Source: https://m.openjurist.org/444/us/212
Timestamp: 2020-01-28 09:01:35
Document Index: 367190322

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 185', '§ 301', '§ 2', '§ 1', '§ 301', '§ 8', '§ 158', '§ 301', '§ 6', '§ 106']

444 US 212 Carbon Fuel Company v. United Mine Workers of America | OpenJurist
444 U.S. 212 - Carbon Fuel Company v. United Mine Workers of America
444 US 212 Carbon Fuel Company v. United Mine Workers of America
100 S.Ct. 410
62 L.Ed.2d 394
CARBON FUEL COMPANY, Petitioner,
Respondent local labor unions engaged in a number of unauthorized or "wildcat" strikes at petitioner employer's coal mines in violation of collective-bargaining agreements between petitioner and respondent international union (UMWA). The efforts of respondent regional subdivision (District 17) of UMWA to persuade the miners not to strike and to return to work were uniformly unsuccessful. Petitioner subsequently brought suit against respondents in Federal District Court pursuant to § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, seeking injunctive relief and damages, and judgments were rendered against all respondents. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part the judgments against the local unions but vacated the judgments against UMWA and District 17, holding that the question was not whether UMWA or District 17 did everything they might have done to prevent the strikes or bring about their termination, but whether they instigated, supported, ratified, or encouraged the strikes, and that there was no evidence of the latter conduct.
Petitioner, Carbon Fuel Co., and respondent United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), were parties to the National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreements of 1968 and 1971, collective-bargaining agreements covering, inter alia, workers at petitioner's several coal mines in southern West Virginia. Forty-eight unauthorized or "wildcat" strikes were engaged in by three local unions at petitioner's mines from 1969 to 1973. Efforts of District 17, a regional subdivision of UMWA, to persuade the miners not to strike and to return to work were uniformly unsuccessful.1
Petitioner brought this suit pursuant to § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (Taft-Hartley Act), 61 Stat. 156, 29 U.S.C. § 185, in the District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. UMWA, District 17, and the three local unions were named defendants. The complaint sought injunctive relief2 and damages, alleging that the strikes were in violation of the two collective-bargaining agreements. The case was tried before a jury. The trial judge found as a matter of law that the strikes violated the agreements. The trial judge also instructed the jury, over objection of UMWA and District 17, that those defendants might be found liable in damages to petitioner "[i]f you find from a preponderance of the evidence that the International and District Unions did not use all of the reasonable means available to them to prevent work stoppages or strikes from occurring in violation of the contract, or to terminate any such work stoppages or strikes after they began. . . ." App.197a. Verdicts in different amounts were returned against UMWA, District 17, and the three local unions.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated in part the judgments against the three local unions but otherwise affirmed those judgments.3 However, the Court of Appeals vacated the judgments against UMWA and District 17, and remanded to the District Court with directions to dismiss the case against those defendants. 582 F.2d 1346 (1978). The court held that this result was required by its earlier decision in United Construction Workers v. Haislip Baking Co., 223 F.2d 872 (1955). 582 F.2d, at 1351. Haislip held as follows, 223 F.2d, at 877-878:
The Court of Appeals recognized that its conclusion was in conflict with the holding of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Eazor Express, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 520 F.2d 951 (1975) (union liable under no-strike clause for failure to use best efforts to end unauthorized strikes).4 We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 440 U.S. 957, 99 S.Ct. 1495, 59 L.Ed.2d 769 (1979). We affirm.
Insofar as petitioner's argument relies on the history of § 301 and the congressional plan to prevent and remedy strikes in breach of contract by encouraging arbitration, the legislative history is clear that Congress limited the responsibility of unions for strikes in breach of contract to cases when the union may be found responsible according to the common-law rule of agency.5
Congress' reason for adopting the common-law agency test, and applying to unions the common-law doctrine of respondeat superior, follows the lead of Mr. Chief Justice Taft in Coronado Coal Co. v. Mine Workers, 268 U.S. 295, 304, 45 S.Ct. 551, 554, 69 L.Ed. 963 (1925), that to find the union liable "it must be clearly shown . . . that what was done was done by their agents in accordance with their fundamental agreement of association." The common-law agency test replaced the very loose test of responsibility incorporated in § 2(2) of the original 1935 National Labor Relations Act under which the term "employer" included "any person acting in the interest of an employer . . . ." 49 Stat. 450.6
The Court of Appeals stated: "There was no evidence presented in the district court that either the District or International Union instigated, supported, ratified, or encouraged any of the work stoppages . . . ." 582 F.2d, at 1351. Under Art. XVI, § 1, of the UMWA constitution, the local unions lacked authority to strike without authorization from UMWA. App.195a. Moreover, UMWA had repeatedly expressed its opposition to wildcat strikes. Petitioner thus failed to prove agency as required by §§ 301(b) and (e), and we therefore agree with the Court of Appeals that "under these circumstances it was error for the [District Court] to deny the motions of these defendants' for directed verdicts." 582 F.2d, at 1351.
