Court Opinion

ID: 9400223
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-07 19:02:09.859997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:43.102760
License: Public Domain

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
                               File Name: 23a0259n.06

                                       Case No. 22-3897

                          UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                               FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

                                                                                 FILED
                                                                           Jun 07, 2023
                                                     )
TEAMSTERS LOCAL 20,                                                    DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
                                                     )
       Plaintiff-Appellee,                           )
                                                     )     ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
v.                                                   )     STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
                                                     )     THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF
JOHNS MANVILLE CORPORATION,                          )     OHIO
       Defendant-Appellant.                          )                        OPINION
                                                     )

Before: COLE, READLER, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

       CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Believing his employer violated his union’s

collective bargaining agreement, Ramon LaBiche filed a grievance.          Negotiations between

LaBiche’s employer and the union went nowhere. So the union notified the employer that it

intended to submit the dispute to arbitration. When the employer refused arbitration, the union

filed a motion to compel. The district court entered judgment for the union, ordering the employer

to arbitrate. We now affirm.

                                                I.

       Johns Manville Corporation manufactures components used in industrial, commercial, and

residential buildings. The company operates in Ohio, including several facilities in the town of

Waterville.   Production and maintenance employees at its Waterville sites are exclusively

represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union No. 20 under a collective
Case No. 22-3897, Teamsters Loc. 20 v. Johns Manville Corp.

bargaining agreement. The agreement’s “Recognition Clause” memorializes the union’s exclusive

representation at “existing facilities, normal expansion to those facilities, and [at] any and all

operations including the designation of any new Fiber Glass Plants at Waterville, Ohio.”

       Johns Manville contracted with two warehouses in the neighboring towns of Maumee and

Perrysburg to store and ship company products. Johns Manville did not directly employ those

working at the two warehouses, nor were they members of Local 20. Waterville employee and

union member Ramon LaBiche believed this arrangement violated the Recognition Clause (and

perhaps other agreement provisions). To formalize his complaint, LaBiche filed a grievance with

Johns Manville. LaBiche demanded that the company “put in trained and qualified [] Teamster

employees at [the] facilities” in Maumee and Perrysburg, “remove all of Johns Manville’s

products” from those warehouses, or “build or rent space somewhere else[,] making Teamster

employees handle all J.M. products.”

       Johns Manville denied any violation of the Recognition Clause. When it did, the union

notified Johns Manville that it would begin arbitration proceedings under the collective bargaining

agreement’s dispute settlement provision. That provision required Johns Manville and the union

to arbitrate “any dispute involving the interpretation or alleged violation of the” agreement’s terms.

Johns Manville, however, refused to arbitrate on the grounds that no issue within the scope of the

arbitration provision had been raised. At an impasse, the union filed a complaint in district court.

The union invoked the Labor Management Relations Act’s private cause of action to compel

arbitration. See 29 U.S.C. § 185(a). Johns Manville answered, after which the parties filed cross-

motions for summary judgment. The district court granted summary judgment to the union,

compelling the parties to arbitrate the grievance. Johns Manville timely appealed the district

court’s order.

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Case No. 22-3897, Teamsters Loc. 20 v. Johns Manville Corp.

                                                  II.

       In evaluating whether a party to a collective bargaining agreement may be compelled to

arbitrate a dispute purportedly arising out of the agreement, we ask two questions. Have the parties

memorialized a “valid agreement to arbitrate?” If so, does their dispute “fall[] within the

substantive scope of that agreement?” If it does, the dispute is arbitrable. United Food & Com.

Workers, Loc. 1995 v. Kroger Co., 51 F.4th 197, 202 (6th Cir. 2022) (quoting Javitch v. First

Union Sec., Inc., 315 F.3d 619, 624 (6th Cir. 2003)), cert. denied, 2023 WL 3571521 (May 22,

2023) (Mem.). Here, the district court concluded that Johns Manville was required to arbitrate the

issues LaBiche’s grievance raised.        Johns Manville challenges the district court’s legal

conclusions, which we review de novo. United Steelworkers of Am. v. Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.,

474 F.3d 271, 277 (6th Cir. 2007) (applying summary judgment standards in this context).

       As Johns Manville agrees that the collective bargaining agreement contains a valid

arbitration clause, we limit our analysis to whether LaBiche’s complaint falls within that clause’s

scope. On that front, it bears noting that the existence of an arbitration clause creates a presumption

of arbitrability. AT&T Techs., Inc. v. Commc’ns Workers of Am., 475 U.S. 643, 650 (1986). In

turn, Johns Manville can overcome that presumption by demonstrating one of two circumstances:

proof of an “express provision excluding” the grievance from arbitration; or “the most forceful

evidence of a purpose to exclude the claim from arbitration.” Id. (quotation omitted); see also

United Food & Com. Workers, Loc. 1995, 51 F.4th at 202–03 (describing the presumption as

“particularly applicable” where the arbitration clause is broad, such as one covering “grievances

that concern the interpretation or application of this CBA” (cleaned up)); United Steelworkers of

Am., 474 F.3d at 279 (similar). The presumption’s existence reinforces that the merits of an

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Case No. 22-3897, Teamsters Loc. 20 v. Johns Manville Corp.

arbitrable dispute are for the arbitrator; a court should not opine on merits questions in evaluating

arbitrability. AT&T Techs., 475 U.S. at 649–51.

