Court Opinion

ID: 9474363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:55:34.979025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:01.539781
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur with the court’s finding that there is no genuine issue of material evi-dentiary fact and that the case is a proper one for summary judgment. However, I believe also that the district court properly resolved the merits of the case, and that its judgment should be affirmed.
Relying largely upon Nolde Bros. v. Local No. 358, Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union, 430 U.S. 243, 97 S.Ct. 1067, 51 L.Ed.2d 300 (1977), and the alleged ambiguity of the language found in CRST’s unilateral schedule of hours and wages, the court today finds a duty to arbitrate.
Heavy reliance is placed on the presumption stated in Nolde that parties to a labor contract intend arbitration provisions to survive the expiration of the agreement. However, very little in the facts here sup*385ports the use of this presumption. In the affidavits submitted with its motion for summary judgment, CRST established that: (1) there was no agreement between the parties as to how to handle grievances after the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement; (2) during the negotiations both sides proposed grievance procedures which were different from those in the expired agreement; (3) the December, 1982 schedule provided for a grievance procedure only in limited circumstances; and (4) CRST had rejected all attempts by the Union to arbitrate grievances.
Moreover, the majority’s misplaced reliance on this presumption pays no more than lip service to the obverse rule of law that a party cannot be forced into arbitration in the absence of a contractual obligation. Id. at 250, 97 S.Ct. at 1071.
The facts do not appear to involve rights of an employee arising under the contract. Here is involved a dispute over whether Ottaway should have been discharged because the company found he was responsible for an accident which occurred over a year after the termination of the basic agreement. In Nolde and other cases where a right to arbitration has been found after the expiration of an agreement, the grievance has involved rights which to some degree vested or accrued during the life of the contract, and merely ripened after termination. See id. at 249, 97 S.Ct. at 1070 (severance pay); Glover Bottled Gas Corp. v. Local Union No 282, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 711 F.2d 479, 482 (2d Cir.1983) (discharge of employees arbitrable where all acts leading to discharge occurred before termination of contract); Federated Metals Corp. v. United Steelworkers, 648 F.2d 856, 861 (3d Cir.) (dealt with pension plan rights), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1031, 102 S.Ct. 567, 70 L.Ed.2d 474 (1981); United Steelworkers v. Fort Pitt Steel Casting Division-Conval-Penn, Inc., 635 F.2d 1071, 1075, 1079 (3d Cir.1980) (dealt with severance pay, vacation pay, life insurance coverage, and pension plan rights), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 985, 101 S.Ct. 2319, 68 L.Ed.2d 843 (1981); cf. Teamsters Local Union 688 v. John J. Meier Co., 718 F.2d 286 (8th Cir.1983) (employees entitled to vacation pay because eligibility requirements met before expiration of agreement).
The court here attempts to apply Nolde by stating that this dispute involves a continuing right, Ottaway’s right not to be discharged without just cause. But the right to be discharged for just cause is dissimilar to severance pay and vacation pay. An employee cannot work towards it or accumulate it over time. It is strictly a creature of the employment contract and its life should not extend beyond contract expiration. See County of Ottawa v. Jak-linski, 423 Mich. 1, 377 N.W.2d 668 (1985).
Next, I would note that the passage of more than a year between the expiration of the contract and the employee’s discharge further erodes confidence in using here any presumption of arbitrability. The Court in Nolde limited its holding by stating that “we need not speculate as to the arbitrability of post-termination contractual claims which, unlike the one presently before us, are not asserted within a reasonable time after the contract’s expiration.” Nolde, 430 U.S. at 255 n. 8, 97 S.Ct. at 1074 n. 8.
Under the majority’s analysis it is difficult to comprehend any right which would not be a continuing right. This would give a much broader meaning to the words “arises under the contract,” id. at 249, 97 S.Ct. at 1070, than I believe the Nolde Court ever intended.
I also believe the majority has erred in finding that CRST’s unilateral schedule is ambiguous as to grievance procedures.
It is asserted that because CRST’s unilateral schedule mentions a right to submit seniority disputes to arbitration, and is silent as to what other rights may be submitted, the schedule is ambiguous. I see no ambiguity whatever. Rather, this clear statement shows explicitly how far CRST intended arbitration to reach. If it had intended arbitration to reach further, it could have so stated.
*386Nor can I agree with the court that “[a]s in Taft, CRST’s unilateral schedule operates as an interim agreement retaining a grievance procedure for the resolution of disputes.” See supra at 383. The letter in Taft Broadcasting Co. v. NLRB, 441 F.2d 1382 (8th Cir.1971), which was found to be an interim agreement stated “it is our intention to continue in effect the wages, hours, and other conditions of employment presently in effect as fully set forth in the draft of June 22,1966, and we will continue handling any grievances that may arise in accordance with the procedure set forth therein.” Id. at 1383. This distinguishes Taft from the case at hand because here CRST’s unilateral schedule does not broadly agree to arbitrate all controversies, but rather only disputes concerning seniority.
Finally, I take the majority to task for its attempt to distinguish Garland Coal & Mining Co. v. United Mine Workers, 778 F.2d 1297 (8th Cir.1985), from this case. See supra at 384 n. 6. The majority states that in Garland there was not a unilateral schedule “which continued or reimplemented a post-expiration grievance procedure as in the case here.” Id. This type of analysis simply begs the question to be decided.
As indicated, I would affirm.