TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION v. Maremont Corp.

• Decision Date: 25 November 1980
• Docket Number: No. C-2-78-1242.,C-2-78-1242.
• Citation: 515 F. Supp. 168
• Parties: TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 284, et al., Plaintiffs, v. MAREMONT CORPORATION, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio

515 F. Supp. 168

TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 284, et al., Plaintiffs, v. MAREMONT CORPORATION, Defendant.

No. C-2-78-1242.

United States District Court, S. D. Ohio, E. D.

November 25, 1980.

Bruce E. Pence, Dayton, Ohio, for plaintiffs.

James R. Moats, Columbus, Ohio, Gerald A. Golden, Chicago, Ill., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

DUNCAN, District Judge.

This action was brought by plaintiff Teamsters Local Union No. 284 (hereinafter "union") pursuant to § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 185 and 9 U.S.C. § 9. The plaintiff union seeks enforcement of the arbitration award of Arbitrator Charles P. Chapman, Esq., dated October 18, 1978. The award determined that the five grievants who had engaged in an illegal wildcat strike were entitled to reinstatement without backpay. Maremont Corporation (hereinafter "company") has refused to comply with the arbitrator's award.

This matter is before the Court on the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56. The Court is satisfied that the case presents no genuine issue as to any material fact, and that the case is therefore appropriate for summary judgment.

1. Background

The arbitrator determined that on May 1, 1978, the 13 day-shift employees left the plant at 11:00 a. m. on their normal lunch break. Some of these employees then set up a picket line at the entrance to the driveway leading from Norton Road to the defendant's plant. The pickets did not return to work at 11:30 a. m. when the lunch period was over.

At 11:40 a. m., union representatives who had heard of the illegal walkout appeared at the company offices and then proceeded to the picket line and ordered the employees back to work. The grievants (plaintiffs herein), however, did not return to work with the other employees. Some effort was made to urge the grievants to return to work that afternoon, but they did not in fact return until the next morning. When they returned for work, they were told that their employment had been terminated. They then filed individual grievances.

The arbitrator concluded that the walkout was illegal and that the company did not act toward the grievants in a discriminatory, capricious or unreasonable manner. He therefore concluded that the company had just cause to discharge the grievants.

The arbitrator, however, also found that the company had not afforded the grievants and union the "contractual due process" to which they were entitled under the contract and that reinstatement without backpay was therefore appropriate. The arbitrator's failure of contractual due process theory was premised on Article IX of the collective bargaining agreement between the parties.

Article IX-DISCHARGE provides in pertinent part:

Section 1. Should the Company discharge an employee for any cause, it shall first notify the Union thereof, in writing, and a conference shall be held between the Union and the Company within 72 hours. If no agreement is reached, the Company shall have the right to discharge the employee and the Union shall have the right to contest the discharge in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement.

With reference to the procedural requirements set out above, the arbitrator found:

The decision to discharge the grievants was made by the Company sometime in the late afternoon of May 1, 1978. Neither the Union nor the grievants were notified. The grievants found out when they reported for work. The meeting that was held on May 3 was primarily to discuss and iron out the reasons for the discharge of the grievants. There was no evidence produced to show that the parties had waived the procedural requirements of Article IX or that there were valid reasons for not following the agreed procedure. There is no other language in the contract that gives the Company the right to summarily discharge any employee. The import of Article IX is to suspend pending discharge until the Union has been notified in writing of the Company's intent and a conference is held with the Union within 72 hours. ... Thus, the discharges must be set aside because the Company did not follow the agreed upon procedure.

2. The Court's Standard of Review

The seminal case of Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960), carefully defined the limited review to be exercised by Federal District Courts in proceedings to enforce an arbitration award.

The refusal of courts to review the merits of an arbitration award is the proper approach to arbitration under collective bargaining agreements. The federal policy of settling labor disputes by arbitration would be undermined if courts had the final say on the merits of the awards. As we stated in United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., ante 363 U.S., p. 574 80 S.Ct. p. 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409, decided this day, the arbitrators under these collective agreements are indispensable agencies in a continuous collective bargaining process. They sit to settle disputes at the plant level — disputes that require for their solution knowledge of the custom and practices of a particular factory or of a particular industry as reflected in particular agreements. 363 U.S. at 596, 80 S.Ct. at 1360.

