Court Opinion

ID: 9454537
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:49:29.790905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:09.696329
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent. The majority propose to set aside a jury verdict for the employer on factual issues and the judgment of the court entered thereon refusing to enforce an arbitration award, and substitute a contrary judgment. The majority opinion appears to embrace two theories — that the company failed to discharge the burden of alleging and proving that it had not waived the untimeliness of the award and was not es-topped from asserting untimeliness as a defense;1 and, second, that the evidence in the record before this court shows as a matter of law that the company had waived, or was estopped from asserting, the late rendition of the award. Accepting the view that waiver and estoppel may prevent the expiration of the prescribed time period from operating as bar, it seems to me that the majority place on the wrong party the burden of raising and proving them. As to the second theory, factual determinations of the existence of waiver and estoppel are not appropriately decided in this court in this case.
The union sued to enforce the award, alleging that under the collective bargaining agreement between the parties and the Labor Management Relations Act the award was final and binding on the company. The company answered, asserting as its Third Defense that the arbitrators did not render a decision within three days as required and that no extension of the three-day period was agreed to or requested.* The union moved for summary judgment, attaching a copy of the collective bargaining agreement and an affidavit of the chairman of the board of arbitrators. The affidavit said that the chairman had requested an indefinite extension of time in which to render the decision and that counsel for company and union had agreed thereto. The affidavit made no other factual assertions to explain the untimeliness of the award and said nothing of waiver.
The company responded with an answer to the motion, stating that there was a genuine issue of material fact and attaching the counter-affidavit of its attorney which said that no extension of time had been requested of him, that he had not agreed to any extension, and that a majority of the arbitrators had not joined in the award. With the ease in this posture the trial judge was required to, and did, deny the motion for summary judgment.2
3
*685Implicit in the majority opinion is that the court erred in not granting summary judgment for the union. This is wrong for several reasons. First, the union did not raise by complaint, motion for summary judgment or affidavits any claim of waiver of the untimeliness of the award or estoppel to assert the untimeliness defense. Rule 8(c) Fed.R. Civ.P. recognizes that waiver and estop-pel are affirmatively defensive in nature. If the union, on motion for summary judgment, wanted to establish that there were no material disputed facts as to those issues it had to bring the issues forward in its motion and affidavits. The company, having answered that the award was late filed, was not required to negative the existence of waiver and es-toppel, any more than it would be required to negative its waiver of any other defenses which would make the award not valid (for example, failure of all to join in the award, fraud, collusion).
Second, if it be considered that somehow waiver of the late filing was before the court on motion for summary judgment, nothing was properly presented to the court to demonstrate that there was no genuine issue of material fact on that subject matter. Claims in unverified briefs, and oral arguments, do not settle issues of material fact under Rule 56.4 Waiver is not a cosmic abstraction. It arises from what people do and say. There was nothing before the judge on which he could determine whether the company waited out the delay with the hope of avoiding the decision when rendered and whether the delay was material, reasonable, justified and not prejudicial.5 Third, the union has not appealed, cross-appealed or specified as error that the summary judgment was improperly denied.
Subsequent to denial of the motion for summary judgment the court held a pretrial conference, and entered a pretrial order stating that the only issues to be tried were those raised by the counter-affidavit of Mooney’s counsel: (a) whether a majority of the arbitrators had joined in the award, and (b) whether Mooney had agreed to an extension of time to file the award.
Thus the case came to trial with neither waiver nor estoppel as an issue.
At trial Mooney abandoned the issue of whether a majority of the arbitrators agreed to the award. This left as the sole issue whether Mooney had agreed to an extension of time. The court submitted this issue in the form of two special interrogatories to the jury, asking whether the chairman requested an extension of time and whether Mooney agreed to it. To both special interrogatories the jury answered “no.” The trial court entered judgment for Mooney, reciting that the two special issues had been submitted to the jury “since all other issues had gone out of the case.”
After the charge to the jury counsel for the union objected “to the charge as a whole”6 on two grounds; first, that the burden was on Mooney to show by a preponderance of the evidence that it *686did not “waive the extension of time,” 7 and that there was no evidence that Mooney did not waive; and, second, that no issue was presented to the jury on “that matter” [waiver]. To this the trial judge said:
Well, all of these are new matters that you are bringing to me today, and we had a rather full pretrial yesterday and I never heard until this good moment one word about whether the Court should submit to the jury a question of waiver, and that opens up a whole new area.
The judge then pointed out that he was bound by the pretrial order and that the matter of waiver was being raised for the first time. Counsel for the union then said:
No, I am not saying that the Court should submit an issue on waiver. I am saying that as a matter of law, since there has been no evidence on waiver, that as a matter of law these issues should not be submitted. I am not requesting an issue, your Honor.
The court then reaffirmed that he was correctly understanding union counsel:
[THE COURT] * * *: [N]ow, as I understand it, you are not insisting upon any question of waiver,
[COUNSEL FOR THE UNION]: That is right, but we are saying that as a matter of law these issues should not be submitted because there is no evidence of waiver. * * * 7 mean, there is no evidence that there was no waiver.
The trial judge declined to buy this argument of union counsel that the company had failed to discharge a burden of proof (which in any event it would not have had and, on an issue not in the case.)8
The fact that compliance with the rules of procedure is no mere technicality is demonstrated by the end result of this case. Mooney, having had no duty to negative waiver and estoppel by summary judgment affidavits, did not do so. Having no duty to produce evidence at trial to negative waiver and estoppel, since those were not issues, it did not do so.9 Now, having obtained a judgment based on the undisputed fact that the award was late and the jury’s finding that there was no extension of time, Mooney is denied the opportunity of a trial, jury or otherwise, on waiver and es-toppel. The union, which did not properly raise waiver or estoppel on motion for summary judgment and did not show that either was not a genuine issue of material fact, and did not raise with this court that summary judgment should have been granted, and at trial specifically stated it did not ask that waiver be submitted as an issue to the jury, gets a final ruling in its favor on that factual issue at the hands of the appellate court.
All members of the panel agree on the federal labor policy of encouraging arbitration. But I do not understand that policy to change the way in which cases are required to be tried in the district courts and to be reviewed on appeal. The judgment of the district court should be affirmed.

