Court Opinion

ID: 9466535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:18:57.112061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:47.531113
License: Public Domain

ROSS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent from the majority opinion holding that plaintiff’s Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981 claims were not tolled by proceedings before the Railroad Adjustment Board.
When Jerome Harris was discharged in 1972, he timely filed a grievance under the terms of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. This action was consistent with the Supreme Court’s direction in Andrews v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad, 406 U.S. 320, 92 S.Ct. 1562, 32 L.Ed.2d 95 (1972) requiring exhaustion of plaintiff’s administrative remedies under the Railway Labor Act before bringing suit in federal court. “The term ‘exhaustion of administrative remedies’ in its broader sense may be an entirely appropriate description of the obligation of both the employee and carrier under the Railway Labor Act to resort to dispute settlement procedures provided by that Act.” Id. at 325, 92 S.Ct. at 1565 (emphasis added). The Court then recognized a distinction between remedies under the Act (statutory) and those available in collective bargaining agreements (contractual) under, section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act.
[SJince the compulsory character of the administrative remedy provided by the Railway Labor Act for disputes such as that between petitioner and respondent stems not from any contractual undertaking between the parties but from the Act itself, the case for insisting on resort to those remedies is if anything stronger in cases arising under the Act than it is in cases arising under § 301 of the LMRA.
Id. at 323, 92 S.Ct. at 1565.
When the Court in International Union of Electrical etc. Workers v. Robbins & Myers, Inc., 429 U.S. 229, 97 S.Ct. 441, 50 L.Ed.2d 427 (1976) held that procedures. under a collective bargaining contract did not toll the time period for filing a charge of employment discrimination, the Court again referred to the distinction between the available remedies: “[T]he contractual rights under a collective-bargaining agreement and the statutory right provided by *381Congress under Title VII ‘have legally independent origins and are equally available to the aggrieved employee,’ * * Id. at 236, 97 S.Ct. at 447.
In the present case, Harris did not have a contractual right which he chose to pursue over a statutory claim. Rather, in compliance with the mandated statutory procedure, he excluded all other claims subject to exhaustion of his administrative remedies under the Railway Labor Act. Having so complied with such mandated statutory procedure, he should not now be told his compliance conflicts with his use of other statutory remedies.