Court Opinion

ID: 9462748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:49:10.487194+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:45.671200
License: Public Domain

SNEED, Circuit Judge
(concurring in result):
I agree that the only issue before us is whether we should impose upon Howard Johnson Company the terms of the collective bargaining agreement of which the Union seeks specific performance. I also agree that we should not so impose these terms. The Company is not a successor employer for this purpose under the reasoning of NLRB v. Burns Security Services, 406 U.S. 272, 92 S.Ct. 1571, 32 L.Ed.2d 61 (1972).
This is enough to decide the case. It is unnecessary to suggest that the obligation to arbitrate survives by reason of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Livingston, 376 U.S. 543, 84 S.Ct. 909, 11 L.Ed.2d 898 (1964). If required to express such an opinion, I would find Howard Johnson Co. v. Hotel Employees, 417 U.S. 249, 94 S.Ct. 2236, 41 L.Ed.2d 46 (1974), highly persuasive. In any event, there appears to me no reason to discuss the conceptual difficulties of imposing a duty to arbitrate while not imposing on the alleged successor all the obligations of the collective bargaining agreement.
*1165Whether an employer is a “successor” varies with the context in which the issue arises. For example, a failure of the duty to arbitrate to survive, however, need not mean that the Company is not under a duty to recognize and bargain with the Union. That is a different issue. As has been said: “There is, and can be, no single definition of ‘successor’ which is applicable in every legal context.” Howard Johnson Co. v. Hotel Employees, supra at n. 9. That being so, I think we should decide no more than is necessary to the disposition of this case.