Court Opinion

ID: 9534069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:36:40.043156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:25.161617
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
dissenting:
Aside from the fact that I believe the majority of this Court seriously errs in its evaluation of federal labor law, as expressed in my dissent in our original opinion, Rawson v. United Steelworkers of America, 111 Idaho 630, 726 P.2d 742 (1986) (Bakes, J., dissenting), and as set forth in the dissenting opinion of Johnson, J., in this rehearing, in which I concur, I believe the Court has now erred egregiously in its description of the factual record in this case. The majority opinion states, ante at 796, that “[i]n the instant case we are not faced with looking at the Collective Bargaining Agreement to determine whether it imposes some new duty upon the union — rather it is conceded the union undertook to inspect and, thus, the issue is solely whether that inspection was negligently performed under traditional Idaho tort law.” (Emphasis added.)
The union has never conceded that it undertook to inspect the Sunshine Mine. The Court’s opinion does not point to any pleading or any evidence in the record to sustain either its factual conclusion that the union undertook to inspect the mine, or its statement that the union has “conceded” that it undertook to inspect. There is absolutely nothing to support either of those two statements.
Rather, what the record discloses is that the union, pursuant to its obligations under the collective bargaining agreement, appointed certain members to the safety committee established by the collective bargaining agreement. That safety committee, which also was composed of management personnel, conducted whatever safety inspections which were made. There is absolutely nothing in the record to establish any respondeat superior relationship between the safety committee established under the collective bargaining agreement and the union. Nor is there anything else in the record establishing that anyone else on behalf of the union inspected the mine.
The collective bargaining agreement reserved the control and operation of the mine to the company. The union had no authority under the agreement to inspect the mine. It was the safety committee, formulated by the collective bargaining agreement, which undertook any inspection which was done, not the union. The union has never conceded that it undertook to inspect, and the majority’s statement to that effect is totally unsupported by the record in this case.
Even assuming that the safety committee, which was composed of both management and union representatives, had made recommendations to correct unsafe conditions, and those recommendations had been called to the union’s attention, the union could only have attempted to remedy those unsafe conditions through the procedures set out in the collective bargaining agreement. The safety committee was not the agent of the union. The union had no respondeat superior responsibility for the safety committee’s action or inaction. Nor did the union have control of the mine. It was only through the grievance procedure set out in the collective bargaining agreement that the union could have influenced the employer to correct unsafe conditions which might have been called to the union’s attention by the safety committee. Accordingly, the plaintiff’s claim against the union is inextricably intertwined with the collective bargaining agreement, and federal, not state law is applicable. I.B.E.W., AFL-CIO v. Hechler, 481 U.S. 851, 107 S.Ct. 2161, 95 L.Ed.2d 791 (1987). Under federal law the only duty which the union owed to its members was that of fair representation, i.e., to adequately and fairly represent its members and pursuing the members’ rights under the collective bargaining agreement to correct unsafe working conditions in the mine. The state tort law claims in this case conflict with the union’s duty of fair representation under federal labor law, and accordingly in my view state tort law in this case is preempted. L.B.E.W., AFL-CIO v. Hechler, supra.