Court Opinion

ID: 9430990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:31:04.307954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.625382
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Respondent has alleged nothing more than a breach of the Union’s federal duty of fair representation. She has not alleged that the Union breached any specific promise made to her, and her argument that Florida law has augmented the Union’s representational duties is plainly pre-empted by federal law. The suggestion that she is a “third-party beneficiary” of the collective-bargaining agreement that the Union negotiated and executed on her behalf is a concept I simply do not understand. Whatever rights she has under that contract are rights against her employer, not against the party that represented her in its negotiation. Since her claim *866against the Union is a duty-of-fair-representation claim, her complaint is barred by the 6-month period of limitations prescribed by this Court’s decision in DelCostello v. Teamsters, 462 U. S. 151 (1983).* Remanding the case to the Court of Appeals is therefore unnecessary. I would simply reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the District Court’s order dismissing the complaint.

The District Court found that respondent had sued the union “over two years after she sustained her injury.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 5a.