Court Opinion

ID: 9481700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:28:54.445496+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:31.249240
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
First, I entirely agree that the “no interdepartmental bidding rule” or “no transfer” rule is a rule of seniority and governed by Lorance.
Second, I commend the majority for recognizing that the reenactment of seniority provisions in subsequent labor contracts may very well re-start the statute of limitations.
I must, however, depart from the majority’s analysis (and result) in upholding summary judgment because the provision in question here was not discussed at the bargaining stage nor did the union seek a change in the provision at that time. The record does not disclose what the employer might have sought. But, even if all parties were quiet as church mice at contract time, as an objective matter they acted to maintain an allegedly discriminatory provision and thereby marked an appropriate starting point for the statute of limitations.
Even though Lorance speaks of seniority systems as the sources of reliance interests, the “systems” are, of course, based on contracts having definite terms. The legal basis of reliance is these term contracts, and there is nothing in Lorance to suggest otherwise. All the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement, including the seniority provisions, expire when its term comes to an end, and they, of course, do not continue to govern from the grave.1 And, as a matter of law, new (even if identical) provisions of a new contract must be agreed upon for a seniority “system” to continue in existence. Legally, one has no more right to rely on the “old” carry-over terms of a labor agreement than on the “new” terms included for the first time. I think, therefore, that it is fundamentally erroneous to give a different effect (for statute of limitations purposes) to contract terms which have existed in earlier contracts than to terms appearing for the first time. Cf. Legutko v. Local 816, Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 853 F.2d 1046 (2d Cir.1988) (relevant date for challenge to rider to collective bargaining agreement was reenactment date, not original enactment). But see American Tobacco Co. v. Patterson, 456 U.S. 63, 71, 102 S.Ct. 1534, 1538, 71 L.Ed.2d 748 (1982).
The distinction made by the majority is based essentially on the idea that the discriminatory intent which can be identified with the earlier collective bargaining agreement must be re-identified with the same provisions when they are “maintained” in a subsequent agreement. It seems to me this is wrong. There is no reason to conclude that the intent that gave rise to a contract provision originally is not the same intent that leads to its maintenance in a new agreement. All the majority can say here is that the matter was not discussed. If we are going to deal in presumptions, I would certainly think that lack of discussion would signify continuance of whatever intent governed the original adoption of the disputed provision. The legal act giving-rise to the cause of action here is therefore (1) adoption of a new contract (2) containing seniority provisions (3) .which were inspired by the same motives that brought about their original adoption. It is not, as the majority seems to suggest, the mere unintended continuation of a discriminatory regime, but a knowing re-acceptance of that system and its effects. If we decide to the contrary, we are left with the parties sitting “innocently” around the bargaining *908table but thinking the darkest of discriminatory thoughts as they once again adopt a contract provision that was intended originally to discriminate. This does not seem to me to be either psychologically or legally tenable.
In Lorance, the concern of the Supreme Court was in protecting employees’ reliance interests in rights granted them by a seniority system in being over a period of time. But how can they have a right to rely on old contracts no longer in force? Their reliance must be on the present contract which could have contained seniority rules entirely different from the preceding contract but, through the purposeful act of its signatories, in fact contained the same rules.
Essentially, it seems incorrect to make the limitations question turn on inferences of intent at the time of reenactment of the seniority provisions. It is possible, in theory at least, for a seniority provision originally conceived as discriminatory to be carried over to subsequent contracts without discriminatory intent,2 but it seems to me this is a question going to the merits and not one to be invoked in determining the limitations period.
Quite apart from its difficulties of principle, I do not understand how the majority’s approach can be followed in practice. How does one determine the intent which accompanies the maintenance of an existing seniority rule? Suppose one party proposes an even more discriminatory rule, but the pre-existing rule is retained in the knowledge that it too is discriminatory. Under the majority’s analysis, the statute would presumably run anew under these facts. But if all minds were blank, the statute would not run. How does one prove that minds were blank, and what presumptions are appropriate? The practical difficulties seem to me insurmountable.
Nor can we ignore that the question before us is how to determine a starting point for the statute of limitations. The majority’s approach suggests the possibility of a trial on the merits simply to decide whether the action was timely filed, a departure from our usual limitations inquiries which merely focus on the date of the allegation of wrongdoing. I would adopt the simple contract rule that a new agreement gives rise to new causes of action — even though similar causes of action might have arisen under older contracts with identical provisions.
I therefore respectfully dissent.3

. In Lorance itself, 490 U.S. at 901-02, 109 S.Ct. at 2263-64, the plaintiffs (who had begun work under the old plant-wide seniority system) lost seniority rights accrued under the old system and thereby suffered demotion and other injuries. Their reliance interests in their seniority status under the old “system” were defeated because a new contract supplanted the old. They had no rights under the old system, and their only option was to argue that the new system violated the anti-discrimination laws, an argument never reached because they made it too late. In its statute of limitations analysis, the majority here contrives a flawed distinction not only between seniority rights and other rights under collective bargaining agreements but also between efforts to enforce contractual seniority rights (in which only terms of the latest bargaining agreement control) and efforts to enforce statutory discrimination prohibitions.

. For example, an employer might propose altering the way seniority rights are determined based on what it now recognizes as potential liability for instituting the old system. The union responds that its members rely on that system, and it would be remiss in accepting a change. To compromise, the two sides work out a deal outside the seniority system by which members of the group suffering from discrimination receive adequate compensatory benefits. The trial judge would then be free to decide, on the merits, whether the compromise effectively dismantled the discriminatory structure. Such a scenario was apparently played out as a post-litigation compromise between the employer and the government in Pullman-Standard, Div. of Pullman, Inc. v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 279 n. 7, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 1785 n. 7, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982) (without altering seniority system, employer agreed to allow certain minority workers to transfer departments without loss of seniority).

. In the margin, ante at 9 n. 3, the majority draws additional support from the timing of the plaintiff's agency filing, which occurred prior to the most recent reenactment of the seniority system. Discriminatory actions taking place after the agency filing but before litigation in the district court commences may be taken into account in overcoming an otherwise untimely agency filing. See Noble v. University of Rochester, 535 F.2d 756 (2d Cir.1976); Egelston v. State University College at Geneseo, 535 F.2d 752 (2d Cir.1976). The majority's objection would apparently have been met had the plaintiff refiled the same agency complaint after the date of reenactment. Where as here the agency’s role is essentially one of mediation, there is little purpose in requiring repetitive filings while the agency considers the matter. Cf. Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U.S. 385, 102 S.Ct. 1127, 71 L.Ed.2d 234 (1982) (Title VII’s requirement of timely agency filing is not jurisdictional). In this case, the agency itself probably believed the filing timely under the "continuing violation” theory adopted by a number of circuits at that time, see Cook v. Pan Ameri*909can World Airways, 771 F.2d 635, 646 (2d Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1109, 106 S.Ct. 895, 88 L.Ed.2d 929 (1986); Patterson v. American Tobacco Co., 634 F.2d 744, 750-51 (4th Cir.1980), vacated on other grounds, 456 U.S. 63, 102 S.Ct. 1534, 71 L.Ed.2d 748 (1982); Morelock v. NCR, 586 F.2d 1096, 1102-03 (6th Cir.1978), cert. denied 441 U.S. 906, 99 S.Ct. 1995, 60 L.Ed.2d 375 (1979), and the defendant certainly cannot complain of surprise, given its reenactment of the offending provision after it was made aware of the plaintiff’s intent to bring this action.