In the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act Congress sought to promote numerous policies. One policy of particular importance—if not the overriding one—was the policy of free collective bargaining. See Teamsters v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U.S. 95, 104, 82 S.Ct. 571, 577, 7 L.Ed.2d 593 (1962); NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U.S. 477, 488, 80 S.Ct. 419, 426, 4 L.Ed.2d 454 (1960); Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, supra, 353 U.S., at 453-454, 77 S.Ct., at 916-917. And to make crystal clear the intention to leave the parties entirely free of any Government compulsion to agree to a proposal, or even reach an agreement, Congress added § 8(d) defining "to bargain collectively" as "not [to] compel either party to agree to a proposal or require the making of a concession." 29 U.S.C. § 158(d). See Howard Johnson Co. v. Hotel Employees, 417 U.S. 249, 254-255, 94 S.Ct. 2236, 2239-2240, 41 L.Ed.2d 46 (1974); NLRB v. Burns Security Services, 406 U.S. 272, 287, 92 S.Ct. 1571, 1582, 32 L.Ed.2d 61 (1972); H. K. Porter Co. v. NLRB, 397 U.S. 99, 104-106, 90 S.Ct. 821, 824-825, 25 L.Ed.2d 146 (1970); NLRB v. Insurance Agents Int'l Union, supra, 361 U.S., at 488, 80 S.Ct., at 426. It follows that the parties' agreement primarily determines their relationship. Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409 (1960) (though policy in favor of arbitration may color interpretation of contract, it cannot impose an agreement to arbitrate where the parties have agreed not to arbitrate). See Steelworkers v. American Manufacturing Co., 363 U.S. 564, 570, 80 S.Ct. 1343, 1364, 4 L.Ed.2d 1403 (1960) (BRENNAN, J., concurring). If the parties' agreement specifically resolves a particular issue, the courts cannot substitute a different resolution.
The bargaining history of the contracts completely answers petitioner's argument. The parties directly addressed the issue early in their bargaining history and, after first including such an obligation, specifically deleted it from their agreement. The first agreement between the parties, in 1941, contained an explicit no-strike clause. In order to avoid liability under § 301 for contract breaches, UMWA negotiated the deletion of the no-strike provision from the 1947 contract. Instead, the coverage of the contract was limited to employees "able and willing to work," and the parties agreed that all disagreements would be settled through arbitration or collective bargaining. In 1950 the contract was again rewritten. The "able and willing" provision was dropped and replaced by a promise "to maintain the integrity of this contract and to exercise their best efforts through available disciplinary measures to prevent stoppages of work by strike or lockout." (Emphasis supplied.)7
Because the union did not want to surrender its freedom to decide what measures to take or not to take in dealing with unauthorized strikes, it negotiated the deletion of the "best efforts through available disciplinary measures" clause. See International Union, UMWA v. NLRB, 103 U.S.App.D.C. 207, 212-213, 257 F.2d 211, 216-217 (1958); International Union, UMWA, 117 N.L.R.B. 1095, 1118 (1957) (Intermediate Report of Trial Examiner, reprinted as an appendix to NLRB opinion).8 The new provision in the 1952 contract, which was carried forward into the 1968 and 1971 contracts essentially unchanged as to this issue, read as follows:
The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from their bargaining history is that, whatever the integrity clause may mean,9 the parties purposely decided not to impose on the union an obligation to take disciplinary or other actions to get unauthorized strikers back to work. It would do violence to the bargaining process and the national policy furthering free collective bargaining to impose by judicial implication a duty upon UMWA and District 17 that the parties in arm's-length bargaining first included and then purposely deleted.
Moreover, since the deletion but before 1968 or 1971 when these agreements were reached, two Courts of Appeals construed this contract as not imposing liability on the union for wildcat strikes and as not requiring UMWA to take any action with regard to such strikes. Lewis v. Benedict Coal Corp., 259 F.2d 346, 351 (CA6 1958) (Stewart, J.), aff'd by an equally divided Court, 361 U.S. 459, 464, 80 S.Ct. 489, 492, 4 L.Ed.2d 442 (1960); United Construction Workers v. Haislip Baking Co., 223 F.2d, at 877.10 If these interpretations did not accord with the parties' understanding of their contract, they had ample opportunity to make their own understanding explicit. Failure to do so strongly suggests the parties incorporated the courts' interpretation of the agreements.
At the same time, Congress applied to unions the common-law doctrine of respondeat superior rather than the more restrictive test of union responsibility under § 6 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which requires "clear proof of actual participation in, or actual authorization of, such acts, or of ratification of such acts after actual knowledge thereof." 29 U.S.C. § 106 (emphasis supplied).