Court Opinion

ID: 9842888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:20:39.642086+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:04.785315
License: Public Domain

SOBELOFF, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
The court’s decision in the present case not only fails to heed the unequivocal teaching of the Supreme Court in three recent labor arbitration cases,1 but it also directly conflicts with previous decisions of this court and other federal courts.2 The opinion of the majority recognizes the appropriate governing principles of law, but then departs from them in the crucial final paragraphs.
I agree that the District Court had jurisdiction to enforce the award. I also heartily agree that both the general law of arbitration, and more particularly the recent decisions involving labor arbitration, require courts to enforce arbitration awards unless the arbitrator has clearly exceeded his authority, i. e., has decided a matter that is not, according to the submission or contract, “arbitrable.” 3 However, to my mind, regard for these principles precludes the action taken by the majority. The arbitrator’s award did not violate the terms of the submission and should be enforced.
1. As the court’s opinion correctly points out, Arrowood never denied that he had committed the offense of letting *902a lap run through. Nor was any question of discrimination ever raised. If the contention is correct that the only question that could be arbitrated was whether the employee did the act, or whether there was discrimination, there would have been nothing to arbitrate, for on this score the parties were not in controversy. If the company had at that time construed the collective bargaining agreement as the court now does, they would not have agreed to arbitration. The grievance submitted by employee Arrowood stated: “The company unjustly discharged me, for letting a lap run through.” His complaint was that “letting a lap run through” was not just cause for discharge. This is the issue the company agreed to arbitrate and this issue the arbitrator decided. The written stipulation for arbitration, signed by both the company and union, provided, under the heading “Mutually approved issue of arbitration,” as follows:
“Under the terms of the contract, and within the limits of those terms, including the restrictions on the power of the Arbitrator, does Grievance No. 157 allege, and has the Union proved, a violation of the Contract. If so, and within the same limitations, what should be the remedy?”
When an arbitrator decides the very issue submitted to him, how can one of the parties later be heard to say that the arbitrator has exceeded the scope of the submission ? 4
2. Apart from the fact that the particular question of interpretation involved here was expressly submitted to the arbitrator, and thus, under the general arbitration law and under federal labor law, his construction should be binding, I think that the contract itself is unmistakably clear in making this grievance one for arbitration.
Preliminarily, it is to be noted that the first clause in the collective bargaining agreement pertaining to grievances and leading to arbitration is quite broad in range. Article VI, section 1, provides: “Should any employee have any grievance arising from the operation or interpretation of this Agreement an earnest effort to adjust such grievance satisfactorily to the parties shall be made in the following manner * * *.” (Emphasis supplied). Comprehensive also is the first part of Article VII, specifically governing the arbitration procedures:
“Disputes, grievances, or disagreements involving application or interpretation of this agreement other than those affecting revision of the wage schedules attached hereto, workloads or work assignments, not satisfactorily adjusted under the Grievance Procedure set out in the preceding section shall be promptly referred to arbitration under the following procedure * *
Plainly enough the grievance here involves the application and interpretation of the agreement and does not fall within one of the above exceptions. Highly pertinent is the observation of the Supreme Court in United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 1960, 363 U.S. 574, 584-585, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1354, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409:
“ * * * In the absence of any express provision excluding a particular grievance from arbitration, we think only the most forceful evidence of a purpose to exclude the claim from arbitration can prevail, particularly where, as here, the exclusion clause is vague and the arbi*903tration clause quite broad.” (Emphasis supplied).
This language would appear to control the case at hand.
The union maintained, and the arbitrator agreed, that the contract recognizes two types of “just cause,” one being just cause for discharge and the other just cause for lesser disciplinary action. It is contended that when an employee has committed an offense, whether this amounts to just cause for discharge or only just cause for a milder form of discipline may be made a grievance subject to arbitration. None of the provisions of the contract is inconsistent with this interpretation. In fact, some of the provisions confirm this construction. Article IV, section 2, of the agreement states:
