Court Opinion

ID: 9470636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:11:42.686983+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:01.540294
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result:
The majority concludes that Hoffman v. Lonza, Inc., 658 F.2d 519 (7th Cir.1981), has become “the law of this circuit” by a process of stacking up conflicting panel opinions and awarding the prize to the thickest pile. Judge Bauer in Superczynski v. P.T.O. Services, Inc., 706 F.2d 200 (7th Cir. 1983), a short time earlier followed very much the same procedure and reached the same questionable conclusion. By any fair reading Baldini v. Local 1095, UAW, 581 F.2d 145 (7th Cir.1978), and Miller v. Gateway Transportation Co., 616 F.2d 272 (7th Cir.1980), which were reversals of summary judgments upholding employee discharges, are clearly contrary to the proposition that bad faith or intentional misconduct are the sine qua non of a breach of the duty of fair representation.
Judge Pell writing for this court in Baldini said:
Under Vaca v. Sipes ... a union breaches its duty of fair representation when its conduct towards the member is “arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith.” It is noted that the standard is disjunctive. Vaca expressly rejected an argument that only obvious breaches such as discrimination or hostile treatment would be actionable.
581 F.2d at 150 [emphasis supplied].
Judge Pell attached a footnote to the above-quoted passage as follows:
Occasional sentences lifted from their context might make it seem that invidious hostility or some sort of malice is always required, see, e.g., Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, 403 U.S. 274, 300, 301 [91 S.Ct. 1909, 1924, 1925, 29 L.Ed.2d 473] (1971); Williams v. General Foods Corp., 492 F.2d 399, 405 (7th Cir. 1974), but the treatment of the issue in Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., supra [96 S.Ct. 1048, 47 L.Ed.2d 231] leaves little doubt that such has not become the law. Nor do we think a fair reading of Lockridge or Williams or other cases cited by the Company to this effect really supports its argument.
Id. at 150 n. 5.
Judge Tone, writing for this court in Miller, said:
Although evidence of intentionally hostile or invidious action by a union is clearly relevant to determining whether the duty of fair representation has been breached, the duty may be breached without scienter on the part of the union. “[P]atently wrongful conduct such as racial discrimination or personal hostility” is not the sole measure of what is prohibited. Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. at 190-91 [87 S.Ct. at 916-17].... A union also breaches its duty when it arbitrarily ignores or perfunctorily processes a grievance.
616 F.2d at 277 n. 11 [emphasis supplied].
Judge Bauer in Superczynski (and, I take it, the majority here) attempts to distinguish Baldini and Miller on the grounds that “the records in both cases indicated that the unions may have acted in bad faith.” At 203 [emphasis supplied]. This is hardly a legitimate basis of distinction in the face of the clear language of the opinions. And for that matter, I think it might be argued in the present case that Coco may have acted in bad faith. What Coco’s state of mind was on the continuum from slight negligence to violent personal hostility is unknown and, in my view, should not be dispositive of this case.
So I must respectfully assert that Baldini and Miller stand in stark opposition to the majority’s analysis here as well as to the approach in Superczynski. Baldini and Miller have not been successfully distinguished, and so far as I can tell, the law of this circuit has become a function of how emphatically a panel or panels can assert the proposition of their choice in the face of clear contrary precedent.1
*297On the merits of the analytical dispute, I continue to believe that the Supreme Court was telling us something when it employed the term “arbitrary” disjunctively from “in bad faith.” Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 190 [87 S.Ct. 903, 916, 17 L.Ed.2d 842] (1967). See Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight Inc., 424 U.S. 554, 567-71 [96 S.Ct. 1048, 1057-59, 47 L.Ed.2d 231] (1976). And the view which I hold has, I believe, been adopted by all but one of the other circuits which have addressed the problem. Farmer v. ARA Services, Inc., 660 F.2d 1096, 1103 (6th Cir.1981); Ethier v. United States Postal Service, 590 F.2d 733, 736 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 826, 100 S.Ct. 49, 62 L.Ed.2d 33 (1979); Foust v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 572 F.2d 710, 715 (10th Cir. 1978); Beriault v. Local 40, Super Cargoes & Checkers of International Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s Union, 501 F.2d 258, 263-64 (9th Cir.1974); Griffin v. UAW, 469 F.2d 181, 183 (4th Cir.1972); DeArroyo v. Sindicato de Trabajadores Packinghouse, 425 F.2d 281, 284 (1st Cir.1970). Cf. Medlin v. Boeing Vertol Co., 620 F.2d 957, 961 (3d Cir.1980).
