Court Opinion

ID: 9471718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:39:39.630415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:32.961237
License: Public Domain

*701TUTTLE, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
With deference, I dissent. I do so because I believe the majority has overlooked the fact that the arbitrator incorrectly decided that Woodard’s termination was justified by reason of conduct which the parties had not placed before the arbitrator for his determination.
The termination notice was in material part as follows:
Terminated based on the following facts:
(1) A fight did occur, which is a violation Plant Rule # 4;
(2) Abusive and provocative language was used, Rule # 13;
(3) A safety hazard existed due to emotions created by argument started & inflamed by Jason & threats, Rule # 17;
(4) Each employee’s previous employment was considered;
(5) Jason was the aggressor, making the first bodily contact & starting the argument followed by threats.
The company’s statement of the issue to be considered by the arbitrator was as follows:
[T]he issue in the case is, of course, generally the same: whether the company had justifiable cause for discharging the Grievant, Jason Woodard, for violation of company rules, including rules against fighting and use of abusive language. (emphasis added)
The company has contended both before the arbitrator and before the district court that the arbitrator had the power under this submission to find any “justifiable” cause. Thus the arbitrator found that the employee’s past record was sufficiently bad to have justified company action of a disciplinary nature. This, of course, entirely overlooks the fact that the only issue presented by the company’s submission was whether he had violated “company rules, including rules against fighting and the use of abusive language.” The arbitrator was powerless to decide that anything other than a violation of company rules would justify the termination.
The company now outlines the series of acts of bad conduct by Woodard, as shown by his personnel record, but significantly, the arbitrator did not find that any one of these was a violation of company rules. Some of them apparently were arbitrated to the benefit of the employee and others may not have been. The record is not complete as to whether there was any final proof in any of these prior situations that Woodard had violated some company rule other than those that are expressly mentioned in his termination notice. Moreover, I am of the opinion that where the specific rules are stated and numbered in the termination notice and the company’s statement of the issue before the arbitrator had the further language “including rules against fighting and the use of abusive language,” the issue as presented was restricted to the question of the justification of termination based upon the conduct that occurred in the alleged violation of the numbered rules; that is, the occurrence of November 5,1981.
If, as I would think we would all agree, the company is bound by its own statement of the issue presented to the arbitrator, then, everything he considered or required by his final decision other than his determination that the acts of November 5 did not justify termination because none of these stated rules had been violated would be nugatory.
While I agree that the conduct of Woodard on November 5 might well have been decided by the arbitrator to be a violation of one or several of the stated rules, he found that the rules had not been violated. That should have been the end of his decision. Since, however, Woodard did not complain of the requirement that he be certified as having satisfactorily passed the Dale Carnegie course then the fact that the arbitrator’s decision to that effect should have been no part of his decision is unimportant at this stage of the proceeding.
I would reverse the decision of the trial court and reinstate the decision of the arbitrator.