United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 770 v. Geldin Meat Co.

• Decision Date: 12 January 1994
• Docket Number: No. 92-55707,92-55707
• Citation: 13 F.3d 1365
• Parties: 145 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2206, 127 Lab.Cas. P 10,994, 17 Employee Benefits Cas. 1985 UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS UNION, LOCAL 770, Petitioner-Appellant, v. GELDIN MEAT COMPANY, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1365

13 F.3d 1365

145 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2206, 127 Lab.Cas. P 10,994,

17 Employee Benefits Cas. 1985

UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS UNION, LOCAL 770 Petitioner-Appellant, v. GELDIN MEAT COMPANY, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 92-55707.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Dec. 8, 1993.

Decided Jan. 12, 1994.

Henry M. Willis, Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrmann & Sommers, Los Angeles, CA, for petitioner-appellant.

Richard S. Rosenberg, Ballard, Rosenberg & Golper, Los Angeles, CA, for respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; David W. Williams, District Judge, Presiding.

Before: FLETCHER, PREGERSON, and HALL, Circuit Judges.

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge:

OVERVIEW

Appellant United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 770 ("the Union"), filed a petition to compel arbitration on March 16, 1992, to require Appellee Geldin Meat Company, Inc. ("Geldin") to arbitrate the Union's grievance concerning Geldin's alleged failure to provide its employees with health insurance as promised in the collective bargaining agreement. On March 26, 1992, the Union moved to compel arbitration and requested attorney's fees. ¹

The District Court denied the motion in an Order entered on May 22, 1992. The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to the Taft-Hartly Act Sec. 301, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 185. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. We reverse and remand to the District Court with instructions to compel arbitration.

BACKGROUND

The Union and Geldin were parties to a collective bargaining agreement ("CBA"), effective through February 24, 1993, which governed the terms and conditions of employment for various employee groups. Article XVI of the CBA provided in part that, "The Employer shall provide employees and their eligible dependents with coverage under a group medical insurance program providing for major medical, prescription drug, dental care and vision care benefits. Employer shall pay the entire cost of enrollment of employees in such programs." Geldin provided these benefits from December 1988 through December 1991, through the Teamsters Local 63 Family Health Services Trust Fund ("the Plan").

The Plan was a jointly trusteed ² employee benefit plan established through collective bargaining between Teamsters Local 63 and several employers in the meat industry, including Geldin. Joel Geldin, Plant Manager The Plan stopped paying employees' medical claims in December 1991. The Union filed a grievance on December 13, 1991, ³ protesting Geldin's selection of a plan that did not provide the medical benefits promised in Article XVI of the CBA. The grievance stated:

of Geldin Meat Company, was one of the employer trustees of the Plan. Neither the Union, nor any of its agents or representatives, had any part in the establishment or administration of the Plan.

Members are facing extreme hardship due to the fact that Employer does not offer adequate medical insurance. Members are not reimbursed for medical bills nor does the employer pay the medical expenses directly. Due to these circumstances, many members are facing collection agencies--their credit being consequently, destroyed. We are requesting that all eligible and outstanding bills be paid. Countless efforts have been made to solve these problems and no progress has been made.

The Union filed a Motion to Compel Arbitration in the District Court on March 26, 1992. The District Court denied the motion in an Order entered on May 22, 1992 on the ground that the dispute at issue was between the Union and the Pension Plan, a third party, not between the Union and Geldin.

ANALYSIS

Several sections of the CBA are significant to the resolution of the issues before us. Article III of the CBA provides a procedure for resolving employee grievances, culminating in final and binding arbitration. That Article provides in pertinent part:

Section A. Except as provided for in Article XII(A), no employee covered by this Agreement shall be demoted, suspended, dismissed or otherwise disciplined without just and sufficient cause. The maximum time of a suspension shall not exceed the balance of the workweek in which it occurs plus two (2) additional workweeks. Should any action by an Employer cause any employee covered by this Agreement to become aggrieved, such employee shall, in writing, make his complaint to the Union, within three (3) working days of said action by an Employer. Thereafter, in writing, the Union shall notify the Employer within five (5) working days of receiving said complaint from the aggrieved employee. Thereafter, the Union and the Employer shall have fifteen (15) working days in which to investigate and resolve said dispute.

