Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/320/323/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 04:04:29+00:00

Document:
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 320 › General Committee v. Missour-Kansas-Texas R. Co.
for Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Co.
the sole representative of the craft of engineers, with the exclusive right to bargain for them. The carriers, in their answer, prayed that the court declare the respective rights of the parties. The Firemen, though challenging the jurisdiction of the C.ourt, in the alternative asked that the agreement be declared void. Held, that the issue tendered were not justiciable, and that the District Court was without jurisdiction to resolve the controversy. P. 320 U. S. 327.
1. The case involves no right which, under the Railway Labor Act, is enforceable by the courts, and therefore the action is not one "arising under any law regulating commerce," and not within the original jurisdiction of the District Court under Jud.Code § 24(8). P. 320 U. S. 337.
In view of the pattern of the Railway Labor Act and its history, the command of the Act should be explicit, and the purpose to afford a judicial remedy plain, before an obligation enforceable in the courts should be implied. P. 320 U. S. 337.
2. The District Court was without power to enter a declaratory decree for the benefit of any of the parties. P. 320 U. S. 337.
Certiorari, 319 U.S. 736, to review a judgment which modified and affirmed a decree dismissing the complaint in an action for a declaratory judgment.
thereafter the assignments would be handled by the management assisted by the local chairmen of the two groups. After making the agreement, the carriers gave notice to the Engineers that they were cancelling previous arrangements with that Brotherhood.
The Engineers then brought this action for a declaratory judgment, 48 Stat. 955, 28 U.S.C. § 400, that the agreement of December 12, 1940, was in violation of the Railway Labor Act, 44 Stat. 577, 48 Stat. 1185, 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq., and that the Engineers should be declared to be the sole representative of the locomotive engineers with the exclusive right to bargain for them. The carriers, in their answer, prayed that the court declare the respective rights of the parties. And the Firemen, though challenging the jurisdiction of the court, in the alternative asked that the agreement of December 12, 1940, be declared valid. The District Court dismissed the petition, holding that the carriers had a right to contract with either of the crafts with reference to the problems in question. The Circuit Court of Appeals held that both crafts were interested in the subject matter of the dispute, that neither craft had an exclusive right to bargain concerning the matters in issue, that the representatives of both crafts should confer and, if possible, agree, and that the agreement of December 12, 1940, might be terminated by the carriers if not acquiesced in by the Engineers, 132 F.2d 91.
The case is here on a petition for certiorari which we granted because of the importance of the problems raised by the assumption of jurisdiction over such controversies by the federal courts.
The bulk of the argument here relates to the merits of the dispute. But we do not intimate an opinion concerning them. For we are of the view that the District Court was without power to resolve the controversy.
by this Act, has foreclosed resort to the courts for enforcement of the claims asserted by the parties.
"in any way to be forced into compliance with the statute or with the judgments pronounced by the Labor Board, except through the effect of adverse public opinion."
the statutory scheme. All the proceedings looking to amicable adjustments and to agreements for arbitration of disputes, the entire policy of the act, must depend for success on the uncoerced action of each party through its own representatives to the end that agreements satisfactory to both may be reached and the peace essential to the uninterrupted service of the instrumentalities of interstate commerce may be maintained. There is no impairment of the voluntary character of arrangements for the adjustment of disputes in the imposition of a legal obligation not to interfere with the free choice of those who are to make such adjustments. On the contrary, it is of the essence of a voluntary scheme, if it is to accomplish its purpose, that this liberty should be safeguarded. The definite prohibition which Congress inserted in the act cannot, therefore, be overridden in the view that Congress intended it to be ignored. As the prohibition was appropriate to the aim of Congress, and is capable of enforcement, the conclusion must be that enforcement was contemplated."
281 U.S. at 281 U. S. 569.
Thus, what had long been a "right" of employees enforceable only by strikes and other methods of industrial warfare emerged as a "right" enforceable by judicial decree. The right of collective bargaining was no longer dependent on economic power alone.
"Upon receipt of such certification, the carrier shall treat with the representative so certified as the representative of the craft or class for the purposes of this Act."
