Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-23-07018/USCOURTS-caDC-23-07018-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen
Appellee
National Railroad Passenger Corporation
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 14, 2023 Decided September 24, 2024

No. 23-7018

BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD SIGNALMEN,

APPELLEE

v.

NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:22-cv-00841)

Donald J. Munro argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellant.

Richard S. Edelman argued the cause and filed the brief 

for appellee.

Before: HENDERSON, MILLETT and PILLARD, Circuit 

Judges.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: In 2017, the 

Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (the Union)—the 

designated bargaining representative for National Railroad 

Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) employees who perform 

signal and communications work—initiated proceedings in 

federal district court contesting Amtrak’s refusal to commit to 

using Union-represented signalmen in a newly acquired 

building. The district court sent the case to mandatory 

arbitration under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 45 U.S.C. 

§ 151 et seq. The National Railroad Adjustment Board (the 

Board) dismissed the claim, concluding that it did not have 

jurisdiction because the Union was seeking relief based on 

hypothetical facts. On review, the district court vacated the 

award and remanded for further proceedings, holding that the 

Board did not consider or interpret the parties’ agreement.

Amtrak appeals the district court’s vacatur, arguing that 

the award should be upheld under the highly deferential 

judicial standard of review because the award is at least 

arguably based on rail industry common law incorporated in 

the parties’ agreement and on Rule 56 of the collective 

bargaining agreement. Even under that limited standard of 

review, we affirm the district court and find that the arbitral 

award should be vacated because the award did not decide the 

dispute based on the parties’ contract; instead it relied on legal 

principles governing federal courts’ subject-matter 

jurisdiction, a matter wholly outside the scope of the Board’s 

authority. 

I. BACKGROUND

In 2015, Amtrak acquired the Railway Express Agency 

(REA) Building in Washington, D.C., in connection with a 

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planned expansion to Union Station. The Union asserted that 

communication and signal work in the REA Building should 

accrue to its members; Amtrak refused to commit to that 

position and argued the collective bargaining agreement did not 

cover the REA Building.

In 2017, the Union filed a complaint in federal district 

court alleging that Amtrak had violated the collective 

bargaining agreement by refusing to assign work in the REA 

Building to Union signalmen. Bhd. of R.R. Signalmen v. Nat’l 

R.R. Passenger Corp., 310 F. Supp. 3d 131, 137 (D.D.C. 2018) 

(Signalmen I). Amtrak moved to dismiss for lack of 

jurisdiction, arguing that the dispute was “minor” under the 

RLA and therefore subject to binding arbitration. Def.’s Mem.

at 1, ECF No. 7-1, Signalmen I, 310 F. Supp. 3d 131 (No. 17-

1287). The district court agreed with Amtrak and dismissed 

the case. Signalmen I, 310 F. Supp. 3d at 138-141.

The Union then set out on the arbitration path and grieved, 

by letter, Amtrak’s alleged violation of the collective 

bargaining agreement. Amtrak responded that the grievance 

was “procedurally defective” because it failed to identify 

specific allegations, claimants and remedies. J.A. 174. After 

further correspondence, the Union submitted the matter for 

arbitration before the Board. The parties submitted written 

briefs and supporting materials and Amtrak argued for 

dismissal on several grounds, including lack of jurisdiction, 

procedural defects and failure on the merits.

On December 15, 2021, the Board issued Award 

No. 44649 dismissing the Union’s claim. The Board 

summarized the parties’ positions, including Amtrak’s 

contention “that the Claim must be dismissed because it is 

procedurally defective; the original Claim named no 

Claimants; identified no specific work and requested no 

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monetary relief.” J.A. 17. But “[m]ore importantly,” the Board 

explained, “the original claim requests what is essentially a 

declaratory judgment, inasmuch as the statement of claim now 

before the Board is asking for future work to be assigned to 

[Union] members.” J.A. 18. The Board continued:

The Board does not have jurisdiction to 

interpret and apply the Agreement to future 

situations, the facts of which are unknown. 

Declaratory judgments and injunctive relief are 

beyond the jurisdiction of the Board, whose 

“function is to resolve claims arising from 

established or determinable facts and issues.” 

PLB No. 1202, Award No. 1. . . .

The Board agrees with the Carrier [Amtrak] that 

the claim is a request for an advisory opinion 

and is therefore beyond the Board’s jurisdiction.

