Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 241.0

80 

UNION PACIFIC R. CO. v. LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS 

Opinion of the Court 

So long as a respondent does not “seek to modify the judg­
ment  below,”  true  here,  “[i]t  is  well  accepted”  that  the 
respondent  may,  “without  ﬁling  a  cross-appeal  or  cross-
petition, . . . rely upon any matter appearing in the record in 
support  of  the  judgment.”  Blum  v.  Bacon,  457  U. S.  132, 
137,  n. 5  (1982).  The  Seventh Circuit,  as  just observed,  see 
supra,  at  78–79,  understood  that  the  Union  had  pressed 
“statutory  and  constitutional”  arguments,  but  also  compre­
hended that both arguments homed in on “a single question: 
is  written  documentation  of  the  conference  in  the  on-
property  record  a  necessary  prerequisite  to  arbitration  be­
fore  the  NRAB?”  522  F.  3d,  at  750.  Answering  this  “sin­
in  the  negative,  the  Court  of  Appeals 
gle  question” 
effectively  resolved  the  Union’s  core  complaint.  But,  for 
reasons far from apparent, the court declared that “once we 
answer the key question . . . ,  adjudication of the due process 
claim is unavoidable.”  Ibid. 

The  Seventh  Circuit,  we  agree,  asked  the  right  question, 
but inappropriately placed its answer under a constitutional, 
rather  than  a  statutory,  headline.  As  the  Court  of  Appeals 
determined, and as we discuss infra, at 81–86, nothing in the 
Act elevates to jurisdictional status the obligation to confer­
ence  minor  disputes  or  to  prove  conferencing.  That  being 
so, the “unavoidable” conclusion, following from the Seventh 
Circuit’s “answer [to]  the key question,” 522 F.  3d, at 750, is 
that  the  panel,  in  § 153  First  (q)’s  words,  failed  “to  conform, 
or conﬁne itself, to matters within the scope of [its] jurisdic­
tion.”  The  Carrier,  although  it  sought  a  different  outcome, 
was quite right to “urg[e] [the Court of Appeals] to consider 
the  statutory  claim  before  the  constitutional  one.”  522 
F. 3d, at 750. 

In short, a negative answer to the “single question” identi­
ﬁed  by  the  Court  of  Appeals  leaves  no  doubt  about  the 
Union’s  entitlement,  in  accord  with  § 153  First  (q),  to  va­
cation  of  the  Board’s  orders.  Given  this  statutory  ground 
for relief, there is no due process issue alive in this case, and