“In all cases of discharge or discipline, the Company will promptly present a written statement to the employee or employees involved giving the cause of the discharge or discipline. The employee or the Union shall have the right to make such matter a grievance, subject to the grievance procedure of this Agreement * * *.”
Section 3 of the same article provides:
“Should it be determined that any employee was disciplined or discharged without just cause, such employee shall be restored to his former status provided, however, that no arbitrator may award back pay for a period exceeding ninety (90) days * *
These sections pointedly make the question of what constitutes just cause for discharge the subject of arbitration.
Nor do the contract provisions stressed by the company clash with the arbitrator’s interpretation. Both the company’s argument and the court’s opinion chiefly rely on Article III of the collective bargaining agreement, titled “Management Rights”. This article states:
“It is agreed that, except as expressly limited or modified in this Agreement, the Company has the right of management. This includes, among other things, the right to plan, direct, control, increase, decrease or discontinue operations; to change machinery or type of products, or demote employees subject to just cause, and to discipline or discharge employees for just cause; to add to or reduce shifts and working forces; to adopt working and safety rules; to assign work in accordance with the needs of the job; to remove and install machinery, appliances, and types of products; to introduce new and improved production methods or facilities; to remove its plant to another location, or to close or liquidate its plant and to sell or otherwise dispose of any of its products; it is recognized further that all rights heretofore exercised by or inherent in the Management, and not expressly contracted away by the terms of this Agreement are retained solely by the Management. Any action by the Company under this Section may be made the subject of collective bargaining and grievance procedure, up to but not including arbitration, unless as otherwise hereinafter expressly provided in this Agreement. It is expressly agreed, however, that should the Company change existing work rules, that such changes are subject to the grievance and arbitration procedure under this Agreement.” (Emphasis supplied).
The above provision reserves several different prerogatives of management and, as to all of them, provides that their exercise by management shall not be the subject of arbitration. One of these is the right “to discipline or discharge employees for just cause.” This clause expressly recognizes two sanctions, one being “discipline” and the other “discharge.” It does not define what constitutes “just cause” for either. Perhaps the intent of Article III is, as the majority construes it, to leave it to management to say what is just cause for either discipline or discharge. On the other *904hand, it may well mean that, if an employee is aggrieved by his discharge, then only after it has been determined that management has just cause to discharge rather than discipline the employee, will management have the unfettered right to enforce this action without interference by arbitration.
Furthermore Article III must be related to Article IV which in terms constrains management to discharge “only for just cause.” Article III contemplates that it may be “limited or modified” by other provisions of the contract. Additionally, the broad general clause opening management rights to the grievance procedure “but not including arbitration” also is qualified by the language, “unless as otherwise hereinafter expressly provided in this Agreement.” Article IV, section 2, as previously pointed out, explicitly gives employees the right to make matters of discharge a grievance, subject to the grievance procedure. The very next section, section 3 of Article IV, specifically contemplates that the question of whether an “employee was disciplined or discharged without just cause” can be for an arbitrator, for it limits the amount of back pay an arbitrator may award in such a situation. This provision would be completely inappropriate if the intention were to preclude arbitration. Even if Article III, standing alone, would be open to the interpretation the company puts upon it, that article itself states that it may be later modified or qualified, and it is in fact so qualified by Article IV.
In addition, see the discussion of this type of “right of management” clause in United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., supra.5
3. Moreover, should it be thought that the contract does not with absolute perspicuity make Arrowood’s grievance a subject of arbitration, it is still for the arbitrator to interpret the contract. It is not for the employer acting unilaterally, nor even for this court. The court goes to an unwarranted length when it construes the arbitration procedure as reserving to the employer an industrial absolutism over the employees, subjecting them to discharge under any circumstances without opportunity for review, mitigation or redress. It is no answer to say there was no discrimination. The absence of discrimination in the enforcement of an unjust penalty would not make it just. Whether there was just cause for discharge, is still for the arbitrator. The court unjustifiably trespasses upon the arbitrator’s exclusive function when it substitutes its more restrictive view of arbitrability for that adopted by him in unquestioned good faith as the chosen interpreter of the contract.