Section B. If the dispute is not resolved within the time period set forth in Section A, then upon written approval of the Employer, the Union and the grievant, the Conciliation Service of the State of California or the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service shall be required to appoint a mediator to hear the dispute or recommend a settlement to the parties....

If either party or the grievant objects to the submission of the dispute to a mediator of either of the governmental agencies named above, the parties to this Agreement shall attempt to agree upon an arbitrator. If agreement cannot be reached, an arbitrator shall then be selected in accordance with Sections C, D and E.

If the parties do not resolve the dispute through the above procedures, then the Union may, within fifteen (15) days of the expiration of the investigation, demand that the dispute proceed to arbitration. Notice of the demand shall be given to the employer in writing.

CBA, Article III, Sections A, B (emphasis added).

The Union contends that the District Court overstepped its authority in deciding that the Union's grievance with Geldin was not arbitrable. Specifically, the Union asserts that the District Court could deny its motion to compel arbitration only by engaging in substantive contract interpretation. We review a District Court's denial of such motions de novo. McKinstry Co. v. Sheet Metal Workers' Local 16, 859 F.2d 1382, 1385 (9th Cir.1988).

The Supreme Court has stated unequivocally that the courts have no business determining the merits of a grievance under the guise of deciding questions of arbitrability under a collective bargaining agreement. United Steelworkers v. American Mfg. Co., 363 U.S. 564, 569, 80 S.Ct. 1343, 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1403 (1960); AT & T Technologies, Inc. v. Communication Workers of America, 475 U.S. 643, 649-50, 106 S.Ct. 1415, 1418-19, 89 L.Ed.2d 648 (1986). The courts have the duty only to determine whether a party has breached its promise to arbitrate. United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1353, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409 (1960). Although a party is not required to submit disputes to arbitration which the party has not agreed to submit, id.,

the judicial inquiry ... must be strictly confined to the question whether the reluctant party did agree to arbitrate.... An order to arbitrate the particular grievance should not be denied unless it may be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted dispute. Doubts should be resolved in favor of coverage.

Id. at 582-83, 80 S.Ct. at 1353 (emphasis added).

Geldin opposes the Union's attempts to compel arbitration on two grounds. First, Geldin contends that it did not agree to submit any issues to arbitration outside the realm of grievances concerning employee disciplinary action. Geldin points to the language and sentence structure of Article III, Section A as proof that only disputes concerning employee discipline are arbitrable. ⁴ Geldin asserts that a plain reading of this language shows that only disciplinary actions are at issue, because the language addressing grievance procedures immediately follows the language addressing employee disciplinary actions. Although the District Court did not directly decide this issue, the court appears to have accepted Geldin's argument that the Union's proposed interpretation "would fly in the face of well-recognized principles of contract interpretation which require the court to provide meaning to each and every provision." (ER at 83) (citations omitted).

Herein lies the rub. We are unpersuaded that Geldin has met its burden of establishing with "positive assurance" that Section A is not susceptible of an interpretation covering this dispute. The Union contends that the language in Section A, "Should any action by an Employer cause any employee covered by this Agreement to become aggrieved...." refers to any action by the employer, not just the disciplinary disputes referred to earlier in the section. We agree with the Union that Section A is readily susceptible to an interpretation that it was intended to cover any dispute not specifically excluded in the CBA, and thus falls squarely within the ambit contemplated by the Supreme Court in Warrior & Gulf. Further inquiry would require us to delve into an area of contract interpretation which the Supreme Court has clearly mandated as the arbitrator's realm. Warrior & Gulf, 363 U.S. at 582-83, 80 S.Ct. at 1353.

Moreover, as the Union points out, Section G provides additional grievance procedures necessary for the resolution of wage disputes, which are not disciplinary issues.

Section G. Grievances involving wages or other money costs to the Employer must be filed within thirty (30) calendar days after the cause or event giving rise to the grievance, and such wage and money claims shall not be valid and collectible for a period earlier than one (1) year prior to the date of filing of the grievance or complaint with the Employer.

CBA, Article III, Section G. This section further supports the Union's position that the grievance procedure reaches beyond the issue of employee...