Teamsters Local Union No. 61 v. United Parcel Serv.

• Decision Date: 07 December 2001
• Docket Number: No. 61,A,No. 00-7239,AFL-CI,61,00-7239
• Citation: 272 F.3d 600
• Parties: (D.C. Cir. 2001) Teamsters Local Union, affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,ppellant v. United Parcel Service, Inc., Appellee
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 600

272 F.3d 600 (D.C. Cir. 2001)

Teamsters Local Union No. 61, affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, AFL-CIO, Appellant v. United Parcel Service, Inc., Appellee

No. 00-7239

United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 17, 2001

Decided December 7, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 99cv00935)

Jonathan G. Axelrod argued the cause for the appellant.

Edward P. Lynch argued the cause for the appellee. William J. Kilberg and Lauren S. Goodman were on brief. Eugene Scalia entered an appearance.

Before: Henderson, Randolph and Rogers, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson.

Karen LeCraft Henderson, Circuit Judge:

Teamsters Local Union No. 61 (Local 61) seeks reversal of the district court's grant of summary judgment to United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS), affirming two rulings of the Atlantic Area Parcel Grievance Committee (Committee), a joint management-labor panel created to resolve UPS employee grievances. In resolving a discharge grievance brought by employee Mark Thompson, the Committee decided on January 20, 1999 that the case could proceed to the merits; on February 16, 1999 it upheld Thompson's discharge. In district court, Local 61 argued that the two decisions were invalid because each was made absent a quorum. Finding that the Committee's impartial arbitrator had the authority to decide to proceed to the merits and that the Committee could decide the merits in the absence of the union Committee members, the district court held that Local 61 did "not meet the substantial burden required to vacate the arbitration decision" and it granted UPS's motion for summary judgment. Joint Appendix (JA) 255. We agree and therefore affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment.

I.

Local 61, an unincorporated labor organization, challenged in district court the Committee's decision to affirm the discharge of Mark Thompson, a UPS package pickup and delivery driver. Local 61 and UPS are bound by collective bargaining agreements known as the National Master United Parcel Service Agreement (NMA) and the Atlantic Area Supplemental Agreement (Supplement). The agreements mandate that if a grievance cannot be resolved on the job by management, it must be submitted to the Committee for arbitration. See generally Supplement, Article 49, section 2. The Committee meets monthly for a three-day period. See Supplement, Article 49, section 4(b). Each monthly Committee is to consist of an equal number of representatives from management and the union--no fewer than two and no more than three members each. See Supplement, Article 49, section 2(e). The Supplement requires in a discharge or suspension case that an "impartial arbitrator" serve as the fifth or seventh member and further provides that he "shall render a bench decision on [sic] all deadlocked cases." Supplement, Article 49, section 4(c).

The January 1999 Committee designated to consider the Thompson grievance consisted of seven members--three management members, three union members and the impartial arbitrator, Joseph Sharnoff. Shortly after the January 19 hearing began, Local 61 questioned the Committee's authority to hear the case in view of an alleged agreement between the parties that discharge cases involving productivity were not to be resolved by arbitration. Raising a point of order,¹ Local 61 argued that UPS was precluded from defending Thompson's discharge on the ground that he had failed to meet production standards. The Committee then considered the issue in executive session. During the session, one management member moved to deny Local 61's point of order. Before the motion was seconded, however, the three union members left the room. They did not return that day.

The Committee reconvened on January 20, recommenced its executive session and resumed discussions regarding the productivity issue. Once again a management member moved to deny the point of order. The motion was seconded but, once again, the three union members left the room before a vote could be taken. When the arbitrator's efforts to get the three to return were unsuccessful, he ruled that their absence amounted to three votes to uphold Local 61's point of order and to dismiss the Thompson grievance on the basis that it involved productivity. The three management members then voted to deny the productivity point of order, creating a 3-3 deadlock. The arbitrator broke the deadlock by voting to deny the point of order and to proceed to the merits.

