1 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

FORT WORTH DIVISION 

ROBERT (BOB) ROSS, § 

 Plaintiff/Counterclaim Defendant, § 

§ 

v. § Civil Action No. 4:22-CV-00343-Y 

§ 

ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL § 

FLIGHT ATTENDANTS, et al., § 

 Defendants/Counterclaim Plaintiff. § 

__________________________________________________________________________ 

EUGENIO VARGAS, § 

 Plaintiff/Counterclaim Defendant, § 

§ 

v. § Civil Action No. 4:22-CV-00430-Y 

§ 

ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL § 

FLIGHT ATTENDANTS, et al. § 

 Defendants/Counterclaim Plaintiff. § 

SURREPLY TO PLAINTIFFS’ REPLIES TO THE UNION DEFENDANTS’S 

RESPONSES TO PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION TO VACATE ORDER AND 

FOR LEAVE TO FILE AMENDED COMPLAINTS, AND 

 REPLY TO PLAINTIFF ROSS’S RESPONSE TO MOTION TO STAY DISCOVERY 

Defendants Counterclaim Plaintiff Association of Professional Flight Attendants 

(“APFA”), Julie Hedrick and Erik Harris (collectively “Union Defendants”) respectfully submit 

this surreply1 and response brief to both: 

1. The replies by Plaintiffs Ross and Vargas (Ross Doc. 62; Vargas Doc. 60) 2 to the 

responses by the Union Defendants (Ross Doc.58; Vargas Doc. 57) to Plaintiffs’ 

1 Contemporaneously with the filing of this surreply and response brief the Union Defendants 

have filed a motion for leave to file a surreply to Ross’s and Vargas’s replies (Ross Doc. 62; 

Vargas Doc. 60) to the Union Defendants responses (Ross Doc. 58; Vargas Doc. 57) limited to 

addressing the new arguments first raised by Ross and Vargas in those reply briefs. 

2

 Citation to the docketed filings in Ross v. APFA, et al, No. 4:22-CV-00343-Y will be made by 

“Ross Doc. __” and to the docketed filings in Vargas v. APFA, et al., No. 4:22-CV-00430-Y by 

Vargas Doc. __” where the number referenced will be to the ECF docket number of the 

document cited to in each case. 
2 

motions (Ross Doc. 55; Vargas Doc. 55), to vacate the Court’s Orders (Ross Doc. 

51; Vargas Doc. 52) dismissing their claims to vacate the arbitration decisions 

against them and for leave to file amended complaints; and 

2. The response by Ross (Ross Doc. 61) to APFA’s motion to stay discovery (Ross 

Doc 54). 

 This single, combined surreply and response is submitted because those submissions by Ross 

and Vargas share the same baseless and objectionable arguments, newly asserted therein, and are 

subject to being stricken by the Court as improper surreply submissions to which the Union 

Defendants have had no opportunity to respond, absent leave being granted for them to file 

surreply briefs. 

As previously noted in the Union Defendants’ responses in opposition to the motions by 

Ross and Vargas to dismiss APFA’s counterclaims to enforce the arbitration decisions against 

them, their briefs were objectionable because they raised new post hoc arguments in response to 

APFA’s already pending and fully submitted motions to enforce the arbitration decisions, and 

were therefore thinly disguised surreply briefs filed in violation of the Court’s Rules (Ross Doc. 

60 at p. 6, fn. 8; Vargas Doc. 59 at p. 6, fn. 8).3 (See also the Union Defendants’ motions to file 

surreply briefs or, in the alternative, to strike new arguments, filed contemporaneously herewith 

(Ross Doc. __, pp. __ ; Vargas Doc. __, pp. __ )) 

3

 The newly invented arguments previously asserted by Ross and Vargas in their motions to 

dismiss APFA’s counterclaim were specious as well as untimely: that LMRA Section 301(a) was 

inapplicable as jurisdiction to enforce the arbitration decisions because APFA was not affiliated 

with its subordinate local union Base Councils, a claim that was refuted by the APFA 

Constitution and the Department of Labor regulations cited by Ross and Vargas. See Response 

by APFA in Opposition to Motions to Dismiss (Ross Doc. 60 at p. 5, fn. 7; Vargas Doc. 59 at p. 

5, fn. 7). 
3 

Plaintiffs Ross and Vargas then immediately proceeded to file two more pleadings -- a 

response by Ross to the Union Defendants’ motion to stay discovery (Ross Doc. 61) and replies 

by Ross and Vargas to the Union Defendants’ responses in opposition to their motions to vacate 

the Court’s dismissal orders and to amend their Complaints (Ross Doc. 62; Vargas Doc. 60). 

These new submissions not only failed to note or respond to the Union Defendants’ objection to 

their previous assertions of brand-new arguments for the first time in surreply opposition to 

APFA’s pending and fully briefed motions for summary judgment to enforce the arbitration 

decisions, but continued to violate that same prohibition. 