It was that specific command for disobedience of which this court held in the Virginian R. Co. case (300 U.S. 515) that courts would provide a remedy. That result was reached over the objection that § 2, Ninth, stated a policy but created no rights or duties enforceable by judicial decree. This Court reviewed the history of § 2, Ninth -- its purpose and meaning. It concluded that the provision in question was "mandatory in form, and capable of enforcement by judicial process." Id., p. 300 U. S. 545. It observed that, if the provision were construed as being precatory only, its addition to the Act was "purposeless;" that only a requirement of "some affirmative act on the part of the employer" would add to the 1926 Act. Id., p. 300 U. S. 547. The Court accordingly concluded that the command of § 2, Ninth could not have been intended to be without legal sanction.
feature of the Act, as well as § 2, Ninth, which placed on the Mediation Board definite adjudicatory functions, transferred certain segments of railway labor problems from the realm of conciliation and mediation to tribunals of the law. The new administrative machinery, plus the statutory commands and prohibitions, marked a great advance in supplementing negotiation and self-help with specific legal sanctions in enforcement of the Congressional policy.
administrative or judicial machinery and invoked the compulsions of the law. Congress was dealing with a subject highly charged with emotion. Its approach has not only been slow, it has been piecemeal. Congress has been highly selective in its use of legal machinery. The delicacy of these problems has made it hesitant to go too fast or too far. The inference is strong that Congress intended to go no further in its use of the processes of adjudication and litigation than the express provisions of the Act indicate.
That history has a special claim here. It must be kept in mind in analyzing a bill of complaint which, like the present one, seeks to state a cause of action under the Railway Labor Act and asks that judicial power be exerted in enforcement of an obligation which it is claimed Congress has created.
"The majority of any craft or class of employees shall have the right to determine who shall be the representative of the craft or class for the purposes of this Act."
"All disputes between a carrier or carriers and its or their employees shall be considered, and, if possible, decided, with all expedition, in conference between representatives designated and authorized so to confer, respectively, by the carrier or carriers and by the employees thereof interested in the dispute."
As we have already pointed out, § 2, Ninth, after providing for a certification by the Mediation Board of the particular craft or class representative, states that "the carrier shall treat with the representative so certified as the representative of the craft or class for the purposes of this Act." That command of § 2, Ninth, was enforced in the Virginian R. Co. case. But § 2, Second, like § 2, First, [Footnote 9] merely states the policy which those other provisions buttress with more particularized commands.
of one craft ends and the other begins, or of the zones where they have joint authority. In the Clerks case and in the Virginian R. Co. case, the Court was asked to enforce statutory commands which were explicit and unequivocal. But the situation here is different. Congress did not attempt to make any codification of rules governing these jurisdictional controversies. It did not undertake a statement of the various principles of agency which were to govern the solution of disputes arising from an overlapping of the interests of two or more crafts. It established the general principles of collective bargaining, and applied a command or prohibition enforceable by judicial decree to only some of its phases. The contention, however, is that the rule which Congress intended to govern can be found from the implications of the Act. Thus, it is argued that the reasons which support the holding in the Virginian R. Co. case that the right of majority craft representation is exclusive also suggest that Congress intended to write into the Railway Labor Act a restriction on the rules and working conditions concerning which the craft has the right to contract. It is pointed out that, if the jurisdiction of a craft within which the exclusive right may be exercised is not limited, then disputes between unions may defeat the express purposes of the Act. In that connection, reference is made to the statement of this Court in the Virginian R. Co. case (300 U.S. at p. 300 U. S. 548) that the Act imposes upon the carrier "the affirmative duty to treat only with the true representative, and hence the negative duty to treat with no other." That expresses the basic philosophy of § 2, Ninth. But that decision does not imply, as is argued here, that every representation problem arising under the Act presents a justiciable controversy. It does not suggest that the respective domains for two or more overlapping crafts should be litigated in the federal district courts.
saved some jurisdictional disputes for the Mediation Board and sent the parties into the federal courts to resolve the others. Rather, the conclusion is irresistible that Congress carved out of the field of conciliation, mediation, and arbitration only the select list of problems which it was ready to place in the adjudicatory channel. All else it left to those voluntary processes whose use Congress had long encouraged to protect these arteries of interstate commerce from industrial strife. The concept of mediation is the antithesis of justiciability.
In view of the pattern of this legislation and its history the command of the Act should be explicit and the purpose to afford a judicial remedy plain before an obligation enforceable in the courts should be implied. Unless that test is met, the assumption must be that Congress fashioned a remedy available only in other tribunals. There may be as a result many areas in this field where neither the administrative nor the judicial function can be utilized. But that is only to be expected where Congress still places such great reliance on the voluntary process of conciliation, mediation, and arbitration. See H.Rep. No.1944, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 2. Courts should not rush in where Congress has not chosen to tread.
the parties. Any decision on the merits would involve the granting of judicial remedies which Congress chose not to confer.
MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS and MR. JUSTICE REED are of the view that the Court should entertain jurisdiction of the present controversy for the reasons set out in the dissent in Switchmen's Union v. National Mediation Board, ante, p. 320 U. S. 307.