It is a fundamental principle of jurisprudence—

something that first-year law students learn in 

the first semester of Civil Procedure—that there 

must be a case in controversy before a lawsuit 

can be filed; the fact that an entity might do 

something in violation of a contract is not 

enough to establish a right to sue for breach of 

that contract. In this claim, there is no 

contention and no evidence that the Carrier has 

assigned any communications work at the REA 

Building to anyone, much less to non-[Union]-

represented employees.

The Organization [Union] is asking the Board 

to rule on a hypothetical set of facts that has yet 

to materialize. The Board’s jurisdiction is 

limited to actual controversies between the 

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parties. Until such a controversy arises, the 

Board must dismiss the claim before it.

J.A. 18 (emphasis added).

The Union responded by filing a petition in the district 

court seeking review and vacatur of the arbitral award. The 

parties cross-filed motions for summary judgment. Amtrak 

argued that the award should be affirmed because it interpreted 

the parties’ agreement, rather than defending it on the 

jurisdictional ground it raised before the Board. The district 

court noted the “exceedingly high” burden to vacate an arbitral 

award but faulted the award for (1) failing to acknowledge or 

cite to the collective bargaining agreement and (2) 

contradicting itself as to the basis for its jurisdictional 

conclusion because the award stated at the outset that it “ha[d] 

jurisdiction” but later concluded that the claim was “beyond the 

Board’s jurisdiction.” Bhd. of R.R. Signalmen v. Nat’l R.R. 

Passenger Corp., 2023 WL 1469498, at *2-3 (D.D.C. Feb. 2, 

2023) (Signalmen II). “Because the Court [could ]not conclude 

that the Board considered and interpreted the parties’ 

agreement, and because Amtrak d[id] not defend the award on 

jurisdictional grounds,” the district court vacated the award and 

remanded for further proceedings. Id. at *3. This appeal 

followed.1

1 At oral argument, neither party could speak to whether there 

is currently any signalmen work being done at the REA Building. 

Counsel for the Union stated that the Union does not have “any role” 

in the REA Building, Oral Arg. Tr. 37:24-38:25, and counsel for 

Amtrak stated that he had no knowledge as to the current status of 

the building based on the record, Oral Arg. Tr. 40:25-42:15.

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II. ANALYSIS

Under Section 3 First (q), an arbitral award “may be set 

aside, in whole or in part, or remanded to the division, for 

failure of the division [of the Board] to comply with the 

requirements of [the RLA], for failure of the order to conform, 

or confine itself, to matters within the scope of the division’s 

jurisdiction, or for fraud or corruption by a member of the 

division making the order.” 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (q). 

Our review is “very limited”: “[I]f 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, 509 (2001) (per curiam) (cleaned up); see also 

Nw. Airlines, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Ass’n, Int’l, 808 F.2d 76, 

80 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (judicial standard of review of arbitral 

awards is “amongst the narrowest known to the law” (quotation 

omitted)). Our inquiry “is not whether the arbitrator or 

arbitrators erred in interpreting the contract; it is not whether 

they clearly erred in interpreting the contract; it is not whether 

they grossly erred in interpreting the contract; it is whether they 

interpreted the contract.” Hill v. Norfolk & W. Ry. Co., 814 

F.2d 1192, 1195 (7th Cir. 1987).

An exceedingly narrow standard of review does not mean, 

however, that anything goes. See Verizon Washington, D.C. 

Inc. v. Commc’ns Workers of Am., AFL-CIO, 571 F.3d 1296, 

1304 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (Henderson, J., concurring). The arbitral 

award “must draw its essence from the contract and cannot 

simply reflect the arbitrator’s own notions of industrial 

justice.” United Paperworkers Int’l Union, AFL-CIO v. Misco, 

Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 38 (1987). As this Court explained in 

American Postal Workers Union v. U.S. Postal Service, an 

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arbitral award does not draw its essence from the contract “[i]f 

the arbitrator . . . rendered a judgment based on external legal 

sources, wholly without regard to the terms of the parties’ 

contract.” 789 F.2d 1, 8 (D.C. Cir. 1986). 

This case presents the rare circumstance in which the 

Board has wholly disregarded the parties’ contract and 

improperly based its arbitral award on external legal principles. 

Thus, the Board’s award warrants vacatur, as the district court 

concluded.

