477 U.S. at 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548). If that burden is met, plaintiffs as nonmovants must then come forward with "specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial" (Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio, 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (quoting Rule 56(e) but adding emphasis)). On that score an issue is genuine if "the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party" (Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)). Finally, in making our determination we, like the district court, are required to examine all of the evidence and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of plaintiffs as nonmovants (Thiessen, 267 F.3d at 1108).

Background

We begin by rehearsing the complex factual background, essential to a full understanding of the current dispute. This case has its factual beginnings in 1975 when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company ("Rock Island") filed for bankruptcy. Plaintiffs were originally employed by Rock Island and later became employees of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company ("SSW") after it purchased a portion of Rock Island's trackage known as the Tucumcari Line in 1980. Currently plaintiffs are employees of Union Pacific as a result of its 1996 merger with Southern Pacific and its subsidiary SSW. They are also members of Union, their federally recognized collective bargaining organization.

Seniority, Prior Rights and the New York Dock Conditions

At the core of this action are the "system seniority dates" that railroad employees use to bid on particular jobs and schedules. Normally the date on which an employee took his or her first compensated trip for his or her current employer is the seniority date. If two employees bid on the same job, the one with the earlier seniority date normally wins the bid. But if a less senior employee retains a "prior right" at a particular job location, he or she could prevail at that location over a more senior bidder who has more seniority with the employer but who lacks such a locational prior right.

Seniority dates and prior rights are a major source of contention in railroad mergers. To fulfill its statutory obligation of safeguarding affected workers while still facilitating implementation of beneficial mergers, the Surface Transportation Board ("Board") often imposes the New York Dock conditions as a condition of merger approval.¹ Those labor-protective provisions require carriers to provide affected employees with economic protections significant in both amount and duration.

Prior Litigation

SSW's purchase of Rock Island's Tucumcari line in 1980 was pursuant to an agreement executed on March 4, 1980 ("March 4 Agreement") that provided for preferential hiring of the Rock Island employees by SSW and other carriers taking over Rock Island's trackage. To effectuate the March 4 Agreement, SSW and Union entered into an implementing agreement in 1982 ("1982 Implementing Agreement"), which provided among other things that former Rock Island employees hired by SSW before that agreement would receive a system seniority date of March 24, 1980, while the seniority dates of those hired after the 1982 Implementing Agreement would coincide with their actual dates of hire by SSW.

Federal litigation then ensued when a class of former Rock Island employees brought suit, alleging that the 1982 Implementing Agreement violated their preferential hiring rights and their rights to retain their Rock Island seniority dates as established in the March 4 Agreement. After protracted litigation and a court-approved settlement, Volkman v. United Transp. Union, 724 F.Supp. 1282 (D.Kan. 1989), rev'd in part on other grounds, 73 F.3d 1047 (10th Cir.1996) established that no entitlement to retain Rock Island seniority dates derived from the March 4 Agreement. Instead March 24, 1980 was confirmed as the system seniority date for former Rock Island employees, including plaintiffs, hired by SSW before the 1982 Implementing Agreement (724 F.Supp. at 1307, 1327-28). Volkman also established that the former Rock Island employees were entitled to prior rights at their SSW terminal of first hire (id. at 1335), but those prior rights would be subject to future modification through collective bargaining (Volkman, No. 83-6025-T (D.Kan. July 22, 1993)).

1996 Merger

In 1996 Board approved a merger between Union Pacific and Southern Pacific/SSW. One consequence was that the former Rock Island employees on the Tucumcari Line would again be displaced. To protect those and other affected workers, Board required that Union Pacific comply with the New York Dock conditions in implementing the merger. Pursuant to New York Dock conditions Art. I, § 4, Union Pacific gave notice to Union on October 6, 1997, January 30, 1998 and June 4, 1998 of its intention to establish three operational hubs: in the same order as those notification dates, Saint Louis, Missouri; Kansas City, Kansas; and Salina, Kansas. Extensive negotiations were undertaken, seeking to design mutually satisfactory implementation plans for the three hubs, including the seniority systems to be used for commingling the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific workforces. Those negotiations are the genesis of the present action.

Union's Const. Art. 90 requires that in effectuating a merger "General Committees of Adjustment shall arrange for a fair and equitable division of the work" and that "[p]rior seniority rights of employees to service on their former seniority district or territory shall be preserved to the extent possible." Union maintains that the integration of seniority lists in the event of a railroad merger is best accomplished by "dovetailing," and it sought to use that method in creating a consolidated seniority roster at each of the three hubs. Dovetailing accomplishes consolidation by using the seniority date of each employee on the properties involved in the merger.

Throughout the extended negotiations Union held to the position that the former Rock Island employees would retain their prior rights on the Tucumcari line as to SSW employees, but that they would gain no prior rights with respect to Union Pacific employees. As for seniority, Union officials repeatedly asserted at a series of Local meetings and negotiation planning sessions that former Rock Island employees would be assigned their SSW seniority dates rather than their Rock Island dates for dovetailing purposes: That is, employees hired by SSW before the 1982 Implementing Agreement would receive a seniority date of March 24, 1980 rather than their earlier dates of hire by Rock Island. Plaintiffs' union representative, Associate General Chairman Don Hollis ("Hollis"), specifically inquired whether the Rock Island seniority date...