Court Opinion

ID: 9473040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:17:45.767131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:17.194850
License: Public Domain

SPROUSE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The facts in this case are as straightforward and simple as the collective bargaining contract which should have governed the relationship between the parties. Roy Stone hired Burcham to work at its Galax, Virginia terminal. The arbitrator determined there was no contractual provision giving to Roy Stone authority to transfer Burcham. More importantly, the decisions of the district court and the majority fail to recognize the proper application of United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960).
My colleagues in the majority recognize that Enterprise and its progeny control, but they neglect to apply it to the facts of this case. The majority opinion states, for example:
There is no evidence in the record from from which we can ascertain that the arbitrator was totally incorrect in his interpretation and application of the collective bargaining agreement or that he misused his authority. The award in this case did “draw its essence from the collective bargaining agreement.” The District Court found that the arbitration decision was basically correct____
and
There is ample evidence to show that the arbitrator was properly applying the collective bargaining agreement to the facts involved in this case.
Having found that the arbitrator’s “award in this case did ‘draw its essence from the collective bargaining agreement,’ ” I fail to see how the majority then could conclude anything but that the district court exceeded the bounds of its Enterprise authority by modifying the arbitrator's award and substituting its own judgment on an arbitrable issue.
The majority’s conclusion is based on an erroneous standard of review. In upholding the district court’s intervention, the majority stated:
There is a sound basis for the decision of the District Court which changed the date for the back pay award to January 1982, the date on which the job transfer proposal was made to Burcham, which he rejected.
A court’s action setting aside an arbitrator’s award is improper unless the award did not “draw its essence” from the collective bargaining contract. The test is not whether a district court has a “sound basis” for its opinion. As the Supreme Court noted in Enterprise, “the courts have no *953business overruling [the arbitrator] because their interpretation of the contract is different from his.” Id. at 599, 80 S.Ct. at 1362.