The arbitral award summarized the parties’ arguments but 

then found a lack of jurisdiction based on the “fundamental 

principle of jurisprudence—something that first-year law 

students learn in the first semester of Civil Procedure—that 

there must be a case in controversy before a lawsuit can be 

filed.” J.A. 18. There was no reference to the contract in 

reaching this conclusion and therefore no indication that the 

Board “looked to and relied on the proper sources of [its] 

authority.” U.S. Postal Serv. v. Am. Postal Workers Union, 553 

F.3d 686, 695-96 (D.C. Cir. 2009). The Board failed to even 

“purport to be interpreting the contract.” Madison Hotel v. 

Hotel & Rest. Emps., Loc. 25, AFL-CIO, 144 F.3d 855, 859 

(D.C. Cir. 1998) (en banc) (alteration omitted) (quoting Util. 

Workers Union of Am., Loc. 246, AFL-CIO v. N.L.R.B., 39 F.3d 

1210, 1216 (D.C. Cir. 1994)). 

Instead, the Board invoked principles related to federal 

courts’ subject-matter jurisdiction and Article III standing, 

legal principles wholly external to the parties’ contract and 

beyond the scope of the Board’s decisionmaking power. In our

reading, the Board did not simply “analogize” to federal courts’ 

subject-matter jurisdiction, but rather relied upon federal 

jurisdiction principles to conclude that it cannot “rule on a 

hypothetical set of facts that has yet to materialize,” J.A. 18. 

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The award discussed a supposed “case in [sic] controversy” 

requirement grounded in the “fundamental principle[s] of 

jurisprudence” taught in law school, without reference to any 

Board procedural rule or regulation. See J.A. 18. The Board’s 

reliance on constitutional limits regarding federal courts’ 

subject-matter jurisdiction to decline to arbitrate the grievance 

on its merits is contrary to Supreme Court precedent and 

verboten under our standard of review. 

In Union Pacific Railroad Co. v. Brotherhood of 

Locomotive Engineers, the Supreme Court addressed the 

differences between jurisdictional rules, which can never be 

forfeited or waived because they affect the tribunal’s power to 

hear a case, and claim-processing rules, which are forfeitable 

even if obligatory and often take the form of pleading 

instructions. 558 U.S. 67, 81-85 (2009). The Congress has 

defined the Board’s jurisdiction to include “all disputes 

between carriers and their employees ‘growing out of 

grievances or out of the interpretation or application of 

agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or working 

conditions.’” Id. at 82 (quoting Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W.R. 

Co., 339 U.S. 239, 240 (1950)). The Supreme Court in Union 

Pacific recognized that the Board may promulgate and enforce 

procedural claim-processing rules but found that it has “no 

authority to adopt rules of jurisdictional dimension,” meaning 

that it cannot alter the jurisdiction set by statute. Id. at 84. It 

follows, then, that the Board may validly decline to resolve a 

grievance if it violates a procedural rule but may not decline to 

do so on jurisdictional grounds if the grievance falls within the 

Board’s statutory jurisdiction.

Here, the grievance was premised on a dispute over 

whether the parties’ contract extended to work in the REA 

Building, meaning it arose from a disagreement as to the 

meaning of the contract. The matter, then, fell squarely within 

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the jurisdiction the Congress assigned to the Board. See

45 U.S.C. § 153 First (i) (granting the Board jurisdiction of, 

inter alia, “disputes . . . growing out of the interpretation or 

application of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or 

working conditions”).

An arbitrator may, in the course of interpreting a contract, 

consider industry common law, which includes other arbitral 

awards. See Transp.-Commc’n Emp. Union v. Union Pac.

R.R., 385 U.S. 157, 161 (1966); Pan Am. Airways Corp. v. Air 

Line Pilots Assoc., Int’l, 206 F. Supp. 2d 12, 21 (D.D.C. 2002), 

aff’d, 62 Fed. App’x 356 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (per curiam). But in 

this case, the Board looked to arbitral precedent for a mistaken 

jurisdictional principle, not to determine industry common law. 

The cited award, Award No. 1, Public Law Board No. 1202, 

appears to be a decision made on jurisdictional grounds and 

does not invoke industry practice or custom. Nor does that 

precedent rely on or establish a procedural claim-processing 

rule. The cited award dismissed the dispute “for lack of 

jurisdiction” because:

the exhibits do not serve to create an actual 

dispute where none exists and thus we are called 

upon to interpret and apply the agreement to 

future situations whose facts and issues are not 

yet known. The Board’s function is to resolve 

claims arising from established or determinable 

facts and issues. The confronting protest does 

not present such a claim.

