Court Opinion

ID: 9428288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:20.846099+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:12.644585
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion because I am persuaded that the Court has made the correct choice between the two state-law alternatives presented by the parties. As the Court observes, the applicability of § 10 (b) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 160 (b), was never pressed by *65either party, and was not considered by the Court of Appeals. Although I find much that is persuasive in Justice Stewart’s analysis, resolution of the § 10 (b) question properly should await the development of a full adversarial record.
Justice Stewart,
concurring in the judgment.
The Court believes itself obligated by Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U. S. 696, to determine the applicable statute of limitations in this case “as a matter of federal law, by reference to the appropriate state statute of limitations.” 1 I do not believe, however, that we are so constrained by Hoosier. Instead of deciding which of two almost equally relevant state limitations periods applies to the respondent employee’s claims, I would impose the limitations period of § 10 (b) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U. S. C. § 160 (b).
A
Hoosier involved a straightforward breach-of-contract damages suit brought by a union against an employer under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA). As Congress had not provided a limitations period for § 301 suits, the Court concluded that a state statute of limitations should apply. But the Court was careful to note that it was not deciding the appropriate time limits for all suits brought under § 301:
“The present suit is essentially an action for damages caused by an alleged breach of an employer’s obligation embodied in a collective bargaining agreement. Such an action closely resembles an action for breach of contract cognizable at common law. Whether other § 301 suits different from the present one might call for the application of other rules on timeliness, we are not required *66to decide, and we indicate no view whatsoever on that question.” 383 U. S., at 705, n. 7.
The Court also observed, in response to the claim that reliance on varying state limitations statutes was contrary to the national interest in uniformity in industrial relations, that the kind of contract dispute it had before it did not implicate “those consensual processes that federal labor law is chiefly designed to promote — the formation of the . . . agreement and the private settlement of disputes under it.” Id., at 702 (emphasis added).
The case before us is quite unlike the one in Hoosier. It is a hybrid “§ 301 and breach of duty sui[t],” Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 197, n. 18, brought by an employee against both his employer and his union in order to set aside a “final and binding” determination of a grievance, arrived at through the collectively bargained method of resolving the grievance. It is, therefore, a direct challenge to “the private settlement of disputes under [the collective-bargaining agreement].”
Moreover, unlike Hoosier, where the employee’s complaint was rooted solely in § 301 of the LMRA, the respondent employee here has two claims, each with its own discrete jurisdictional base. The- contract claim against the employer is based on § 301, but the duty of fair representation is derived from the NLRA.2 Yet the two claims are inextricably inter*67dependent. “To prevail against either the company or the Union, . . . [employee-plaintiffs] must not only show that their discharge was contrary to the contract but must also carry the burden of demonstrating breach of duty by the Union.” Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554, 570-571. Accordingly, a plaintiff must prevail upon his unfair representation claim before he may even litigate the merits of his § 301 claim against the employer.
Thus, the suit in this case, unlike the one in Hoosier, cannot be likened to “an action for breach of contract cognizable at common law.” 383 U. S., at 705, n. 7. Instead, it is an amalgam of § 301, which has no limitations period, and the NLRA. And, of course, the latter contains a limitations provision. Although § 10 (b) of the NLRA was designed to limit the initiation of unfair labor practice claims3 in order *68to safeguard the stability of collective-bargaining agreements, the policy behind it applies with equal force in this context.
B
Congress enacted § 10 (b) of the NLRA to protect continuing collective-bargaining systems from delayed attack. The 6-month bar of § 10 (b) 4 is designed to strengthen and defend the “stability of bargaining relationships.” Machinists v. NLRB, 362 U. S. 411, 425. The time limitation reflects *69the balance drawn by Congress, “the expositor of the national interest,” id., at 429, between the interests of employees in redressing grievances and “vindicating] [their] statutory rights,” ibid., and the “interest in 'industrial peace which it is the overall purpose of the Act to secure.’ ” Id., at 428 (quoting NLRB v. Childs Co., 195 F. 2d 617, 621-622 (CA2) (L. Hand, concurring)).5
Of course, one aspect of the respondent employee’s claim in this case is predicated on § 301 of the LMRA; if the plaintiff can establish his claim for breach of the duty of fair representation, he may then pursue his § 301 breach-of-contract claim. But here, unlike Hoosier, the latter action, like the breach-of-duty claim, is a challenge to a result reached in the contractual grievance resolution system. Accordingly, the policy of promoting stability in collective bargaining underlying the time bar of § 10 (b) is applicable to this aspect of the respondent employee’s case as well.
In any event, the two elements of respondent employee’s hybrid action cannot be disentangled: the duty of fair representation is “part and parcel of [the] §301 [claim].” Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S., at 186. When the 6-month period of § 10 (b) has passed, the employee should no longer be able to challenge the alleged breach of duty by his union,6 and as this is a precondition for maintaining the contract action, he should not be able to challenge the employer’s action either.
Finally, even if it were appropriate to view the respondent employee’s suit in this case as founded solely on § 301, the *70Court is not obliged to apply a state statute of limitations. As already noted, Hoosier contemplated that “other § 301 suits' different from the present one might call for application of other rules of timeliness.” 383 U. S., at 705, n. 7. And the Court has indicated, in a more general context, that state limitations periods will not be applied when their employment would be inconsistent with national policy:
“[T]he Court has not mechanically applied a state statute of limitations simply because a limitations period is absent from the federal statute. State legislatures do not devise their limitations periods with national interests in mind, and it is the duty of the federal courts to assure that the importation of state law will not frustrate or interfere with the implementation of national policies. . . . State limitations periods will not be borrowed if their application would be inconsistent with the underlying policies of the federal statute.” Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355, 367.
In § 10 (b) of the NLRA, Congress established a limitations period attuned to what it viewed as the proper balance between the national interests in stable bargaining relationships and finality of private settlements, and an employee’s interest in setting aside what he views as an unjust settlement under the collective-bargaining system. That is precisely the balance at issue in this case. The employee’s interest in setting aside the “final and binding” determination of a grievance through the method established by the collective-bargaining agreement unquestionably implicates “those consensual processes that federal labor law is chiefly designed to promote — the formation of the . . . agreement and the private settlement of disputes under it.” Hoosier, 383 U. S., at 702. Accordingly, “[t]he need for uniformity” among procedures followed for similar claims, ibid.,7 as well as the clear congressional indi*71cation of the proper balance between the interests at stake, counsels the adoption of § 10 (b) of the NLRA as the appropriate limitations period for lawsuits such as this.
C
Because the respondent employee commenced his suit beyond the 6-month bar of § 10 (b) of the NLRA, I agree that the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be reversed.

