NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION

File Name: 20a0331n.06

Case No. 19-4241

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SHEET 

METAL, AIR, RAIL AND TRANSPORTATION 

WORKERS, TRANSPORTATION DIVISION,

Petitioner-Appellee,

v.

PORT AUTHORITY TRANS-HUDSON 

CORPORATION,

Respondent-Appellant.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE NORTHERN 

DISTRICT OF OHIO

O P I N I O N

BEFORE: COLE, Chief Judge; McKEAGUE and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges.

COLE, Chief Judge. The Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation (“PATH”) is party to 

a collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) with its union employees which requires that 

grievances brought on behalf of PATH employees be submitted to arbitration. Here, the union 

filed a grievance on behalf of PATH tower operator David Shenberger and the dispute proceeded 

to an arbitrator for resolution. But when the arbitrator ruled in favor of the union, PATH refused 

to comply with the award. The union then turned to the federal courts to enforce the award, and 

the district court granted the union summary judgment. We affirm.
Case No. 19-4241, Int’l Ass’n of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transp. Workers, Transp. Div. v. Port 

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I.

Under the CBA, PATH employees are allotted vacation and sick leave benefits in 

accordance with their seniority, with employees who have been at PATH longer receiving more 

leave. This case began when Shenberger objected to the computation of his leave benefits. 

Shenberger began working for PATH in 1993. After battling an ever-worsening case of 

pulmonary fibrosis for roughly a decade, he was forced to retire in 2009, at which point he accepted 

a disability annuity. In 2016, after receiving a lung transplant, Shenberger successfully sought 

reinstatement with PATH, which hired him as a tower operator in March 2017. Upon his 

reinstatement, however, PATH calculated Shenberger’s leave benefits as if he were a new 

employee, rather than one who had worked at PATH for 16 years. For Shenberger, this 

determination made a significant difference. Were he to receive credit for his 16 years of service 

prior to his retirement, he would be entitled to 29 days of vacation leave, 65 days of full-pay sick 

leave, and 195 days of half-pay sick leave each year. But when PATH classified him as a new 

employee, that entitlement dropped to 13 days of vacation leave, 5 days of full-pay sick leave, and 

10 days of half-pay sick leave.

Shenberger was represented by his union, the International Association of Sheet Metal, 

Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, Transportation Division (“SMART-TD”). SMART-TD 

filed a grievance on Shenberger’s behalf, contending that he was entitled to the status of a 16-year 

employee for purposes of calculating his benefits. PATH took a different view, arguing that the 

CBA precluded Shenberger from receiving credit for years of employment that were interrupted 

by his retirement. In accordance with the terms of the CBA, parties brought their dispute to a 

neutral arbitrator, the Public Law Board No. 7551. (“the Board”). The Board ultimately agreed 
Case No. 19-4241, Int’l Ass’n of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transp. Workers, Transp. Div. v. Port 

Auth. Trans-Hudson Corp.

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with SMART-TD’s interpretation of the CBA and issued an award sustaining the claim and 

directing PATH to make Shenberger whole consistent with the terms of the CBA. 

PATH did not comply with the award, so SMART-TD filed a petition in the United States 

District Court for the Northern District of Ohio seeking to enforce it. PATH then filed a 

counterclaim seeking to vacate the award. After considering the parties’ arguments and a 

stipulated administrative record, the district court granted summary judgment for SMART-TD. 

PATH timely appealed. 

II.

In a dispute over an arbitration award, we review the district court’s decision to grant 

summary judgment de novo. Totes Isotoner Corp. v. Int’l Chem. Workers Union Council/UFCW 

Local 664C, 532 F.3d 405, 410 (6th Cir. 2008) (internal citation omitted). Our focus, however, is 

on the arbitrator’s analysis, not the district court’s. Bhd. of Locomotive Eng’rs & Trainmen v.

United Transp. Union, 700 F.3d 891, 898 (6th Cir. 2012) (internal citation omitted). And in 

reviewing the arbitrator’s analysis, we are “exceedingly deferential” to the arbitrator’s decision. 

Mich. Family Res., Inc. v. Serv. Emps. Int’l Union Local 517M, 475 F.3d 746, 755 (6th Cir. 2007) 

(en banc). When a losing party asks us to review an arbitration award issued pursuant to a CBA, 

our review is “very limited.” Major League Baseball Players Ass’n v. Garvey, 532 U.S. 504, 509 

(2001) (per curiam). We focus on questions of “procedural aberration.” Mich. Family, 475 F.3d 

at 753 (quoting United Paperworkers Int’l Union v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 40, n. 10 (1987)). 