Suggesting possible limitations on enforcement of the arbitrator's award, the Enterprise Wheel decision further explained:

Nevertheless, an arbitrator is confined to interpretation and application of the collective bargaining agreement; he does not sit to dispense his own brand of industrial justice. He may of course look for guidance from many sources, yet his award is legitimate only so long as it draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement. When the arbitrator's words manifest an infidelity to this obligation, courts have no choice but to refuse enforcement of the award.

363 U.S. at 597, 80 S.Ct. at 1361.

The Sixth Circuit's view of the limited role of judicial review was expressed in Timken Co. v. Steelworkers, 492 F.2d 1178 (6th Cir. 1974) and Falls Stamping & Welding Co. v. UAW, 575 F.2d 1191 (6th Cir. 1978).

With this limited review in mind, the Court now turns to the arguments of the defendant company which seeks to vacate the arbitrator's award.

3. The Company's Challenge to the Arbitrator's Award

The company's first argument is that the arbitrator exceeded the scope of the question submitted to him and the resulting award is therefore unenforceable. The arbitrator stated the issue in his opinion and award as follows: "Did the company have just cause to discharge or discipline the grievants." The company argues that the arbitrator's affirmative response to the above question precluded the arbitrator from considering compliance with the contractual due process provisions of the contract. The company supports its position by citation of authorities holding that if the arbitrator exceeds the scope of the submission to him, his authority is at an end. Lee v. Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp., 271 F.Supp. 635, 639 (W.D.Va.1967); Local 791, International Union of Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers, AFL-CIO v. Magnavox Co., 286 F.2d 465 (6th Cir. 1960); Timken Co. v. Local Union No. 1123, United Steelworkers of America, 482 F.2d 1012 (6th Cir. 1973).

While this Court has no quarrel with the requirement that the arbitrator cannot decide issues not submitted to him, it is not every minor deviation from the language of the submission that will warrant a declaration that the arbitrator exceeded his jurisdiction. In the present case the grievances before the arbitrator were drafted by the grievants themselves. The grievances were as follows:

Earl Pope: I feel that I was unjustly dismissed for taking part in a wildcat strike on the first (1) day of May 1978 and supposedly not returning when told by the union.

Godfrey Ludaway: I want sic unjustly fired on 5/2/78.

Raymond C. Bolognone: I feel that I was unjustly discharged 5/2/78.

Rufus A. Wright: I was fired unjustly. 5/2/78.

William Bates: I was fired for unfair justification on 5/2/78.

The informality of the above grievances should be contrasted to the submission at issue in a decision cited by the company, Lee v. Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp., 271 F.Supp. at 637:

Two issues were submitted to the arbitrator:

1. "Does the company's (Olin's) refusal to permit terminated nonbargaining unit employees to return to the bargaining unit raise an arbitrable issue under the current labor agreement?"

2. "If so, does the Company's refusal to allow them to return to the bargaining unit constitute a violation of Article V, § 18?"

The collective bargaining agreement involved in Lee provided that the arbitrator's "jurisdiction to make an award shall be limited by the submission and confined to the interpretation of this Agreement. ..." 271 F.Supp. at 638. Faced with the specific submission set out above and the express language of the agreement respecting the arbitrator's strict adherence to the submission, the Lee court correctly held that the arbitrator had exceeded his authority and refused to enforce the arbitrator's award.

The facts in this case, however, stand in sharp contrast to those in Lee. The grievances here were drafted by the grievants. The fact that the grievants did not expressly mention the failure to comply with the procedural requirements of Article IX is not surprising. Procedural defects may not be easily recognizable to a lay person.

This Court is satisfied that a layman's grievance expressing that he was unjustly discharged is adequate to give the company notice and the arbitrator jurisdiction to determine compliance with the procedural requirements of the agreement. Assuming arguendo that there is some deviation between the grievances set out above and the procedural issue upon which the arbitrator relied, the Court is satisfied that the deviance is not so extreme as to divest the arbitrator of jurisdiction to decide the procedural issue.

The Court is also...