Court Opinion

ID: 9475119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:17:58.910608+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:31.547577
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge, dissenting, with whom LAY, Chief Judge, concurs.
The majority opinion is well written and logical. The problem is that it ignores the facts and is inconsistent with Chief Justice Burger’s opinion in Nolde.
The majority fails to note that prior to impasse CRST made a final offer which contained a proposed grievance and arbitration procedure and continued protection against discharge without just cause. When the union rejected the final offer, CRST informed its employees that an impasse had been reached in negotiations and that it intended to implement the final offer. It posted a notice stating: “Since negotiations have reached an impasse and the prior collective bargaining agreement has expired, the Company will place into effect wages, hours and other working conditions consistent with its final offer.”1 (Emphasis added.) (“December 23, 1982 Notice to All Over-The-Road Employees,” by Lawrence B. Pollard, Director of Industrial Relations.)
Under these circumstances, as a matter of simple contract law, CRST remained obligated to continue in effect the grievance and arbitration procedure contained in its final offer. The company’s statement unequivocally led its employees to believe that these critical protections would continue and that CRST’s proposal was preferable to a strike. See Richardson v. Communications Workers of America, 443 F.2d 974, 978 (8th Cir.1971), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 818, 94 S.Ct. 38, 38 L.Ed.2d 50 (1973) (So long as employees continue to be represented by a union, the working conditions which have characterized an employment relationship, including the right to protection from wrongful discharge, do not necessarily cease to exist on the date of contract expiration.). When its employees remained on the job, CRST’s posted notice and final offer became a binding unilateral contract.
Even if this explicit language had not been contained in the company’s final offer and its published statement that the conditions set forth in the final offer would prevail, the Supreme Court’s opinion in Nolde would require a result different than that reached by the majority. As the Court stated:
The parties must be deemed to have been conscious of this policy [of favoring arbitration of labor disputes] when they agree to resolve their contractual differences through arbitration. Consequently, the parties’ failure to exclude from arbitrability contract disputes arising after termination, far from manifesting an intent to have arbitration obligations *1409cease with the agreement, affords a basis for concluding that they intended to arbitrate all grievances arising out of the contractual relationship. In short, where the dispute is over a provision of the expired agreement, the presumptions favoring arbitrability must be negated expressly or by clear implication. [Emphasis added.]
430 U.S. at 255, 97 S.Ct. at 1074.
Here, although this principle was clearly established in 1976, the 1979 agreement between CRST and the union does not indicate expressly or by clear implication that grievances arising after termination will not be arbitrable. Nor is there any other evidence in the record which negates the Nolde presumption.
The majority reaches the conclusion that Nolde is inapplicable by adopting an oblique accrual theory which was advocated by the two dissenters in Nolde and rejected by the seven-justice majority. The dissent in Nolde argued that “the right in dispute, though claimed to arise under the contract, ripened only after the contract had expired and the employment relationship had terminated.” 430 U.S. at 258, 97 S.Ct. at 1075. The majority stated that, “However, it is clear that, whatever the outcome, the resolution of that claim hinges on the interpretation ultimately given the contract clause providing for severance pay. The dispute, therefore, although arising after the expiration of the collective bargaining contract, clearly arises under that contract.” Id. at 249, 97 S.Ct. at 1071. In other words, when the dispute concerns the interpretation to be given a provision of an expired agreement, the dispute arises under the contract and there is a strong presumption of continuing arbitrability.
Here, the dispute is over the wrongful discharge provisions of the expired collective bargaining agreement. Section three of CRST’s unilaterally implemented employment contract, entitled “Loss of Seniority” states:
SECTION 3. LOSS OF SENIORITY
Seniority shall be terminated and the employer-employee relationship shall be severed by any of the following:
1. Discharge.
2. Voluntary quit.
3. Three (3) year layoff without regaining full-time status.
4. Unauthorized absence for three (3) successive scheduled work days.
5. Failure to make himself available for work at the end of ten (10) days after notice of recall is mailed to his last known address. A copy of the notice of recall shall be sent to the union.
6. Failure to obtain or comply with leave of absence provisions as set forth in this agreement.
7. Refusal to accept instructions given by a proper supervisor of the Company and/or to perform any work assignment unless it will affect his health or safety.
This section suggests that CRST’s employees were still protected against discharge without cause as specified under the expired collective bargaining agreement, and CRST never contended in any of the documents in the record or at oral argument, that its employees are now “employees at will.” Indeed, it only discharged Jerry Ott-away after determining, on its own accord, that he was guilty of “reckless driving.” Recognizing the serious nature of this charge and its promise to continue protection against wrongful discharge, CRST, at one point, agreed to submit this dispute to arbitration, something totally unnecessary if it believed that it could discharge employees without cause and without submitting the dispute to arbitration.
The meaning, then, of “discharge” under the unilateral contract can only be determined by looking back to the 1979 collective bargaining agreement’s provision on protection from discharge without cause or by looking at the wrongful discharge provisions of CRST’s final offer. Indeed, one of CRST’s briefs before the trial court states that the underlying dispute is over whether “one of its [employees] was wrongfully dis*1410charged from his employment by CRST in violation of the terms of a collective bargaining agreement which had expired.” Because, as the majority held in Nolde, “the resolution of that claim hinges on the interpretation ultimately given the contract clause [on discharge without cause], * * * [t]he dispute, * * * although arising after the expiration of the collective bargaining contract, clearly arises under that contract.” Id.
Accordingly, the majority’s theory is wrong on the facts and on the law. Most importantly, it fails to discuss how CRST’s posted promise became a unilateral contract to abide by the grievance procedure. In any event, the Court should apply the Nolde presumption, and, once this is done, it becomes apparent that CRST did not meet its obligation to make clear that post-expiration grievances were no longer arbi-trable. CRST could easily have added such a statement to its notice to its employees which alleged that “other working conditions” would continue in effect. However, it. did not do so. Indeed, CRST did not make clear its intention not to abide by its “final offer” and its arbitration and wrongful discharge provisions until it decided to discharge Jerry Ottaway.
The majority opinion not only is contrary to Nolde, but it also allows CRST to be deceptive in its employment policies. Additionally, it skews our labor law policy of allowing the parties to settle their differences on the economic battlefield, after their respective positions have been made clear. Finally, because the Ottaway wrongful discharge dispute will in any event be justiciable in federal district court under Section 301 of the Labor-Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185, the majority opinion simply defers resolution of the dispute to a more costly, inconvenient, and time consuming forum.

. CRST then distributed a schedule of wages and hours, which contained a reference to "the grievance procedure.” The majority contends that this reference applies only to seniority disputes. However, it should be noted that the unilateral contract’s provisions on employee discharges also are placed under the heading, "Loss of Seniority.” Moreover, the schedule nowhere states or implies that there would no longer be a grievance procedure, or protection from discharge without cause.