Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/353/448/case.php
Timestamp: 2017-12-11 11:38:28
Document Index: 519555103

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 101', '§ 4', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 185', '§ 301', '§ 20', '§ 301', '§ 1', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301', '§ 301']

There has been considerable litigation involving § 301, and courts have construed it differently. There is one view that § 301(a) merely gives federal district courts jurisdiction in controversies that involve labor organizations in industries affecting commerce, without regard to diversity of citizenship or the amount in controversy. [Footnote 1] Under that view, § 301(a) would not be the source of substantive law; it would neither supply federal law to resolve these controversies nor turn the federal judges to state law for answers to the questions. Other courts -- the overwhelming number of them -- hold that § 301(a) is chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
From the face of the Act, it is apparent that § 301(a) and § 301(b) supplement one another. Section 301(b) makes it possible for a labor organization, representing employees in an industry affecting commerce, to sue and be sued as an entity in the federal courts. Section 301(b), in other words, provides the procedural remedy lacking at common law. Section 301(a) certainly does something more than that. Plainly, it supplies the basis chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
H.R.Conf.Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 42. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Congress was also interested in promoting collective bargaining that ended with agreements not to strike. [Footnote 4] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The question, then is what is the substantive law to be applied in suits under § 301(a)? We conclude that the substantive law to apply in suits under § 301(a) is federal law, which the courts must fashion from the policy of our national labor laws. See Mendelsohn, Enforceability of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The question remains whether jurisdiction to compel arbitration of grievance disputes is withdrawn by the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Norris-LaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 29 U.S.C. § 101. Section 7 of that Act prescribes stiff procedural requirements for issuing an injunction in a labor dispute. The kinds of acts which had given rise to abuse of the power to enjoin are listed in § 4. The failure to arbitrate was not a part and parcel of the abuses against which the Act was aimed. Section 8 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act does, indeed, indicate a congressional policy toward settlement of labor disputes by arbitration, for it denies injunctive relief to any person who has failed to make "every reasonable effort" to settle the dispute by negotiation, mediation, or "voluntary arbitration." Though a literal reading might bring the dispute within the terms of the Act (see Cox, Grievance Arbitration in the Federal Courts, 67 Harv.L.Rev. 591, 602-604), we see no justification in policy for restricting § 301(a) to damage suits, leaving specific performance of a contract to arbitrate grievance disputes to the inapposite [Footnote 8] procedural requirements of that Act. Moreover, we held in Virginia R. Co. v. System Federation, 300 U. S. 515, and in Graham v. Brotherhood of Firemen, 338 U. S. 232, 338 U. S. 237, that the Norris-LaGuardia Act does not deprive federal courts of jurisdiction to compel compliance with the mandates of the Railway Labor Act. The mandates there involved concerned racial discrimination. Yet those decisions were not based on any peculiarities of the Railway Labor Act. We followed the same course in Syres v. Oil Workers International Union, 350 U.S. 892, which was governed by the National Labor Relations Act. There, an injunction was sought against racial discrimination in application of a collective bargaining agreement, and we allowed the injunction to issue. The congressional policy in favor of the enforcement of agreements to arbitrate chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
This suit was brought in a United States District Court under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Court has avoided the difficult problems raised by § 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 61 Stat. 156, 29 U.S.C. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
§ 185, [Footnote 3/1] by attributing to the section an occult content. This plainly procedural section is transmuted into a mandate to the federal courts to fashion a whole body of substantive federal law appropriate for the complicated and touchy problems raised by collective bargaining. I have set forth in my opinion in Employees v. Westinghouse Corp. the detailed reasons why I believe that § 301 cannot be so construed, even if constitutional questions chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
cannot be avoided. 348 U. S. 348 U.S. 437, 348 U. S. 441-449, 348 U. S. 452-459. But the Court has a "clear" and contrary conclusion emerge from the "somewhat," to say the least, "cloudy and confusing legislative history." This is more than can be fairly asked even from the alchemy of construction. Since the Court relies on a few isolated statements in the legislative history which do not support its conclusion, however favoringly read, I have deemed in necessary to set forth in an 353 U. S. the Case Bill. This legislative history reinforces the natural meaning of the statute as an exclusively procedural provision, affording, that is, an accessible federal forum for suits on agreements between labor organizations and employers, but not enacting federal law for such suits. See also Wollett and Wllington, Federalism and Breach of the Labor Agreement, 7 Stan.L.Rev. 445.