Unless the collective bargaining agreement is so absolutely plain as to leave no room for doubt, the arbitrator’s view of the agreement’s intent must prevail. He is the one empowered to resolve ambiguities. This is the principal point, repeatedly stressed, in the Supreme Court opinions. In United Steelworkers of America v. American Mfg. Co., 1960, 363 U.S. 564, 567-568, 80 S.Ct. 1343, 1346, 4 L.Ed.2d 1403, it was emphatically stated:
“ * * * The function of the court is very limited when the parties have agreed to submit all questions of contract interpretation to the arbitrator. It is confined to ascertaining *905whether the party seeking arbitration is making a claim which on its face is governed by the contract. Whether the moving party is right or wrong is a question of contract interpretation for the arbitrator. In these circumstances the moving party should not be deprived of the arbitrator’s judgment, when it was his judgment and all that it connotes that was bargained for.” (Emphasis supplied).
And again in the same case, 363 U.S. at page 569, 80 S.Ct. at page 1347:
“ * * * When the judiciary undertakes to determine the merits of a grievance under the guise of interpreting the grievance procedure of collective bargaining agreements, it usurps a function which under that regime is entrusted to the arbitration tribunal.”
In the Warrior case, supra at pages 582-583, 80 S.Ct. at page 1357:
“ * * * An order to arbitrate the particular grievance should not be denied unless it may be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted dispute. Doubts should be resolved in favor of coverage.”
Finally, in United Steelworkers of Amerca v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 1960, 363 U.S. 593, 599, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 1362, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424:
“ * * # [T]he question of interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement is a question for the arbitrator. It is the arbitrator’s construction which was bargained for; and so far as the arbitrator’s decision concerns construction of the contract, the courts have no business overruling him because their interpretation of the contract is different from his.”
Never has the Supreme Court prescribed a guide more clearly or with more positiveness.6 Yet, the court’s decision in the present case does precisely what the Supreme Court has prohibited.
4. The second reason advanced for upsetting this labor arbitration award is that the arbitrator considered improper evidence. He found that the company was partly to blame for Arrowood’s “offense” because it had failed to furnish proper instructions and supervision to the machine operators. In making this finding, the arbitrator partly relied on findings of another arbitrator in an arbitration proceeding involving this same defendant and the same issue. The majority assert that this violated the terms of the submission, as the arbitrator did not “confine himself strictly to the facts submitted in the hearing.” However, a reading of the arbitrator’s opinion in the instant case discloses that this whole matter, including the findings in the other arbitration proceeding and the failure of the defendant to properly instruct, was evidence submitted to him at this hearing. The arbitrator concluded his discussion of this phase of the case *906by saying: “It was brought out at the hearing that such recommended program of instruction has not yet been instituted.” (Emphasis supplied). It is not at all evident from this record that the arbitrator considered inadmissible evidence.
However, assuming that improper evidence was taken into account by the arbitrator, this would not vitiate his award. Burchell v. Marsh et al., 1854, 17 How. (58 U.S.) 344, 349-350, 15 L.Ed. 96 ;7 United Fuel Gas Co. v. Columbian Fuel Corporation, 4 Cir., 1948, 165 F.2d 746. In addition, “ [arbitrators have no obligation to the court to give their reasons for an award.” United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., supra at page 598, 80 S.Ct. at page 1361. Since an arbitrator need give no reasons, it would seem to follow that his award cannot be thrust aside because he gave an “improper” reason. See also the Court’s discussion in United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., supra, of the wide range of matters an arbitrator may consider.
It has always been a cardinal principle, with respect to court review of arbitration awards, that every presumption is in favor of the award’s validity and that the person attacking an award has the burden of showing that the arbitrator exceeded his authority.8 Where the arbitrator decided the only issue submitted to him, one that certainly concerned an employee’s grievance, and language of the contract seems expressly to make this a question for arbitration, I am at a loss to understand how the defendant has overcome the presumption of validity and met its burden of demonstrating the invalidity of the award.
The District Court should have ordered the defendant to comply with the arbitration award. I would reverse.

