Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 239.0

78 

UNION PACIFIC R. CO. v. LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS 

Opinion of the Court 

Board’s  deliberations,”  the  Carrier  had  forfeited  the  issue. 
Id., at 105a–106a.  The dissenters urged that the Union had 
furnished  evidence  showing  “the  cases  had  all  been  con­
ferenced,  even  though  the  relevant  Collective  Bargaining 
Agreement  [did]  not  require  [conferencing].”  Id.,  at  105a. 
Dismissal  of  the  claims,  the  dissenters  charged,  demon­
strated “the kind of gamesmanship that breeds contempt for 
the minor dispute process.”  Id., at 107a. 

The Union ﬁled a petition for review in the United States 
District  Court  for  the  Northern  District  of  Illinois,  asking 
the court to set aside the Board’s orders on the ground that 
the  panel  had  “unlawfully  held  [it  lacked]  authority  to  as­
sume jurisdiction over [the] cases [absent] evidence of a ‘con­
ference’ between the parties in the . . .  ‘on-property’ record.” 
Pet. to Review ¶ 1.  Nothing in the Act or the NRAB’s pro­
cedural rules, the Union maintained, mandated dismissal for 
failure to allege and prove conferencing in the Union’s origi­
nal  submission.  Id.,  ¶¶ 3,  4.  By  imposing,  without  war­
rant,  “a  technical  pleading  or  evidentiary  requirement”  and 
elevating  it  to  jurisdictional  status,  the  Union  charged,  the 
panel  had  “egregiously  violate[d]  the  Act,”  id.,  ¶ 3,   or  
“fail[ed]  to  conform  its  jurisdiction  to  that  required  by  .  .  . 
law,”  id.,  ¶ 4.  Alternatively,  the  Union  asserted  that  the 
panel  violated  procedural  due  process  by  entertaining  the 
Carrier’s  untimely  objection,  even  though  “the  Carrier  had 
failed to raise any objection as to lack of conferencing” in its 
submissions.  Id., ¶ 5.  

The District Court afﬁrmed the Board’s orders.  Address­
ing  the  Union’s  argument  that  the  no-proof-of-conferencing 
issue was untimely raised, the court accepted the panel’s de­
scription of the issue as “jurisdictional,” and noted the famil­
iar  proposition  that  jurisdictional  challenges  may  be  raised 
at  any  stage  of  the  proceedings.  432  F.  Supp.  2d  768,  777, 
and n. 7 (2006). 

On  appeal, the  Seventh Circuit  recognized that  the Union 
had presented its case “through both a statutory and consti­