Opinion ID: 507087
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Uncertainty About Proposal's Content

Text: 61 The majority opinion seems to be premised on the assumption--shared by Royal and the union--that the proposal at issue here is the single set of modifications Royal asked for orally on March 18. 5 This premise was not shared by the bankruptcy court, which seems to have considered a variety of suggested modifications under the rubric proposal, but did not isolate any single proposal to determine its necessity. 62 B.R. at 410 n. 15 (Analysis of the differences [between the various proposals] is not material to the motion.) This was error, because the statute envisions that the bankruptcy court scrutinize a single proposal. Because the bankruptcy court did not have a particular proposal in mind, it could not have determined the necessity of a particular proposal, and because I do not believe that we should evaluate a proposal without the benefit of the bankruptcy court's assessment of it, I would at the very least remand for consideration of a single proposal. However, even if I were inclined to review the March 18 proposal in the first instance, I could not do so because the exact content of that proposal is not in the record. 62 As the majority states, both sides have focused on the modification relating to priority. However, because there was no contemporaneous, written record of the March 18 proposal and because the bankruptcy court did not make clear findings about that proposal's content, see 62 B.R. at 410 n. 16, it is not clear from the record whether the March 18 proposal sought to eliminate priority, totally or partially. The March 3 written request for changes did not mention priority at all, see 62 B.R. at 408-09 n. 9, and when the bankruptcy judge asked Is the proposal that the debtor eliminate seniority issues altogether or that the debtor obtain a one-time ... window, the debtor's chief negotiator answered it's somewhere in the middle.... I anticipate that there will be a one-time problem of excessing 5 or 6 people ... [but] I will then reserve the right to again go by way of merit selection rather than seniority.... At no time has the debtor ever asked for what you describe as a cart[e] blanche right to elimi[na]te seniority.... Most of the aspects that seniority has we're not asking for change. Cf. 62 B.R. at 413 (management request in January to eliminate five employees, not all of seniority). If the proposal had clearly asked for a small, temporary incursion into priority, I might feel differently about the necessity of the modification, as indicated above. However, on the record before us I cannot tell what the proposal was and therefore cannot judge whether it was necessary. 63 Analyzing the proposal as a whole, which the majority does, is similarly impossible because one cannot determine the proposal's total savings without knowing what the specific modifications are and how much each will save. Because this factual issue is at the heart of the appeal and because it is a basic principle of federal jurisprudence that courts pass on legal questions only in concrete factual situations, I would not use this case to announce a new interpretation of the necessary proposal requirement. Instead, I would remand for factual findings with a suggestion that bankruptcy courts in the future not consider rejection applications unless accompanied by a copy of the clear, written, dated proposal by management to a union.