The matter has been capably dealt with in Robesky v. Qantas Empire Airways Ltd., 573 F.2d 1082 (9th Cir.1978), where the court concluded:
Acts of omission by union officials not intended to harm members may be so egregious, so far short of minimum standards of fairness to the employee and so unrelated to legitimate union interests as to be arbitrary.
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[I]t is clear that unintentional acts or omissions by union officials may be arbitrary if they reflect reckless disregard for the rights of the individual employee; .. . they severely prejudice the injured employee; ... and the policies underlying this duty of fair representation would not be served by shielding the union from liability in the circumstances of the particular case....
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The policies underlying the duty of fair representation would be served by affording [the employee] a remedy for the grave injury resulting from the egregious conduct of her collective bargaining agent.
Id. at 1090, 1091 [emphasis supplied].
The analysis of Judge Kennedy, concurring in Robesky, is even more persuasive:
[T]he term “arbitrary” ... should describe the standard we apply on reviewing the adequacy of the procedures followed by the union in the processing and resolution of grievances.
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A labor union has some discretion in determining the proper resolution of an employee grievance.... The Supreme Court has required that in exercising this discretion a union should adjust grievances in a manner that is neither arbitrary nor perfunctory.... The standard of review imposed by this rule seems to me to require the kind of scrutiny we use whenever we review a determination of an individual or body entrusted with discretionary power. We inquire whether the discretion granted has been abused by a failure to make a reasoned decision. In the case now before us, we should inquire whether the union decisions lacked a rational basis, or whether by perfunctorily processing a grievance so that a reasoned decision was not made, the union foredoomed the grievances.
Id. at 1092 [emphasis supplied]. I therefore conclude that the standard as formulated by the Supreme Court and as generally interpreted by the lower federal courts cannot fairly be narrowed to “intentional misconduct.”
*298None of this matters in the case before us since Dober has not been severely prejudiced, see id. at 1090. He has lost $421— not his job. And nothing has been alleged which seems to suggest any basic taint of the arbitral process. In fact, as Judge Posner points out, in the present context it does not appear that Coco’s conduct can be seriously faulted.
Nonetheless, by narrowing the standard to “intentional misconduct” the majority has made it virtually impossible as a practical matter for a discharged employee to successfully hold either his union or his employer to account. The only circumstances which might give an employee much practical hope would be an unabashed declaration by a union that it was refusing out of motives of hostility to represent an employee’s interest. Otherwise it could simply “forget” to act or stifle a grievance in monumental indifference. For this reason, rooted as it is in the facts of life on the factory floor, the Supreme Court’s specification of “arbitrary” as well as “bad faith” actions is both wise and insightful. With all respect, the majority’s contrary adoption of its unsupported rule of law is simplistic and invites injustice.
Many discharged employees are undeserving, but some are not. And no one is more powerless than the employee who has incurred the open hostility of his employer and the unspoken disfavor or indifference of those in control of his union. The majority speaks of recourse through the democratic process, but this is of scant value to the worker who has been fired. In the present effort to close and lock the courthouse doors, it is no accident that the powerless are the first to suffer. I cannot therefore agree with the views announced today by the majority.

. Further, writing for a unanimous panel in Baker v. Amsted Industries, 656 F.2d 1245 (7th Cir.1981), I said:
*297Where ... a union has negotiated a collective bargaining agreement that clothes it with exclusive authority to process employees’ grievances against the employer, the union bears a heavy responsibility for processing such claims fairly and conscientiously, since individual employees (including those who opposed representation by their statutorily-imposed agent) are barred from individually seeking redress from their employer’s wrongful conduct.
656 F.2d at 1250 [emphasis supplied].