. It is implicit in the majority opinion that untimeliness is a defense to the company, else the questions of waiver and es-toppel would be irrelevant. See Annot. 154 ALR 1392.

. The third Defense was as follows:
THIRD DEFENSE
The Collective Bargaining Agreement provides that:
“The Board of Arbitration shall meet within five (5) days after notice of intention to arbitrate is given and render their decision within three (3) days after hearing the grievance, provided these time limits may be modified upon request of the third member of the Board.” * * * The Agreement further provides that: “The time limits as set forth in the Arbitration Article may be extended by mutual agreement.” The Board of Arbitration did not render their decision within three days after hearing the grievance and the third member of the Board made no request upon Defendant to modify the time limit and the time limit as set forth in the Arbitration Article of the Collective Bargaining Agreement was not extended by mutual agreement.

. The record contains the briefs on the motion for summary judgment. Arguably it can be said that the union brief refers to waiver. Also colloquy at the trial reveals, from statements by both counsel, that something about waiver had *685been argued on the summary judgment motion. But issues are not formulated and decided this way, with trial and appellate courts left to speculate on what is before the court and what is decided.

. “The judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if tire pleadings, depositions, answer to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.E.Civ. P. 56.

. District Lodge 71, IAM v. Bendix Corp., 218 F.Supp. 744 (W.D.Mo.1963) is a ready demonstration that it requires evidence of the facts to decide on waiver. Bendix was a non-jury trial, heard on stipulated facts. The agreed transcript showed a previous general course of dealings between the parties of not holding the arbitrator to the time limits of the contract and of somewhat casual requests for and ready assent to extensions of time. No one concerned, district judge, jury, or appellate judges, knows whether similar facts do or do not exist in the case before us.

. Union counsel requested no charges.

. As noted above, the jury found there was no extension either requested or agreed to.

. The record shows no whisper by anyone, before or during the trial, about estoppel.

. The majority fault the company for failure to produce evidence that would tend to rebut inferences of waiver and estoppel. See footnotes 2 and 3 of majority opinion.