Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/348-u-s-437-606543582
Timestamp: 2020-06-03 23:57:56
Document Index: 719074530

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301']

348 U.S. 437 (1955), 51, Association of Westinghouse Salaried Employees v. Westinghouse Electric Corp. - Federal Cases - Case Law - VLEX 606543582
Citation: 348 U.S. 437, 75 S.Ct. 489, 99 L.Ed. 510
Party Name: Association of Westinghouse Salaried Employees v. Westinghouse Electric Corp.
Case Date: March 28, 1955
75 S.Ct. 489, 99 L.Ed. 510
legislative history that such suits were contemplated, § 301 will not be construed to grant a federal court jurisdiction over this suit. Pp. 459-461.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN, in a concurring opinion joined by MR. JUSTICE CLARK, concluded that the only question involved is one of statutory interpretation, and that the language of § 301 is not sufficiently explicit, nor its legislative history sufficiently clear, to indicate that Congress intended to authorize a union to enforce in a federal court the uniquely personal right of an employee for whom it had bargained to receive compensation for services rendered his employer. P. 461.
A suit brought by petitioner against respondent under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act was dismissed on the merits by the District Court. 107 F.Supp. 692. The Court of Appeals directed a dismissal for lack of jurisdiction. 210 F.2d 623. This Court granted certiorari. 347 U.S. 1010. Affirmed, p. 461.
More specifically, petitioner alleged that, under the contracts, respondent was obligated to pay the employees represented by petitioner their full salary during April, 1951, regardless of whether they missed a day's work, unless the absence was due to "furlough" or "leave of absence," and that respondent had violated [75 S.Ct. 490] the contracts by deducting from the pay of some 4,000 of those employees their wages for April 3, when they were absent. No reason who given for their absence, but it was alleged that the reason was not furlough or leave of absence. The employees were not named, and were not made parties to the suit. Petitioner requested the court to interpret the contracts, declare the rights of the parties, compel respondent to make an accounting (and name the employees involved and the amounts of unpaid salaries), and enter a judgment against respondent and in favor of the individual employees for the unpaid wages.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting en banc, three judges dissenting, vacated the district court's order dismissing the complaint on the merits and directed a dismissal for lack of jurisdiction. After stating that § 301 "is a grant of federal question jurisdiction, and thus creates a federal, substantive right" and reviewing various theories explaining the relationship between union, employer, and employees under a collective bargaining agreement, the court adopted an "eclectic theory," based primarily upon language in J.I. Case Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U.S. 332. The bargaining contract, said the Court, obligates the employer to include in the contracts of hire with each employee the terms and conditions which had been settled between the union and the employer, but the collective contract itself is not a contract of hire. Not until an employee enters into an individual contract of hire and performs services does the employer become bound to pay the particular employee the specified wages. It follows, said the Court, that, if there was a breach in this case, it was a breach of the employment contracts with the individual employees who were not paid. Section 301, on the other hand, grants jurisdiction to federal courts only over cases involving breaches of the collective bargaining contract between the union and the employer. Therefore,
1. In dealing with an enactment such as § 301 of the Labor Management Relations [75 S.Ct. 491] Act,1 it is necessary first
to ascertain its jurisdictional scope, more particularly, whether it extends to the suit at hand. Here, as may not infrequently be the case, this question turns in large measure on what sources a federal court would be required to draw upon in determining the underlying substantive rights of the parties -- in this case, in deciding whether the union has the contract right which it asserts. If Congress has itself defined the law or authorized the federal courts to fashion the judicial rules governing this question, it would be self-defeating to limit the scope of the power of the federal courts to less than is necessary to accomplish this congressional aim. If, on the other hand, Congress merely furnished a federal forum for enforcing the body of contract law which the States provide, a serious constitutional problem would lie at the threshold of jurisdiction. Moreover, if the function of § 301 is merely that of providing a federal forum for state law, there are good reasons...