I have also set forth, in my opinion in the Westinghouse case, an outline of the vast problems that the Court's present decision creates by bringing into conflict state law and federal law, state courts and federal courts. 348 U.S. at 348 U. S. 454-455; see also Judge Wyzanski's opinion in Textile Workers Union of America v. American Thread Co., 113 F.Supp. 137, 140. These problems are not rendered nonexistent by disregard of them. It should also be noted that, whatever may be a union's ad hoc benefit in a particular case, the meaning of collective bargaining for labor does not remotely derive from reliance on the sanction of litigation in the courts. Restrictions made by legislation like the Clayton Act of 1914, 38 Stat. 738, §§ 20, 22, and the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932, 47 Stat. 70, upon the use of familiar remedies theretofore available in the federal courts, reflected deep fears of the labor movement of the use of such remedies against labor. But a union, like any other combatant engaged in a particular fight, is ready to make an ally of an old enemy, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
These reflections summarized the vast and extraordinarily successful experience of Dean Harry Shulman as labor arbitrator, especially as umpire under the collective bargaining contract between the Ford Motor Co. and the UAW-CIO. (See his Opinions of the Umpire, Ford Motor Co. and UAW-CIO, 1943-1946, and the review by E. Merrick Dodd in 60 Harv.L.Rev. 486.) Arbitration agreements are for specific terms, generally much shorter than the time required for adjudication of a contested chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
One may fairly generalize from these instances that the Court has deemed itself peculiarly qualified, with due chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Even on the Court's attribution to § 301 of a direction to the federal courts to fashion, out of bits and pieces chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Prior to 1925, the doctrine that executory agreements to arbitrate any kind of dispute would not be specifically enforced still held sway in the federal courts. See, e.g., Judge Hough's opinion in United States Asphalt Refining Co. v. Trinidad Lake Petroleum Co., 222 F.1d 06; Judge Mack's opinion in Atlantic Fruit Co. v. Red Cross Line, 276 F.3d 9; and Mr. Justice Brandeis' opinion in Red Cross Line v. Atlantic Fruit Co., 264 U. S. 109, 264 U. S. 123, 264 U. S. 125. Legislation was deemed necessary to assure such power to the federal courts. In 1925, Congress passed the United States Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq., making executory agreements to arbitrate specifically enforceable in the federal courts, but explicitly excluding "contracts of employment" of workers engaged in interstate commerce from its scope. Naturally enough, I find rejection, though not explicit, of the availability of the Federal Arbitration Act to enforce arbitration clauses in collective bargaining agreements in the silent treatment given that Act by the Court's opinion. If an Act that authorizes the federal courts to enforce arbitration provisions in contracts generally, but specifically denies authority to decree that remedy for "contracts of employment," were available, the Court would hardly spin such power out of the empty darkness of § 301. I would make this rejection explicit, recognizing that, when Congress passed legislation to enable arbitration agreements to be enforced by the federal courts, it saw fit to exclude this remedy with respect to labor contracts. See Amalgamated Association, etc. v. Pennsylvania Greyhound chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Even though the Court glaringly ignores the Arbitration Act, it does, at least, recognize the common law rule against enforcement of executory agreements to arbitrate. It nevertheless enforces the arbitration clause in the collective bargaining agreements in these cases. It does so because it finds that Congress, "by implication," rejected the common law rule. I would add that the Court, in thus deriving power from the unrevealing words of the Taft-Hartley Act, has also found that Congress, "by implication," repealed its own statutory exemption of collective bargaining agreements in the Arbitration Act, an chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
I would put the conclusion even more strongly, because, contrary to the view of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the rule that is departed from "by implication" chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The second ground of my dissent from the Court's action is more fundamental. [Footnote 3/3] Since I do not agree with the Court's conclusion that federal substantive law is to govern in actions under § 301, I am forced to consider the serious constitutional question that was adumbrated in the Westinghouse case, 348 U.S. at 348 U. S. 449-452, the constitutionality of a grant of jurisdiction to federal courts over contracts that came into being entirely by virtue of state substantive law, a jurisdiction not based on diversity of citizenship, yet one in which a federal court would, as in chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In a few exceptional cases, arising under special jurisdictional grants, the criteria by which the prominence of the federal question is measured against constitutional requirements have been found satisfied under circumstances suggesting a variant theory of the nature of these chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