Specifically, Ross and Vargas now assert, for the first time in these recently filed reply 

briefs, that the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Adams-Lundy v. APFA, 792 F.2d 1368 (5th Cir. 1994), 

is preclusive of APFA’s counterclaim to enforce the arbitration decisions and requires vacating 

this Court’s dismissal orders as being “entered in error.” (Ross Doc. 61 at pp. 3-4; Ross Doc 62 

at p. 3, 6-7; Vargas Doc. 60 at p. 3, 6). Even a casual reading of the Adams-Lundy case exposes 

that it is categorically inapposite here. The jurisdictional basis for enforcing the arbitration 

decisions against Ross and Vargas is LMRA Section 301(a), 29 U.S.C. §185(a), and the AdamsLundy decision arose entirely under Section 101 of the LMRDA, 29 U.S.C. §411, and does not 

even reference, let alone purport to interpret LMRA Section 301(a). 792 F.2d at 1370.4

4

 The only other decision cited by Ross and Vargas in support of dismissing the Section 301(a) 

counterclaim for enforcing the arbitration decisions against them, Martin v. Local 556, Transp. 

Workers of America, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122755, 2014 WL 4358480 at *8-9 (N.D. Tex. 

2014) (J. Fitzwater), is no source of legal relief for them either. The court dismissed the Section 

301(a) claim in that case “... because an alleged violation of a labor contract violation is 

necessary to support subject matter jurisdiction and plaintiffs have not alleged such a 

violation...” [emphasis added]. In contrast here, APFA’s counterclaims to enforce the 

arbitrations against Ross and Vargas is as an alleged violation of the APFA Constitution, a 

“contract[] ... between ... labor organizations” under LMRA Section 301(a). 
4 

Ironically, the newly presented arguments made by Ross and Vargas – the actual holding 

in Adams-Lundy that Section 101 of the LMRDA is inapplicable as a basis for review of 

arbitration decisions – are actually self-defeating. This is precisely the same legal principle 

advanced by the Union Defendants in defeating their earlier attempts to invoke the LMRDA as 

support for vacating the arbitration decisions against them,5 and only reaffirms the legal basis for 

the Court’s Orders dismissing those LMRDA claims. 

CONCLUSION 

Ross and Vargas have now repeatedly attempted to reconstruct and bolster their 

oppositions to APFA’s pending motions for summary judgement to enforce the arbitration 

decisions against them nearly a month after those motions were fully briefed to the Court. The 

“new” legal arguments they raise are both factually and legally baseless. The Court can simply 

reject these post hoc submissions or strike them from the record, but even if they had been timely 

submitted, they would not have provided Ross and Vargas with any additional legal support. 

The arbitration decisions are properly before the Court for review and under the deferential 

standard governing judicial review of arbitration decisions they should be enforced. 

Date: December 8, 2022 Respectfully Submitted, 

/s/ Sanford R. Denison

SANFORD R. DENISON 

Tex. Bar No. 05655560 

Baab & Denison, LLP 

6301 Gaston Ave., Suite 550 

Dallas, TX 75214 

Tel.: (214) 637-0750; Fax.: (214) 637-0730 

Email: denison@baabdenison.com 

5 Ross and Vargas even cite to one of the same precedents relied upon by the Union Defendants 

in obtaining dismissal of their attempts to vacate the arbitration decisions: Guidry v. Operating 

Engineers Local 406, 907 F. 2d 1491 (5th Cir. 1990). Compare Ross Doc. 62 at p. 4, fn. 8, 

Vargas Doc. 60 at p. 4, fn. 8, and Ross Doc. 27 at p.7, Vargas Doc. 24, p. 7. 
5 

WILLIAM W. OSBORNE JR.* 

D.C. Bar No. 912089 

Osborne Law Offices P.C. 

5335 Wisconsin Avenue N.W., Suite 440 

Washington, D.C. 20015 

Tel.: (202) 243-3200; Fax: (202) 686-2977 

Email: b.osborne@osbornelaw.com 

Counsel for Defendant Counterclaim Plaintiff 

Association of Professional Flight Attendants, and 

Defendants Julie Hedrick and Erik Harris 

*Admitted Pro Hac Vice

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 

I certify that on this 8th day of December, 2022 a true and correct copy of the foregoing 

document was served on the below listed counsel of record for Plaintiff/Counterclaim Defendant 

Ross by a means permitted by Rule 5(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“F.R.C.P.”). 

KERRI PHILLIPS 

HEATHER ABREU 

K.D. Phillips Law Firm, PLLC 

5700 Tennyson Parkway, Suite 300 

Plano, Texas 75024 

Phone: (972) 327-5800 

Fax: (940) 400-0089 

Email: kerri@KDphillipslaw.com 

Email: Heather@KDphillipslaw.com 

MICHAEL R RAKE 

Michael R. Rake, Attorney at Law 

PO Box 1556 

Lake Dallas, TX 75065 

Tel.: (940) 498-2103 

Fax: (940) 498-2103 

Email: mrake1@mrakeattorney.com 

/s/ Sanford R. Denison

SANFORD R. DENISON