Generally speaking, employees hired under collective bargaining agreements as firemen immediately begin to acquire seniority as such. After a certain period, firemen are required to take an engineer's examination. Vacant positions as engineers are filled from the list of those who have passed the qualifying tests. When it is necessary to reduce the force of working engineers, those with the lowest seniority are dropped ,and they resume their positions as firemen in accordance with their seniority in that craft. As a result, firemen with a lower seniority are moved down the ladder of jobs. Thus, the most junior firemen are deprived of work and furloughed until their services are needed. When a vacancy occurs in the engineers' ranks, or when the work of engineers increases, all move up the ladder of jobs again.
Engineers are generally assigned in order of seniority to regular runs (both passenger and freight), then to pool freight service (which rotates irregular runs among the pool members on a first in first out basis), and then to extra boards of engineers from which assignments are made as positions are available. If no engineer in those categories is available, the senior available qualified engineer working as a fireman is called as an "emergency" engineer.
The first of seven statutes enacted during this period was the Arbitration Act of 1888, 25 Stat. 501. This act provided for the voluntary arbitration of disputes, and authorized the President to set up investigating committees. It was superseded in 1898 by the Erdman Act, 30 Stat. 424, which provided machinery for arbitration and also introduced for the first time the policy of mediation. The mediators were the chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission and the United States Commissioner of Labor. Next came the Newlands Act of 1913, 38 Stat. 103, which established a permanent Board of Mediation and Conciliation. Under both the Erdman and Newlands acts, mediation was to be employed first, and, upon failure of that, the mediators were to attempt to have the parties arbitrate. In 1916, Congress passed the Adamson Act, 39 Stat. 721, in settlement of a dispute over the eight-hour day. That act provided for an eight-hour day for train operators, and a commission to enforce it. Upon return of the railroads to private ownership, the Esch-Cummins law was passed. See Title III of the Transportation Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 456. This act differed from the earlier legislation by providing for publis representation on a newly created Railroad Labor Board, by permitting the Board to investigate all disputes of its own initiative, and by placing the primary burden of settlement of disputes on direct negotiations between the parties. In 1926, Congress passed the first Railway Labor Act, 44 Stat. 577, which was amended in 1934, 48 Stat. 1185. See Alderman, The History of Federal Legislation Dealing with Machinery for Settling Disputes Concerning Wages and Working Conditions of Employees of Interstate Railroads (1938); The Railway Labor Act and the National Mediation Board (1940), pp. 7, 8, 67-76; Fisher, Industrial Disputes (1940), pp. 154-186; Johnson, Government Regulation of Transportation (1938), pp. 190-206; Parmelee, The Modern Railway (1940), pp. 420-435; Spencer, The National Railroad Adjustment Board (1938) pp. 1-16; Witte, The Government in Labor Disputes (1932), pp. 238-244; Wolf, The Railroad Labor Board (1927), pp. 1-13; Garrison, The National Railroad Adjustment Board: A Unique Administrative Agency, 46 Yale L.J. 567.
The Railway Labor Act and the National Mediation Board (1940) pp. 1-8.
S.Rep. No. 222, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 4.
Criminal penalties were added by § 2, Tenth, for the willful violation of certain provisions of the Act including the three just mentioned.
The Mediation Board also has power of interpretation of mediation agreements. § 5, Second. It likewise has duties with respect to the arbitration of disputes. See § 5, Third. Mediation is the Board's "most important task." Eighth Annual Report, National Mediation Board (1942) p. 4.
"That no occupational classification made by order of the Interstate Commerce Commission shall be construed to define the crafts according to which railway employees may be organized by their voluntary action, nor shall the jurisdiction or powers of such employee organizations be regarded as in any way limited or defined by the provisions of this Act or by the orders of the Commission."
"It shall be the duty of all carriers, their officers, agents, and employees to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, and working conditions, and to settle all disputes, whether arising out of the application of such agreements or otherwise, in order to avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier growing out of any dispute between the carrier and the employees thereof."
This is made clear by Commissioner Eastman, the draftsman of the 1934 amendments, in his testimony at the hearings. See Hearings, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., on H.R. 7650, pp. 39-41, 45, 57-58, 59.
It is apparently the view of the National Mediation Board that § 2, Ninth, was designed to cover only those disputes entailing an election by employees of their representatives. See Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. National Mediation Board, 135 F.2d 780, 782. In an election case the Board may have to make a preliminary determination as to the eligibility of voters involving the type of problem presented here. See Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. National Mediation Board, 88 F.2d 757, dealing with the question whether brakemen having seniority as conductors could vote in the conductors' election.
Whether judicial power may ever be exerted to require the Mediation Board to exercise the "duty" imposed upon it under § 2, Ninth, and, if so, the type of types of situations in which it may be invoked present questions not involved here.

References: v. 
 v. 
 § 24
 § 400
 § 151
 § 2
 § 2
 § 2
 § 2
 § 2
 § 2
 § 2
 § 2
 § 2
 v. 
 § 2
 § 5
 § 5
 § 2
 v. 
 v. 
 § 2