J.A. 90-91. But the Board does not decide the limits of its 

“function”; the Congress does. See Union Pac., 558 U.S. at 84. 

Because the Board cannot adopt jurisdictional rules, Award 

No. 1, Public Law Board No. 1202, cannot sustain the award.

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Moreover, even when arbitrators look to industry common 

law and arbitral precedent, they must do so in service of 

interpreting the contract. Our court has observed that an 

arbitrator “may ‘look for guidance from many sources,’” Nat’l 

Postal Mail Handlers Union v. Am. Postal Workers Union, 589 

F.3d 437, 443 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (quoting United Steelworkers 

of Am. v. Enter. Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 597 (1960)), 

relying on Supreme Court language to that effect. The full rule 

announced by the Supreme Court, however, is that the 

arbitrator “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.” 

United Steelworkers of Am., 363 U.S. at 597. An arbitral award 

may be affirmed if the arbitrator uses outside legal sources in 

order to interpret the parties’ contract. See Pan Am., 206 F. 

Supp. 2d at 21-22 (affirming arbitral award because the Board 

properly “surveyed the industry common law and reviewed 

other arbitration decisions applying just cause provisions” “in 

an effort to inform itself and illuminate the contours of the just 

cause provision” in the parties’ contract); Nat’l Postal Mail 

Handlers Union, 589 F.3d at 440 (affirming arbitral award 

because the Board used a “substantive background principle of 

law,” the common law doctrine of continuing violations, “for 

help in construing the agreement”). Conversely, an arbitral 

award using legal sources unmoored from the parties’ contract 

exceeds the Board’s authority, as the award “cannot simply 

reflect the arbitrator’s own notions of industrial justice.” 

Misco, 484 U.S. at 38.

Here, the Board relied upon principles of Article III 

jurisdiction to dismiss the Union’s grievance as beyond “[t]he 

Board’s jurisdiction,” J.A. 18, with no reference to the parties’ 

contract. Its single citation to arbitral precedent on 

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jurisdictional rules—rules that the Board has no authority to 

create—manifests that, far from interpreting the contract, it was 

applying its own notion of industrial justice. Our standard of 

review means that our inquiry boils down to “whether [the 

arbitrator] interpreted the contract.” Hill, 814 F.2d at 1195. 

Reviewing this arbitral award, we believe the answer is no.

In its submission to us, Amtrak advanced a position more 

restrictive than even our highly limited standard of review, 

contending that we must affirm the award unless either there is 

an explicit indication that the Board is not engaged in contract 

interpretation or, it seems, Amtrak cannot make a single nonsanctionable argument in favor of it. See Oral Arg. Tr. 10:23-

11:3 (Amtrak counsel: “if . . . you would not sanction me for 

arguing that this arbitrator was relying on those contractual 

principles as opposed to an Article 3 standard or some statutory 

basis, then the Court should affirm the award”). Amtrak’s 

position would wholly undermine judicial review of arbitral 

awards. Although the Board need not explain its reasoning at 

all, a reviewing court may of course review any reasoning it 

provides for its decision under the appropriate standard of 

review. Amtrak’s position also elides the fact that we do have

a sufficient indication that the Board did not interpret the 

contract. According to the text of the award, the Board based 

its decision on the jurisprudential principle of Article III 

jurisdiction, not on any contractual provision—whether 

express or implied as a matter of industry common law. There 

is, then, no “permissible route to the stated conclusion” that we 

can glean from the award. Sargent v. Paine Webber Jackson 

& Curtis, Inc., 882 F.2d 529, 532 (D.C. Cir. 1989). Vacatur is 

therefore the proper remedy.

Amtrak also argues that Rule 56 of the parties’ agreement, 

cited in the Union’s original claim, provides a contractual basis 

for the award because it requires that grievances or claims must 

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be presented “by the employee or on his behalf” within 60 days 

“from the date of the occurrence on which the grievance or 

claim is based.” J.A. 372. The Board, however, never 

mentioned Rule 56 and neither party suggested in arbitration 

that Rule 56 should be read to preclude grievances that do not 

name “the employee” as somehow hypothetical. We believe 

vacatur is proper here, where the Board “simply ignore[d] the 

contract,” Madison Hotel, 144 F.3d at 859.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district 

court vacating the arbitral award is affirmed. The case is 

remanded to the district court with instructions to remand to the 

National Railroad Adjustment Board for proceedings 

consistent with the opinion herein.

So ordered.

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