Opinion ID: 524069
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mootness and Abstention.

Text: 61 I agree with the majority that this case is not moot even though the parties have bargained a new contract without resolving their dispute. 14 My additional discussion also addresses Judge Rubin's alternative suggestion that we should abstain from deciding this case, even assuming it is not moot, based on his belief that we are being manipulated in the parties' bargaining process. 62 We are not being manipulated by the parties. Private parties impermissibly attempt to manipulate federal courts when, for example, they contract to place jurisdiction in a particular court, which would otherwise have no power to decide a dispute that might arise under the parties' contract. In this case, neither party had a reason to bargain over the testing program after the district court issued the injunction. 63 Southwest will bargain only if coerced by a court or board of adjustment. From the moment this dispute arose, Southwest has refused to bargain over the testing program. Southwest still refuses to concede that it has a statutory duty to bargain over the testing program's terms. 64 More important, the Union's position results from the incentive structure created by the district court's issuance of the injunction. While the parties were still bound by their original agreement, the district court enjoined Southwest from implementing the testing program pending both appeal and final disposition (R. 264). No preexisting legal rule suggested to the parties that the relief explicitly granted by the district court would dissipate before judicial resolution of the labor dispute. Thus, from the moment the district court issued the injunction, the Union reasonably could have expected that its members would continue to be entitled to equitable relief. The Union consequently had no incentive to bargain away other issues in an attempt to bargain over the program's terms with Southwest, which absolutely has refused to bargain anyway. In short, the material incentives governing the parties' behavior offered no reason for a resolution of this particular dispute through bargaining or any other forum outside of the federal court proceeding in equity to which the parties were committed. 65 Labor disputes are not simply private squabbles. They have a substantial public cast because of pervasive, labyrinthine federal regulation. The district court's predicate role in this case is an integral part of that public cast. We therefore should decide this controversy, although I am quite disturbed by the result. 66