Court Opinion

ID: 9474577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:02:10.343416+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:11.611444
License: Public Domain

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
This case presents a classic example of the role an arbitrator should, indeed must, assume when abstract provisions of a collective bargaining agreement come to bear upon the realities of the industrial process. It is unfortunate that my respected colleagues do not seize upon the opportunity *1417to demonstrate the arbitration system working at its best, rather than concluding the arbitrator departed so far from the norm that reversal is required.
It is apparent the arbitrator found no substantial breach, no substantial violation, of the contract and designed a remedy accordingly. The workers in question were made whole from a monetary standpoint, the company being penalized for its inadvertent error; and the structure of the wage agreement that had been bargained for was left in place, with a warning to the company that it would surrender its advantages if a subsequent violation occurred. The court substitutes its own judgment and finds the company forfeited the wage classification when by inadvertence a two-hour overlap occurred but twice, once when a crew was called in early and once because of a scheduling error. That is a wooden interpretation of the contract.. Even courts, much less arbitrators, are supposed to avoid such results, not embrace them. I doubt that an inadvertent overlap of fifteen minutes, or five minutes, would prevent the decision of the arbitrator to stand, and it is for the arbitrator, not for us, to say that two hours falls on the same side of the line.
In his decision, Arbitrator Sam Kagel expressly considered both the inadvertence of the violations and appellant’s good-faith attempts to cure its oversight once it was notified of the violations. In effect, Arbitrator Kagel treated the two breaches as immaterial, and fashioned the remedy accordingly. In doing so, he engaged in precisely the kind of arbitral decisionmaking sanctioned by the Supreme Court in United Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960): “When an arbitrator is commissioned to interpret and apply the collective bargaining agreement, he is to bring his informed judgment to bear in order to reach a fair solution of a problem. This is especially true when it comes to formulating remedies. There the need is for flexibility in meeting a wide variety of situations.” Id. at 597, 80 S.Ct. at 1361.
The majority is quite right to point out that on appeal the attorneys for the company did not make the foregoing argument, resting instead on an implausible construction of the words “no longer.” This aspect of the case, I concede, is troubling. If the appellant’s argument were all the court had before it, I would agree with its conclusion; but I submit the arbitrator’s decision must necessarily be read as a finding that the two incidents did not, in all the circumstances of the case, constitute that sort of event that would work automatic forfeiture of pay classifications in question.
Although the majority correctly states the rule of deference to arbitrators’ decisions, it does not abide by the principle. I would reverse the district court and reinstate the decision of the arbitrator.