Court Opinion

ID: 9648744
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:33:57.53718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:05.146392
License: Public Domain

PER CURIAM.
Respondents have filed a motion for rehearing or to transfer to the court en banc. Transfer is requested on the contention that this case involves a federal question requiring the transfer of the case to the court en banc under Constitution of Missouri, 1945, Art. 5, § 9, V.A.M.S., namely, individual employees’ rights arising under a collective bargaining agreement with an employer engaged in activities affecting interstate commerce within the meaning of and subject to the Labor Management Relations Act 1947, as amended, and that the case arises under and is governed by Section 301(a), L.M.R.A., 29 U.S.C. § 185(a).
No question involving the construction of the constitution of this state or of the United States, or the validity of a treaty or federal statute, or any authority *480exercised under federal laws,1 was raised or involved in the original submission of this case, either in the trial court or in this court, until after the opinion of this court was handed down. The attempt to inject a federal question for the first time in the motion for rehearing came too late to secure a transfer to the court en banc, under our practice and procedure.
Respondents further contend that in construing this collective bargaining agreement local state law instead of applicable federal substantive law was improperly applied; that the principles and precepts of federal labor law and policy must be observed ; that the context in which this agreement was negotiated and the purpose it was intended to serve should have been considered; that collective bargaining agreements are federal contracts which are conceptually different from other contracts and subject to different approaches in their construction and enforcement. It is urged that the interests and positions of respondents were not considered; that the obvious intendment and purpose of Article XI was overlooked; that federal labor law and policy require a construction favorable to the demands of respondents; that the courts should interpolate terms which might have been but were not included in the agreement, so as to effectuate the policies of federal labor law and accomplish the “evident aims and purpose” of the agreement, where necessary; that respondents’ interpretation of the agreement is “in accord with substantive federal law,” and that we should rule in respondents’ favor because our construction of the agreement can only breed discontent and inharmonious relations between employers and employees, constitute a source of unnecessary and disrupting litigation, and have an unsettling effect upon the negotiation and administration of collective bargaining agreements throughout the country.
The suggestion that federal labor policy and federal substantive law governs the construction of this agreement is a new theory, introduced into this litigation for •the first time on the motion for rehearing. As indicated, the case was not submitted on any such theory, either in the trial court or in this court. No reference was made in respondents’ brief on appeal to federal law, in urging us to adopt their interpretation of Article XI. Both sides treated all questions for decision as questions arising under local law and determinable by local law. New propositions and complaints, not made in the original briefs, Ford v. Wabash Ry. Co., 318 Mo. 723, 300 S.W. 769, 778, and raised for the first time after the opinion is handed down by the Supreme Court, Phippin v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 196 Mo. 321, 93 S.W. 410, 418, or which are clearly afterthoughts, State ex rel. Cole v. Matthews, en banc, Mo.Sup., 274 S.W.2d 286, 292, ordinarily will not be considered on motion for rehearing. We will consider the matter, however, sufficiently to point out the following: Although on original submission respondents cited no federal cases, but only Missouri cases and cases from other states, and on this motion for rehearing have not cited any federal cases construing a provision similar to Article XI, our original research, and our research on this motion for rehearing, was conducted in the case law of both hierarchies, state and federal. We have found no federal cases construing such a provision or a similar provision and we are of the opinion that there are no ruling cases in the federal courts applying any different rule or reaching any different result on comparable facts. Respondents have not shown that our decision is contrary to any federal de*481cisions on this subject. We consider our decision not inconsistent with the existing body of federal law. The parties were accorded a review of the provisions of the contract under applicable law on the merits in accordance with accepted principles of construction and on the basis of what the parties said in their agreement. Neither respondents, nor appellant, were entitled to prevail on the basis of what they intended to say or might have said, or on the basis of the effect a certain construction may have upon industrial peace, nor on any basis except the merits of their contentions.
Nothing said in Smith v. Evening News Association, 371 U.S. 195, 83 S.Ct. 267, 9 L.Ed.2d 246, or in any of the other United States Supreme Court decisions cited in respondents’ suggestions, militates against the conclusions we have reached. In none of these cases was there a question of construction analogous or similar to that presented in this case. Assuming that we are obliged to follow and apply federal substantive labor law and policy, the United States Supreme Court has not issued any universal ukase that in all cases of disagreement between the parties to collective bargaining agreements federal labor law and policy dictates that the position of the labor union shall be sustained arbitrarily or that the preservation of harmonious labor relations requires the capitulation of employers in all cases where questions of interpretation arise, regardless of the merits of the case, but this is what respondents seem to imply.
Having decided this case on its merits we do not conceive it to be our function to sustain respondents’ position in this case willy-nilly, “lest it be summarily returned to this Court by the Supreme Court of the United States,” as respondents’ counsel warn on page 12 of their suggestions.
Respondents’ contentions that we misinterpreted the law in holding that the General Laws were not incorporated into the agreement; in applying improper principles of review; in holding that the motion for a directed verdict should have been sustained; in ruling that permanent suspension of publication cannot be interpreted to mean permanent suspension of printing; in holding that Article XI means corporate merger or consolidation by appellant; in holding that permanent suspension of publication meant to go out of business as a publisher of a newspaper; in invading the province of the jury by construing the language of Article XI; and in failing to consider controlling decisions of local law with which this opinion is said to conflict, constitute mere reargument of issues determined by the opinion. Under Sup.Ct.Rule 83.16, V.A.M.R. reargument of such issues will be disregarded. We have carefully examined these contentions seriatim and have satisfied ourselves that no matters of law or fact have been overlooked or misinterpreted. The motion for a rehearing or to transfer is overruled.

. These are the standards by which we determine whether there is a “federal question” requiring transfer. McAllister v. St. Louis Merchants’ Bridge Terminal Ry. Co., 324 Mo. 1005, 25 S.W.2d 791; Huckleberry v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 324 Mo. 1025, 26 S.W.2d 980, 988; Pashea v. Terminal R. Ass’n of St. Louis, 350 Mo. 132, 165 S.W.2d 691, 696; State ex rel. Perrine v. Keirnan, 361 Mo. 871, 237 S.W.2d 156.