We resist intervening even when the arbitrator makes “serious, improvident, or even silly errors in 

resolving the merits of the dispute” so long as the arbitrator was “arguably construing or applying 

the contract,” did not act outside its authority by resolving a dispute not committed to arbitration,
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and did not commit fraud or otherwise act dishonestly in issuing the award. Id. (internal citations

and quotation marks omitted). 

Here, PATH does not contend that the claim should not have been arbitrated or that the 

Board acted dishonestly in any way in resolving the dispute. Rather, it argues that the Board was 

not arguably construing the terms of the CBA when it issued the award. 

Judicial consideration of the merits of an arbitration award is “the rare exception, not the 

rule,” to the point where we “must tolerate serious arbitral errors.” Id. (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Our strong tendency not to delve into the merits of an arbitrator’s decision, however, 

has its limits. “[W]e cannot ignore the specter that an arbitration decision could be so ignorant of 

the contract’s plain language as to make implausible any contention that the arbitrator was 

construing the contract.” Id. (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). In the inquiry as to 

whether the arbitrator “arguably construed” the contract, only “the most egregious awards” will 

be vacated. Id. Ultimately, we ask a single question: “did the arbitrator appear to be engaged in 

interpreting the agreement or agreements before [it]?” Bhd. of Locomotive Eng’rs and Trainmen, 

700 F.3d at 901 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). If so, we will enforce the award. 

Id.

III.

To determine whether this is one of the rare instances where we could disturb an arbitration 

award for the arbitrator’s failure to arguably construe a contract, we start with the relevant terms 

of the CBA. Regarding the calculation of sick and vacation leave benefits, Article VIII(B)(2) of 

the CBA provides:

In determining the vacation allowance to which an employee is entitled, length of 

service shall be measured from the initial date of uninterrupted employment by 

PATH or any of its predecessors. For this purpose, sick leave in excess of six (6) 
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months (unless by reason of on-job injury) and leave of absence in excess of thirty 

(30) days shall not be counted.

(R. 14-1, PageID 144.) Article IX(A)(4) of the CBA establishes an identical method for calculating 

seniority for purposes of determining sick leave. Finally, Article II(A)(9) of the CBA addresses 

the “seniority rights” of employees who, like Shenberger, retire on a disability annuity before the 

age of 65. (Id., PageID 134.) It provides that such an employee “shall not have his seniority status 

and rights terminated[.]” (Id.)

The Board considered each of those provisions in determining that Shenberger was entitled 

to credit for the 16 years that he spent working at PATH before his disability. (R. 14-1, PageID 

244–46.) The Board determined that Article II’s guarantee that an employee does not lose seniority 

rights when he retires because of a disability and is subsequently rehired meant that Shenberger 

was entitled to vacation and sick leave benefits in accordance with his 16 years of service at PATH. 

It accordingly interpreted the leave computation provisions in Articles VIII and IX of the CBA to 

mean that Shenberger’s uninterrupted period of employment from 1993 until 2009 counted as 

service time, while the time spent retired on the disability annuity—the interruption in that 

employment—did not.

PATH ardently disputes this interpretation, contending that the term “uninterrupted 

employment period” unambiguously excludes time spent by an employee at PATH before that 

employee retires with a disability. In PATH’s view, once Shenberger retired on disability, his 

period of employment was interrupted and therefore cannot entitle him to greater leave benefits

upon being rehired and that the seniority clock started at zero when he was rehired. 

That argument closely tracks the argument that PATH made to the Board during the 

arbitration proceeding, and it is a plausible—if not persuasive—construction of the CBA. But it 
Case No. 19-4241, Int’l Ass’n of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transp. Workers, Transp. Div. v. Port 

Auth. Trans-Hudson Corp.

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is not the only one. The CBA does not contain language providing that the retention of seniority 

rights upon return from disability does not apply to leave calculations, and it does not expressly 

limit a period of “uninterrupted employment” to the period between an employee’s last interruption 

and the present. In fact, it does not define the term at all. In short, the terms of the CBA do not 

foreclose the Board’s interpretation. In its role as an arbitrator, the Board relied on provisions 

within the CBA to ascertain the proper approach to an issue that the agreement does not explicitly 

address. Put differently, the Board’s analysis clearly constitutes an interpretation of the CBA. 

And, under our precedent, that alone is enough to foreclose us from disturbing the award the Board 

issued.

We affirm the district court’s judgment in favor of SMART-TD.