With this background, many theories have been proposed to sustain the constitutional validity of § 301. In Textile Workers Union of America v. American Thread Co., 113 F.Supp. 137, 140, Judge Wyzanski suggested, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Another theory, relying on Osborn and the bankruptcy cases, has been proposed which would achieve results similar to those attainable under Mr. Justice Jackson's view, but which purports to respect the "arising" clause of Article III. See Hart and Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System, pp. 744-747; Wechsler, Federal Jurisdiction and the Revision of the Judicial Code, 13 Law & Contemp.Prob. 216, 224 225; International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. W. L. Mead, Inc., 230 F.2d 576. Called "protective jurisdiction," the suggestion is that in any case for which Congress has the constitutional power to prescribe federal rules of decision and thus confer "true" federal question jurisdiction, it may, without so doing, enact a jurisdictional statute, which will provide a federal forum for the application of state statute and decisional law. Analysis of the "protective jurisdiction" theory might also be attempted in terms of the language of Article III construing "laws" to include jurisdictional statutes where Congress could have legislated substantively in a field. This is but another way of saying that because Congress could have legislated substantively and thereby could give rise to litigation under a statute of the United States, it can provide a federal forum for state-created chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
"Protective jurisdiction," once the label is discarded, cannot be justified under any view of the allowable scope to be given to Article III. "Protective jurisdiction" is a misused label for the statute we are here considering. That rubric is properly descriptive of safeguarding some of the indisputable, staple business of the federal courts. It is a radiation of an existing jurisdiction. See Adams v. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Another theory also relies on Osborn and the bankruptcy cases as an implicit recognition of the propriety of the exercise of some sort of "protective jurisdiction" by the federal courts. Mishkin, op. cit. supra, 53 Col.L.Rev. 157, 184 et seq. Professor Mishkin tends to view the assertion of such a jurisdiction, in the absence of any chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Professor Mishkin's theory of "protective jurisdiction" may find more constitutional justification if there is not chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
To be sure, the full scope of a substantive regulation is frequently in dispute and must await authoritative determination by courts. Congress declares its purpose imperfectly or partially, and compatible judicial construction completes it. But in this case we start with a provision that is wholly jurisdictional and as such bristles with constitutional problems under Article III. To avoid chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Nor will Congress' objective be furthered by an attempt to limit the grant of a federal forum to certain types of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
There is a point, however, at which the search may be ended with less misgiving regarding the propriety of judicial infusion of substantive provisions into § 301. The contribution of federal law might consist in postulating the right of a union, despite its amorphous status as an unincorporated association, to enter into binding collective bargaining contracts with an employer. The federal courts might also give sanction to this right by refusing to comply with any state law that does not admit that collective bargaining may result in an enforceable contract. It is hard to see what serious federal-state conflicts could arise under this view. At most, a state court might dismiss the action, while a federal court would entertain it. Moreover, such a function of federal law is closely related to the removal of the procedural barriers to suit. Section 301 would be futile if the union's status as a contracting party were not recognized. The statement in § 301(b) that the acts of the agents of the union are to be regarded as binding upon the union may be used in support of this conclusion. This provision, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Even if this limited federal "right" were read into § 301, a serious constitutional question would still be present. It does elevate the situation to one closely analogous to that presented in 22 U. S. 471, supra. There is force in the view that regards the latter as a "sport," and finds that the Court has so viewed it. See Mishkin, 53 Col.L.Rev. at 160, n. 24, citing Gully v. First National Bank, 299 U. S. 109, 299 U. S. 113-114 ("Only recently, we said after full consideration that the doctrine of the charter cases was to be treated as exceptional, though, within their special field, there was no thought to disturb them."), and Puerto Rico v. Russell & Co., 288 U. S. 476, 288 U. S. 485; see also Mr. Justice Holmes in Smith v. Kansas City Title & Trust Co.,@ 255 U. S. 180, 255 U. S. 214-215 (dissenting opinion). The question is whether we should now so consider it and refuse to apply its holding to the present situation.
