Opinion ID: 2717155
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: “Forceful Evidence”

Text: 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.