 But see ante, at 60, n. 2.

 The Court has recognized on numerous occasions that “[t]he duty of fair representation is . . . implicit in the National Labor Relations Act.” See, e. g., Electrical Workers v. Foust, 442 U. S. 42, 46, n. 8. The Court first recognized the statutory duty of fair representation in Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192, a case arising under the Railway Labor Act, but in a series of decisions beginning with Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330, the Court concluded that the duty of fair representation applies equally to the NLRA. The Court explained the derivation of the principle in Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554, 563-564:
“Necessarily '[a] wide range of reasonableness must be allowed a statu*67tory bargaining representative in serving the unit it represents . . . Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330, 338 (1953). The union’s broad authority in negotiating and administering effective agreements is 'undoubted/ Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335, 342 (1964), but it is not without limits. Because ([t]he collective bargaining system as encouraged by Congress and administered by the NLRB of necessity subordinates the interests of an individual employee to the collective interests of all employees in a bargaining unit,' Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 182 (1967), the controlling statutes have long been interpreted as imposing upon the bargaining agent a responsibility equal in scope to its authority, 'the responsibility and duty of fair representation.’ Humphrey v. Moore, supra, at 342. The union as the statutory representative of the employees is 'subject always to complete good faith and honesty of purpose in the exercise of its discretion.’ Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, supra, at 338.”
That this duty of fair representation under the NLRA may be judicially enforced was made clear in Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171.

 This Court has not decided whether all breaches of the duty of fair representation necessarily constitute unfair -labor practices under §§ 8 (b) (1) (A) and (b) (2) of the NLRA. In Miranda Fuel Co., 140 N. L. R. B. 181, the Board ruled that all violations of the duty of fair representation are unfair labor practices either under § 8 (b) (2) or under § 8 (b) (1) (A). In Vaca v. Sipes, supra, the Court found it unnecessary to decide whether Miranda Fuel was correctly decided, but simply ''assume[d] for present *68purposes” that the Board had been correct. 386 U. S., at 186. The three concurring Justices in Vaca v. Sipes, however, stated that “a complaint by an employee that the union has breached its duty of fair representation ... is a charge of unfair labor practice.” Id., at 198. And a majority of the Courts of Appeals have concluded that breach of the fair representation duty is an unfair labor practice. See Newport News Shipbuilding Co. v. NLRB, 631 F. 2d 263 (CA4); Abilene Sheet Metal, Inc. v. NLRB, 619 F. 2d 332, 347 (CA5); NLRB v. American Postal Workers Union, 618 F. 2d 1249, 1254-1255 (CA8); Kesner v. NLRB, 532 F. 2d 1169, 1173-1174 (CA7); Kling v. NLRB, 503 F. 2d 1044 (CA9); Truck Drivers v. NLRB, 126 U. S. App. D. C. 360, 379 F. 2d 137; cf. Denver Stereotypers v. NLRB, 623 F. 2d 134, 136 (CA10). But see NLRB v. Miranda Fuel Co., 326 F. 2d 172, 175-178 (CA2) (Judge Medina took the position that the Board had incorrectly held violation of the duty of fair representation to be an unfair labor practice; Judge Lumbard, concurring, did not reach that question; Judge Friendly dissented). Even if there are some breaches of the representation duty that are not unfair labor practices under the NLRA, § 10 (b) is, I believe, the proper source for determining when claims of breach of duty must be raised. For that limitations period is a clear indication of Congress’ judgment of when claims of a very similar or identical character must be brought.

 Concededly, the terms of § 10 (b) are directed to the administrative procedures provided by Congress to resolve unfair labor practices. But the fact that Congress did not provide a limitations period for a judicially enforceable action later found implied in the NLRA is not comparable to a congressional failure to establish a time limitation for an action it expressly creates by statute. Cf. Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355, 367. In any case, it cannot reasonably be assumed here that congressional silence reflects an intent to apply state statutes of limitation for an action based in part on rights and obligations traceable to the NLRA.

 The charge by the employees in Machinists was against the formation of a collective-bargaining agreement. Here the complaint is with the agreement’s administration. But § 8 (d) of the NLRA defines the collective bargaining required by the Act to include grievance procedures as a part of the continuing collective-bargaining process. See NLRB v. Acme Industrial Co., 385 U. S. 432, 436; 29 U. S. C. § 158 (d).

 The Court held in Machinists v. NLRB, 362 U. S. 411, 422, that “a finding of violation which is inescapably grounded on events predating the limitations period is directly at odds with the purposes of the § 10 (b) [time limit].”

 The need for speedy and final resolution of labor disputes, preferably *71without recourse to the courts — identified by the Court today in support of its preference for the shorter of the possible state limitations periods, ante, at 63, 64 — also supports adoption of the relatively short period of § 10(b).