Opinion ID: 2717155
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: NextEra’s Arguments

Text: Although NextEra concedes that a disciplinary discharge is generally arbitrable, it protests arbitration of this particular dispute. First, it argues that Hofstra’s was not, in fact, a disciplinary discharge, and that only disciplinary discharges are subject to arbitration. Second, NextEra argues that the Hofstra “discharge” grievance in fact goes to the unescorted access termination, which is a non-arbitrable issue, and that the entire discharge is therefore excluded from arbitration. Third, NextEra argues that other “forceful evidence” of intent exists which supports excluding this dispute from arbitration. None of NextEra’s arguments holds water.
NextEra attempts to bring Hofstra's discharge out from under the plain language of the arbitration clause by asserting that it was not a disciplinary discharge. Instead, according to NextEra, it was a discharge for failing to meet the terms and conditions of Hofstra's employment, because his conduct was such that his unescorted access had to be revoked. But a No. 13-3851 7 discharge for failing to meet the terms and conditions of employment is a disciplinary discharge, according to any remotely sensible understanding of that term. Thus, even if NextEra is correct to read the arbitration clause to cover only “disciplinary” discharges, this one would qualify. NextEra’s first theory is therefore a non-starter.
NextEra’s second argument focuses on the fact that an arbitrator’s consideration of whether or not Hofstra was discharged with just cause will necessarily hinge on the propriety of the unescorted access termination, a management decision which NextEra believes is not arbitrable. NextEra relies on our decision in Intern. Ass’n of Machinists Lodge No. 1777 v. Fansteel, Inc., 900 F.2d 1005, 1011 (7th Cir. 1990), for the proposition that the court must examine the language of a grievance to determine the “true nature” of the dispute, and whether that true nature is “substantively arbitrable.” The Union admits that it does hope to gain arbitrator review of the access decision as the motivation behind Hofstra’s termination. But NextEra overestimates the effect of that admission on the arbitrability of the discharge dispute as a whole. Fansteel’s discussion of “substantive arbitrability” goes to the rule—a common one, which we have invoked already—that a dispute which falls within the arbitration clause on its face will nevertheless be excluded if “we can say with positive assurance that the parties intended to exclude the involved dispute from arbitration.” 900 F.2d at 1010–11. Pursuant to the White Book, discharge disputes fall within the arbitration clause on its face. We therefore will not preclude 8 No. 13-3851 arbitrator review of this grievance entirely unless we can say with positive assurance that certain kinds of discharges—particularly, ones based on the revocation of unescorted access privileges—are nonetheless excluded from arbitration. NextEra has provided no evidence or legal argument which leaves us so “positively assured.” This case is nothing like Fansteel, on the facts. There, although the subject matter of the parties’ dispute was facially arbitrable, a separate written settlement agreement specifically committed the dispute to resolution in a court of law. Id. Predictably, we concluded that arbitration was not the method of dispute resolution to which the parties had agreed. NextEra’s argument against arbitrability in this case is not based on any such express agreement. It is based on the lack thereof. The White Book does not expressly commit unescorted access decisions to either arbitration or to management’s sole discretion, so NextEra argues that the matter is implicitly committed to management discretion by a residual authority clause in the agreement stating that “all management functions … not modified or restricted by [the White Book] are retained and invested exclusively in [NextEra].” That argument may or may not be a good one for precluding an arbitrator from second-guessing the unescorted access decision itself. That is not for us to decide. It is certainly not a good argument, however, for precluding arbitration of the discharge decision. “[A]ny exclusion of particular parties or issues from coverage by an agreement’s arbitration provisions should not be inferred from the language of the agreement, but No. 13-3851 9 must be stated explicitly in the agreement.” Ceres Marine Terminals, Inc. v. Intern. Longshoremen’s Ass’n, Local 1969, AFL-CIO, 683 F.2d 242, 247 (7th Cir. 1982) (emphasis added). On its face, the arbitration clause covers any grievance that a discharge did not meet the requirements laid out in Article 12. Without an explicit exclusion of discharges based on unescorted access revocations, we will not contravene the language of the agreement. We note, however, that we do not hold that the arbitrator may, in fact, review and overturn NextEra’s revocation of Hofstra’s unescorted access privileges. We express no opinion on the subject. NextEra is entitled to present its arguments on that issue to the arbitrator, and the arbitrator may well find the decision unreviewable. If so, the entire matter of the propriety of the discharge might be very quickly resolved. But the potential weakness of the Union’s claim on the merits is no defense to the arbitrability of this dispute, as a threshold question.
NextEra’s final argument is premised on the rule that, even where an arbitration agreement covers the dispute on its face, the opposing party can avoid arbitration by presenting “forceful evidence of a purpose to exclude the claim from arbitration.” Printing Specialties and Paper Prods. Union Local 680 v. Nabisco Brands, Inc., 833 F.2d 102, 104 (7th Cir. 1987). NextEra relies on two types of evidence which it believes are “forceful”: bargaining history and established practice. 10 No. 13-3851
NextEra believes the bargaining history between the parties shows that they agreed to exclude unescorted access decisions from arbitration. NextEra begins by noting a 2006 arbitration decision—involving different parties,1 a different collective bargaining agreement, and different facts—in which the arbitrator concluded that access decisions were nonreviewable. That decision, of course, has no effect on anything outside of its specific, limited context: It is black letter law that arbitration awards are not entitled to the precedential effect accorded to judicial decisions. Indeed, an arbitration award is not considered conclusive or binding in subsequent cases involving the same contract language but different incidents or grievances. El Dorado Tech. Servs., Inc. v. Union Gen. De Trabajadores de Puerto Rico, 961 F.2d 317, 321 (1st Cir. 1992) (citations omitted). Nonetheless, NextEra believes that the Union’s failure to push for language rebutting the 2006 arbitrator’s decision—which applied only to different parties and a different agreement—in negotiations between these parties, for this agreement, shows that the Union intended the exclusion of disputes like the present one from arbitration. Furthermore, NextEra believes the Union’s failure to object to its removal of a clause from an early draft of the White Book mandating that 1 The Union was a party to the 2006 arbitration, but at that time the Point Beach facility was owned by Wisconsin Electric Power Company, and, obviously, Hofstra was not the employee involved. No. 13-3851 11 an unescorted access revocation not be “arbitrary and capricious” demonstrates the Union’s accession to NextEra’s intent to remove the issue from arbitration. There is a significant problem with all of this: None of it suggests in any way that the parties intended to remove discharge decisions from coverage under the arbitration clause, and the Union is asking for review of a discharge decision. Moreover, we are not persuaded that NextEra’s evidence is “forceful.” A party’s failure to center future negotiations around a non-binding prior arbitration decision to which its negotiating partner was not even a party is relatively unremarkable, in our eyes. It is certainly not forceful evidence of an intent to exclude. As for NextEra’s push to remove conditional language concerning unescorted access decisions, it is not even clear whether the Union knew of NextEra’s motives, much less agreed to them.
NextEra’s second line of purported “forceful evidence” of a mutual intent to exclude access decisions from arbitrator review is that it developed its own “Access and Fitness Program” to monitor and ensure its employees’ compliance. The program was unilaterally established, and it no more forcefully establishes a mutual intent to exclude covered material from arbitration than the fact that NextEra employed its own internal disciplinary procedures establishes a joint intent to exclude disciplinary actions from arbitration. The existence of internal review procedures and an agreement to arbitrate disputes concerning the results of those procedures are not in any way mutually exclusive. Moreover, again, does 12 No. 13-3851 not go to show that discharge decisions founded on access revocations were intentionally excluded from the facially applicable arbitration clause.