Opinion ID: 565162
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Alleged misconduct concerning court order

Text: 21 The pilots next contend that ALPA fabricated a bankruptcy court gag order to avoid keeping the MEC informed about the final negotiations 10 and then schemed with Continental to impose the strike settlement as a court order. 11 The pilots then assert that ALPA blamed the terms of the settlement on the bankruptcy judge and disclaimed any role in agreeing to them. 12 The pilots contend that if the MEC had known of the deal, members would have opposed the settlement because it was poor and improperly dismissed pending litigation against Continental and foreclosed ALPA assistance of future claims. The pilots contend that ALPA confected the settlement secretly to prevent such MEC opposition. They also argue that ALPA wanted the settlement agreement issued as a court order to avoid being held accountable for any of its terms. 13 22 First, we note that the pilots' contentions about the inadequacy of the settlement cannot in themselves support their claim for a bad faith breach of ALPA's DFR. Because the Supreme Court found that the settlement would not support an arbitrary or discriminatory breach of ALPA's DFR, a fortiori, the settlement may not support a breach of that DFR in bad faith. 23 ALPA also argues that the court order gave it an enforcement mechanism to deal with what the Supreme Court has termed the determined resistance by Continental at all stages of this strike. O'Neill, 499 U.S. at ----, 111 S.Ct. at 1137, 113 L.Ed.2d at 66. ALPA further argues that the pilots' allegations of a gag order and secrecy surrounding negotiations, merely point to a desire to end the strike in the fashion that they did, i.e., through the Order and Award. ALPA argues that these allegations do not imply that ALPA acted in bad faith. The district court agreed, concluding that the fact that [ALPA] used every tactic available to them to insure that their resolution of the dispute would not be upset cannot be translated into personal animosity or illegal motives against these pilots. 14 24 We agree with the district court. As explained above, while we may not have ended the strike in the same fashion as ALPA did, we cannot say that their choice of having a settlement entered by a bankruptcy court was outside a wide range of reasonableness. Likewise it was within that wide range for ALPA to believe that secrecy concerning negotiations with Continental and the bankruptcy judge was necessary to conclude the deal. Finally ALPA's alleged misrepresentations concerning the gag order and its part in the negotiations do not rise to the level of egregious conduct intentionally harming the membership needed to support a breach of its DFR in bad faith. The district court correctly granted summary judgment on this issue.