Court Opinion

ID: 9639270
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:10:20.263802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:15.007039
License: Public Domain

McALLISTER, Circuit Judge
(partially concurring and partially dissenting).
With all that is said in the opinion of Judge GOODRICH, I concur, subject to one qualification. That is with respect to the application of the United States Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq., to the situation here disclosed. As to the conclusion reached in this regard in the prevailing opinion, I respectfully dissent.
Application of the statute depends upon whether the kind of contract here before us is excepted from the operation of the Act. I believe that it is so excepted, because it is a contract of employment of a class of workers engaged in interstate commerce.
Section 1 of the Act provides:
“ ‘Maritime transactions,’ as herein defined means charter parties, bills of lading of water carriers, agreements relating to wharfage, supplies furnished vessels or repairs to vessels, collisions, or any other matters in foreign commerce which, if the subject of controversy, would be embraced within admiralty jurisdiction; ‘commerce,’ as herein defined, means commerce among the several States or with foreign nations, or in any Territory of the United States or in the District of Columbia, or between any such Territory and another, or between any such Territory and any State or foreign nation, or between the District of Columbia and any State or Territory or foreign nation, but nothing herein contained shall apply to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.”
The foregoing section is concerned with definitions of “maritime transactions”, and “commerce”, and with an enumeration of certain contracts of employment which are excepted from the application of the section or from the application of the entire Act. The crux of the issue is whether the contracts of employment mentioned are excepted from the operation of Section 1 of the Act or whether they are excepted from the operation of the entire statute. In the prevailing opinion, it is held that, in defining commerce in Section 1, contracts of employment of specified types of employees were excluded, but that such exclusion was only in the definition of “commerce” in that section, and that the limitation in the definition in Section 1 should not be applied as an over-all limitation where the defined term is not used.
Viewing the problem from a somewhat different aspect, however, it seems to me that it should be said that the contract in question was one of a class, excepted from the operation of the Act, by virtue of the statutory language used in Section 1, wherein it is said that “nothing herein contained shall apply to contracts of employment of * * * any * * * class of workers engaged in * * * interstate commerce.” To construe this language as excepting the designated classes of contracts of employment merely from the operation of Section 1 rather than construing it as excepting such contracts from the operation of all of the provisions of the statute in question, appears to me untenable. The language of exclusion is found in the first section of the Act, which is composed entirely of definitions and exceptions. It is nor used with any of the substantive provisions of the statute, which are set forth in the succeeding sections of the Act. Unless the excepting language applies to the entire statute, it seems to me rather meaningless. I am unable to read the phrase, “but nothing herein contained shall apply to contracts of employment of * * * any * * * class of workers engaged in * * * interstate commerce”, as a part of the definition of “commerce”. Rather I feel that the language used in Section 1, relating to exceptions, is to be understood as referring to the entire statute, instead of merely to the first section.
It is unnecessary to refer to any authorities other than those mentioned by Judge GOODRICH, as they are the only ones pertinent to the issue in this case.