Opinion ID: 2641881
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The meaning of transfer

Text: FairPoint next contests the panel's decision that jobs once completed by a computer program were wrongfully transferred away from Union employees. It asserts, as it did before the court below, that the only plausible interpretation of transfer requires an element of predicate possession that was absent in this case. Therefore, FairPoint concludes, the panel's determination that jobs were impermissibly transferred away from Union employees ignores the plain language of the CBA in favor of an impermissible construction that is clearly in excess of the panel's interpretive authority. We do not disagree that the term transfer connotes an assignment from one entity to another. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2426-27 (1971) (defining transfer as to carry or take from one person or place to another or the conveyance . . . from one person to another (emphasis added)). Therefore, we must review the facts presented in this case to determine whether, given this definition, the panel's finding that -16- a transfer occurred was indeed plausible. We begin this review by adopting the panel's factual findings in full, including the determination that the Union had a concrete expectation, amounting to a legitimate claim, that its employees would perform these jobs. El Dorado Technical Servs., Inc., 961 F.2d at 320 (holding that courts, in considering arbitral awards, do not review findings of fact). Our inquiry is thus limited to determining whether it is conceivable that this legitimate claim vested in the Union a degree of possession sufficient to make the subcontracting of these jobs a form of transfer. The panel's interpretation of transfer is indeed expansive, and if we were initially tasked with construing the meaning of this term, we might find FairPoint's argument more convincing. We cannot say, however, that it is beyond any plausible interpretation of the term as used in the CBA that subcontracting jobs to which Union employees had a legitimate claim -- undisputedly founded on a mutual understanding of the parties -- constituted a transfer. It is at least conceivable that this well-defined expectation was a sufficient form of predicate possession to mean that these jobs were indeed removed or conveyed away from the Union. See Local 1445, United Food & Commercial Workers Int'l Union, AFL-CIO v. Stop & Shop Co., Inc., 776 F.2d 19, 21 (1st Cir. 1985) (finding that to warrant reversal, awards must be premised on reasoning so palpably faulty that no -17- judicial body ever could conceivably have made such a ruling (citing Bettencourt v. Bos. Edison Co., 560 F.2d 1045, 1050 (1st Cir. 1977))). The plausibility of this reading is further bolstered by the panel's factual finding that some small portion of LSR work was already completed by Union employees. That FairPoint contracted to resolve disputes via arbitration means they must now live by the bargain they struck. Misco, 484 U.S. at 37-38 (Because the parties have contracted to have disputes settled by an arbitrator . . . it is the arbitrator's view of the . . . meaning of the contract that they have agreed to accept.). Finding no grounds on which to vacate the arbitral award, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment for the Union.