       In assessing whether two parties contracted to arbitrate a particular grievance, we often

confront the tension between that task and our parallel obligation not to adjudicate the merits of

an arbitrable grievance. See id. at 649–50. Illustrating this tension, our Court recently divided

over the arbitrability of a grievance concerning whether a union could assert an exclusive right to

represent employees at certain Knoxville-area Kroger facilities. United Food & Com. Workers,

Loc. 1995, 51 F.4th at 201. Our task there was to determine if Kroger’s disavowal of any

employment relationship with the staff in question rendered the dispute outside of the parties’

contract to arbitrate. Id. at 209–10 (Larsen, J., dissenting). The dissenting opinion in United Food

and Commercial Workers thoughtfully analyzed the Supreme Court’s opinion in Litton Financial

Printing Division v. NLRB, 501 U.S. 190 (1991), concluding that several of our sister circuits had

correctly read that decision to require limited interpretation of the agreement in deciding

arbitrability, even if that interpretation touches on the merits of the underlying dispute. See United

Food & Com. Workers, Loc. 1995, 51 F.4th at 213–14 (Larsen, J., dissenting) (collecting cases).

       Fortunately, today’s case is easier to decide. The panel’s disagreement in United Food and

Commercial Workers seemingly turned on the operation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c),

a wrinkle absent here. Id. at 205 n.3 (maj. op.); id. at 209–10 (Larsen, J., dissenting). Equally

true, we are constrained by the majority opinion in United Food and Commercial Workers. So

settled principles resolve this appeal. LaBiche’s claim is that Johns Manville violated the

Recognition Clause when it contracted with a company using non-union labor to perform alleged

union work. That manner of dispute safely falls within the arbitration provision’s confines. That

provision, remember, covers “any dispute involving the interpretation or alleged violation” of the

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Case No. 22-3897, Teamsters Loc. 20 v. Johns Manville Corp.

collective bargaining agreement. See United Steelworkers of Am., 474 F.3d at 279 (analyzing a

similarly worded provision). And grievances challenging an employer’s decision to subcontract

out work that the union might ordinarily be expected to perform, we have held, falls in the

heartland of arbitration provisions covering the “interpretation” or “application” of a collective

bargaining agreement. Teamsters Loc. Union No. 89 v. Kroger Co., 617 F.3d 899, 905–06 (6th

Cir. 2010). Of course, another provision in the agreement, perhaps one more precise in nature,

could serve to remove the matter from the arbitrator’s grip. But Johns Manville does not direct us

to any part of the agreement that does so, nor does it cite “forceful evidence” to counter our

conclusion. AT&T Techs., 475 U.S. at 650.

       Johns Manville does offer other rebuttals. But none changes our conclusion. First, the

company reads the Recognition Clause to impose geographic and other limitations on exclusive

union representation. That reading may turn out to be correct. But the issues Johns Manville raises

go to the substance of the parties’ dispute, meaning they are properly directed to the arbitrator, not

us. Cf. Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales, Inc., 139 S. Ct. 524, 529 (2019). Next, Johns

Manville contends that an arbitrator could not award the relief LaBiche seeks under the terms of

the agreement. A challenge to the arbitrator’s grant of relief as ultra vires, however, customarily

arises via a post-arbitration motion to vacate the arbitration award. 9 U.S.C. § 10; 29 U.S.C.

§ 185(a); see Greenhouse Holdings, LLC v. Int’l Union of Painters & Allied Trades Dist. Council

91, 43 F.4th 628, 631 (6th Cir. 2022). True, in an unpublished decision, we once denied a motion

to compel arbitration on the grounds that an arbitrator could not award the relief sought. O-N

Minerals Co. v. Int’l Bhd. of Boilermakers, 563 F. App’x 380, 386 (6th Cir. 2014). That case

involved a union grievance regarding the employer’s pension fund. After the fund refused to

accept the employer’s contributions, the union demanded that those contributions be added to

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Case No. 22-3897, Teamsters Loc. 20 v. Johns Manville Corp.

union members’ paychecks. We deemed it impossible for an arbitrator to order that relief without

contravening the collective bargaining agreement (which included fixed wage schedules) and

denied the union’s motion to compel on that basis. Id.

        As a general rule, however, arbitrators have “considerable flexibility when formulating

remedies.” Econ. Linen & Towel Serv., Inc. v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, Teamsters Loc. Union No.

637, 917 F.3d 512, 515 (6th Cir. 2019) (cleaned up). Nothing in the agreement at issue here

suggests that the universe of conceivable relief is as cabined as in the O-N Minerals agreement.

To the contrary, federal courts have upheld a variety of remedies ordered by arbitrators in matters

involving the same type of grievance—a dispute over subcontracting. See, e.g., N. New England

Tel. Operations LLC v. Loc. 2327, Int’l Bhd. of Elec. Workers, 735 F.3d 15, 20, 24 (1st Cir. 2013)

(upholding an award requiring the company to return work transferred to a subcontractor); Folger

Coffee Co. v. Int’l Union, 905 F.2d 108, 109 (5th Cir. 1990) (sustaining similar injunctive relief).

So an arbitrator, should it find a contractual misstep by Johns Manville, could imaginably fashion

a responsive remedy. Cf. Teamsters Loc. Union No. 89, 617 F.3d at 905–06 (affirming an order

compelling arbitration where the grievance concerned a contracting dispute, as “contracting out

work . . . is grist in the mills of the arbitrators” (cleaned up) (quoting United Steelworkers of Am.

v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 363 U.S. 574, 584 (1960)). Again, those issues are left to the arbitrator

to resolve in the first instance.

                                    *     *      *       *       *

        We affirm the judgment of the district court.

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