. United Steelworkers of America v. American Mfg. Co., 1960, 363 U.S. 564, 80 S.Ct. 1363, 4 L.Ed.2d 1432; United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 1960, 363 U.S. 574, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409; United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 1960, 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424.

. See e. g.: Firemen’s Fund Ins. Co. v. Flint Hosiery Mills, Inc., 4 Cir., 1935, 74 F.2d 533, 104 A.L.R. 556; Mutual Benefit Health & Acc. Ass’n v. United Cas. Co., 1 Cir., 194, 142 F.2d 390; United Fuel Gas Co. v. Columbian Fuel Corporation, 4 Cir., 1948, 165 F.2d 746; Butte Miners’ Union No. 1, etc. v. Anaconda Company, D.C.D.Mont.1958, 159 F.Supp. 431, affirmed 9 Cir., 1959, 267 F.2d 940; Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp. v. United Steelworkers, 4 Cir., 1959, 269 F.2d 327; Textile Workers Union, etc. v. American Thread Company, 4 Cir., 1959, 271 F.2d 277 (the previous appeal in the same case now before the court, where we pointed out the similarity between this case and Enterprise Wheel, supra.)

. The basic principles set forth in the three recent Supreme Court labor arbitration cases, see footnote 1, supra, have, as the majority points out, always been the law. However, the Supreme Court did make it clear in those cases that there are additional reasons why courts should not interfere with labor arbitration awards. In United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 1960, 363 U.S. 574, 578, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1351, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409, the Court stated:
“ * * * In the commercial case, arbitration is the substitute for litigation. Here arbitration is the substitute for industrial strife. Since arbitration of labor disputes has quite different functions from arbitration under an ordinary commercial agreement, the hostility evinced by courts toward arbitration of commercial agreements has no place here. For arbitration of labor disputes under collective bargaining agreements is part and parcel of the collective bargaining process itself.”
The manifest implication from the Supreme Court’s language is that courts should be even more reluctant to refuse enforcement of a labor arbitration award than one in the area of commercial arbitation.

. York & Cumberland R. R. v. Myers, 1855, 18 How. (59 U.S.) 246, 253, 15 L.Ed. 380; Mutual Benefit Health & Acc. Ass’n v. United Cas. Co., 1 Cir., 1944, 142 F.2d 390, 394 (where it was said: “Whether he correctly interpreted the contract in this particular is immaterial; he decided the very question submitted to hin, and the award is binding.”) ; United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., D.C.S.D.W.Va.1958, 168 F.Supp. 308, 310, reversed in part by this court, 4 Cir., 269 F.2d 327, but the decision of the District Court was reinstated by the Supreme Court, 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424.

. In the course of its discussion of such a . clause, the Court pointed out, 363 U.S. at page 584, 80 S.Ct. at page 1353:
“ ‘Strictly a function of management’ might be thought to refer to any practice of management in which, under particular circumstances prescribed by the agreement, it is permitted to indulge. But if courts, in order to determine arbitrability, were allowed to determine what is permitted and what is not, the arbitration clause would be swallowed up by tlie exception. Every grievance in a sense involves a claim that management has violated some provision of the agreement.
“Accordingly, ‘strictly a function of management’ must be interpreted as referring only to that over which the contract gives management complete control and unfettered discretion.”

. The principle that the arbitrator’s construction of the contract is binding, when construction is a necessary part of the question to be arbitrated, has long been a rule of arbitration law, recognized previously by this court and others long before the three above Supreme Court cases.
Judge Parker, speaking for this court in United Fuel Gas Co. v. Columbian Fuel Corporation, 4 Cir., 1948, 165 F.2d 746, 751, pointed out:
“ * * * We cannot say that the arbitrators misinterpreted the contract or that they considered improper evidence in making their award; but, had they done so, this would not vitiate tha award.”
And in Mutual Benefit Health & Acc. Ass’n v. United Cas. Co., 1 Cir., 1944, 142 F.2d 390, 395, Judge Magruder stated:
“However, as previously indicated, it is not necessary for us now to decide whether the arbitrator made a mistake in the interpretation he put upon the contract. It is enough that under the terms, of the submission he necessarily had to-interpret the contract in order to decide-the dispute referred to him, and that his award, made in good faith, within the-scope of his authority, is not open to judicial review.”

. In Burchell, the loading case in the field of arbitration law, the Court held, 17 How. (58 U.S.) at page 350: “But it cannot be inferred that the arbitrators went beyond the submission, merely because they may have admitted illegal evidence about the subject-matter of it.” See also Judge Parker's language quoted in footnote 6, supra.

. Burchell v. Marsh et al., 1854, 17 How. (58 U.S.) 344, 350, 15 L.Ed. 96; Firemen’s Fund Ins. Co., v. Flint Hosiery Mills, Inc., 4 Cir., 1935, 74 F.2d 533, 536; American Almond Prod. Co. v. Consolidated Pecan Sales Co., 2 Cir., 1944, 144 F.2d 448, 450, 154 A.L.R. 1205.