Court Opinion

ID: 9479960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:33:53.424671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:23.724396
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
I do not believe there is any distinction of significance between this case and Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974). I think Alexander is persuasive and would follow that case here.
In Alexander, the collective bargaining agreement, which bound both the plaintiff-employee and his employer, specifically provided against racial discrimination and for arbitration of all claims with respect to employment.
Plaintiff was discharged and claimed the discharge was on account of racial discrimination. Through his union, he pursued the matter to arbitration and lost, while at the same time he was pursuing his statutory claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The district court dismissed plaintiffs case, holding that plaintiff was bound by the arbitration decision and was, thus, precluded from suing his employer under Title VII. That decision was affirmed by the court of appeals. The Supreme Court, however, reversed.
The reasoning of the Court may be briefly abstracted as follows:
While Title VII does not speak expressly to the relationship between federal courts and the arbitration provisions of union contracts, it does vest federal courts with plenary powers to enforce the statutory requirements and it specifies with precision the jurisdictional prerequisites for filing a Title VII case.
415 U.S. at 47, 94 S.Ct. at 1019.
“There is no suggestion in the statutory scheme that a prior arbitral decision either forecloses individuals’ rights to sue or divests federal courts of jurisdiction.”
415 U.S. at 47, 94 S.Ct. at 1019.
“In addition, legislative enactments in this area have long evinced a general intent to accord parallel or overlapping remedies against discrimination.”
415 U.S. at 47, 94 S.Ct. at 1019 (naming EEOC, state and local agencies, and the federal courts).
“In submitting his grievance to arbitration, an employee seeks to vindicate his contractual right under a collective bargaining agreement. By contrast, in filing a law suit under Title VII, an employee asserts independent statutory rights accorded by Congress. The distinctly separate nature of these contractual and statutory rights is not vitiated merely because both were violated as a result of the same factual occurrence. And certainly no inconsistency results from permitting both rights to be enforced in their respective appropriate forums.”
415 U.S. at 49-50, 94 S.Ct. at 1020-21.
The Court also rejected the arguments now made by the majority, that arbitration is as effective a remedy as is the judgment of a court; that Gilmer has waived his *204rights under the ADEA; and that access to the state courts under the ADEA is a reason to enforce an exclusive remedy of arbitration and deny access to the federal courts. Of course, it is at once apparent that access to the state courts would also be denied under the majority decision.
While there are many reasons a remedy by way of arbitration is not as effective as the judgment of a court such as those mentioned in Alexander at 57-58, 94 S.Ct. at 1024-25: a different fact-finding process; not as complete a record; the usual rules of evidence do not apply; and lack of compulsory process, etc.; one ADEA right mentioned by the district court in this case is sufficient to determine the outcome even if that be necessary. That is the right of trial by jury which is preserved under the ADEA. 29 U.S.C. § 626(c)(2). The suggestion that this right may be waived as a justification for its non-existence in arbitration proceedings is reasoning which I do not follow. Neither do I accept it.
Likewise, the suggestion by the majority that the availability of a remedy in the state courts under the ADEA is a reason to enforce arbitration was rejected by Alexander at 47, 94 S.Ct. at 1019. The Court relied upon the general intent of legislative enactments in the field of civil rights to accord parallel or overlapping remedies against discrimination and mentioned as parallel remedies in Title VII cases the EEOC, state and local agencies, and the federal courts. The fact that access to the state courts has been provided under the ADEA is no more than another parallel or overlapping remedy, in my opinion.
The Court, in Alexander at 51, 94 S.Ct. at 1021, et seq., explicitly decided that “there can be no prospective waiver of an employee’s rights under Title VII.” 415 U.S. at 51, 94 S.Ct. at 1021. I think this proposition must be held to apply to rights under the ADEA and that there can be no prospective waiver thereof, contrary to the majority holding.
The suggestion the majority makes to the effect that the Federal Arbitration Act requires the enforcement of the arbitration provision in this case, while it did not in Gardner-Denver, for the principal reason that it was not considered in Gardner-Denver, also, I think, does not bear scrutiny. With that as a starting point, the majority reasons that “the Court’s analysis was not governed by the ‘federal policy favoring arbitration’ requiring that ‘[courts] rigorously enforce agreements to arbitrate.’ ”
While it is true that the Federal Arbitration Act was not explicitly mentioned in Alexander, it is doing a disservice to the Court, I think, to imply that it was unaware of a federal policy favoring arbitration. Indeed, Alexander referred to United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel and Car Company, 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960), one of the famous Steelworkers Trilogy which provided explicitly that “a major factor in achieving industrial peace is the inclusion of a provision for arbitration of grievances in the collective bargaining agreement.” Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Co., 363 U.S. 574, 578, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1350-51, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409 (1960). So any public policy reason to enforce arbitration to the exclusion of the consideration of the claim by the federal courts was stronger in Alexander than it is here, being a part of the national labor policy. If that policy was not strong enough in Alexander to require the literal enforcement of an arbitration provision to the exclusion of a statutory right, certainly any policy deferring to an alternate forum for disputes resolution does not rise so high.
To sum it up, the plaintiff, Gilmer, meets the jurisdictional prerequisites for filing a case under the ADEA. The ADEA does not foreclose his right to sue or divest the federal courts of jurisdiction. Since Alexander holds that a collective bargaining agreement to arbitrate does not displace the federal courts of their jurisdiction in a Title VII case, a private agreement to arbitrate should not be held to displace the federal courts of their jurisdiction under the ADEA.
I would affirm the order appealed from.