When the Committee reconvened on January 21 to hear the merits, two of the three union Committee members refused to participate in the hearing and remained instead in an adjoining room. Local 61 then raised a point of order that there was no quorum. The arbitrator again attempted to get the union members to participate and again he failed. Upon returning to the hearing room, the arbitrator stated that "we do not have, to my view, a properly constituted panel ... [b]ecause there are two [u]nion members absent, for whatever reason." JA 48. He recommended that "we proceed to put the record on tape ... [a]nd at such point as everybody's finished stating what their positions are we'll proceed, I guess, with however [UPS] determines that we can proceed." JA 48. UPS then raised a point of order asserting that the union Committee members' refusal to proceed violated Article 7 of the NMA, which provides in part that "[t]he [u]nion agrees it will not unreasonably delay the processing of [discharge or suspension] cases." NMA Article 7. UPS threatened to remove Thompson from the payroll but the remaining union Committee member objected that doing so would violate both the NMA and the Supplement. The Committee did not rule on the Article 7 point of order before adjourning.

A different five-member Committee convened on February 16 with two management members, two union members and the same arbitrator in attendance. When the Committee called the Thompson case, one union member refused to participate. Local 61 again raised a point of order that there was no quorum, although four of the five Committee members (two management members, one union member and the arbitrator) remained present. In executive session, the Committee denied Local 61's point of order. Local 61 then stated that it would not participate any further or be bound by any Committee decision, again insisting--in spite of the Committee's ruling to the contrary--that there was no quorum. When UPS began presenting its case, the remaining union Committee member left the hearing, echoing Local 61's objection that there was no quorum. After UPS's presentation, "the Panel ruled in favor of the Company," JA 54, and upheld Thompson's discharge, JA 120.

Local 61 sought in district court to vacate the Committee's decisions, arguing that both the January 20 decision to proceed and the February 16 decision on the merits were invalid because they were made without a quorum. On September 7, 2000 the district court granted UPS's motion for summary judgment.

II.

Our review of a district court's decision on a summary judgment motion is de novo. See Shields v. Eli Lilly & Co., 895 F.2d 1463, 1466 (D.C. Cir. 1990) ("Since pretrial summary judgment decisions are rendered exclusively on the basis of a 'paper' record, an appellate court is equally well-positioned as a trial judge to assess the evidence at issue."). We will affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment to UPS only if UPS has demonstrated in view of all the facts--and the reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to Local 61, the non-moving party--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." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323-24 (1986). Local 61 appeals the grant of summary judgment to UPS on three grounds.

First, Local 61 argues that the district court had the "broad authority" and even the duty to "scrutinize strictly" the Committee's January 20 decision to proceed because that decision was substantive, not procedural, and because it "seriously undermined the integrity of the arbitral process." Br. of Appellant at 17. We reject this contention.

It is well-settled that "the courts play only a limited role when asked to review the decision of an arbitrator." United Paperworkers Int'l Union, AFL-CIO v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 36 (1987). Indeed, we "are not authorized to reconsider the merits of an award even though the parties may allege that the award rests on errors of fact or on misinterpretation of the contract." Id.; see also United Steelworkers of Am. v. Enter. Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 596 (1960) ("The federal policy of settling labor disputes by arbitration would be undermined if courts had the final say on the merits of the awards."). We have repeatedly recognized that "judicial review of arbitral awards is extremely limited" and that we "do not sit to hear claims of factual or legal error by an arbitrator as [we would] in reviewing decisions of lower courts." Kanuth v. Prescott, Ball & Turben, Inc., 949 F.2d 1175, 1178 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (quoting Misco, 484 U.S. at 38). The United States Supreme Court recently reaffirmed these general principles, holding that "if an arbitrator is even arguably construing or applying the contract and acting within the scope of his authority, the fact that a court is convinced he committed serious error does not suffice to overturn his decision." Major League Baseball Players Ass'n v. Garvey, 532 U.S. 504, __, 121 S. Ct. 1724, 1728, 149 L. Ed. 2d 740 (2001) (per curiam) (internal quotations omitted) (emphasis added). Judicial deference to an arbitrator is broader still if the arbitrator's decision is a procedural one. See John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Livingston, 376 U.S. 543, 557 (1...