I believe that we should not extend the precedents of Osborn and the Pacific Railroad Removal Cases to this case even though there be some elements of analytical similarity. Osborn, the foundation for the Removal Cases, appears to have been based on premises that, today, viewed in the light of the jurisdictional philosophy of Gully v. First National Bank, supra, are subject to criticism. The basic premise was that every case in which a federal question might arise must be capable of being commenced in the federal courts, and when so commenced it might, because jurisdiction must be judged as the outset, be concluded there despite the fact that the federal question was never raised. Marshall's holding was undoubtedly influenced by his fear that the bank might suffer hostile treatment in the state courts that could not be remedied by an appeal on an isolated federal question. There is nothing in Article III that affirmatively supports the view that original jurisdiction over cases involving chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Analysis of the bankruptcy power also reveals a superficial analogy to § 301. The trustee enforces a cause of action acquired under state law by the bankrupt. Federal law merely provides for the appointment of the trustee, vests the cause of action in him, and confers jurisdiction on the federal courts. Section 301 similarly takes the rights and liabilities which, under state law, are vested distributively in the individual members of a union and vests them in the union for purposes of actions in federal courts, wherein the unions are authorized to sue and be sued as an entity. While the authority of the trustee depends on the existence of a bankrupt and on the propriety of the proceedings leading to the trustee's appointment, both of which depend on federal law, there are similar federal propositions that may be essential to an action under § 301. Thus, the validity of the contract may, in any case, be challenged on the ground that the labor organization negotiating it was not the representative of the employees concerned, a question that has been held to be federal, La Crosse Telephone Corp. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 336 U. S. 18, or on the ground that subsequent change in the representative chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
If there is in the phrase "arising under the laws of the United States" leeway for expansion of our concepts of jurisdiction, the history or Article III suggests that the area is not great, and that it will require the presence of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In the wise distribution of governmental powers, this Court cannot do what a President sometimes does in returning a bill to Congress. We cannot return this provision to Congress and respectfully request that body to face the responsibility placed upon it by the Constitution to define the jurisdiction of the lower courts with some particularity, and not to leave these courts at large. Confronted as I am, I regretfully have no choice. For all the reasons elaborated in this dissent, even reading into § 301 the limited federal rights consistent with the purposes of that section, I am impelled to the view that it is unconstitutional in cases such as the present ones, where it provides the sole basis for exercise of jurisdiction by the federal courts. [Footnote 3/7] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Osborn might possibly be limited on the ground that a federal instrumentality, the Bank of the United States, was involved, see 353 U. S. infra, but such an explanation could not suffice to narrow the holding in the Pacific Railroad Removal Cases.
(Id. at 853.) chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
b. As in the House, however, concern was expressed over a general impression that unions were not subject to suits for damages for breach of contract to the same extent as employers. (Pp. 138, 168, 354, 383, 400, 554, 623, 662, 740.) For the first time, however, oral testimony directed the legislators to the primary source of the problem. This testimony, with a supporting memorandum, indicated that the problem lay in the status of the union chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
(92 Cong.Rec. 5705.) chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
c. Senator Murray, opposing the measure, argued, among other things, that labor unions are peculiar in that they are unincorporated associations, that state rules regarding them are the same for all chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
d. Senator Magnuson, opposing the amendment before it was actually introduced, went into detailed consideration of the amendment, which he described as one to "create a right of action, under Federal statute, for breach of a collective bargaining agreement." He asserted that such agreements were already fully binding legally on both parties, and that the difficulty was in the union's status as an unincorporated association. He defended the necessity for the restrictive rules regarding suits against such associations, and emphasized the modification of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
(Pp. 3016-3017.) chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
c. No other member of the committee made a statement with regard to the section. Nor did any other chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
c. The unions, in testimony and filed statements, unanimously opposed the section. One of the points constantly made was that the belief that state law did not regard them as responsible on their contracts was erroneous. (Pp. 1042, 1154, 1391, 1534, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
"The Federal courts have always had jurisdiction to entertain suits for breach of collective bargaining contracts, and have awarded money damages where the amount in controversy fulfills the present $3,000 requirement and diversity of citizenship exists. Nederlandsche Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij v. Stevedores and Longshoremen's Benevolent Society, ((1920), 265 F.3d 7). It is apparent from the language of section 301 that no change is made in the application of State law for this purpose. The section states that "
(Id. at 4437.) chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
(Id. at 4758.) chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
(Id. at 4207.) chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
(P. 5.) chanroblesvirtualawlibrary