Court Opinion

ID: 9483628
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:27:01.185908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:44.679427
License: Public Domain

RALPH B. GUY, JR., Circuit Judge,
with whom Judge Jones concurs, concurring in part and delivering the opinion of the court in part.
Judge Batchelder concludes that the Railway Labor Act allows a railroad to recover damages from a union that calls a strike over what is later adjudged to be a minor dispute. Since no court in the 66-year history of the RLA has- published an opinion allowing such damages, we are forced to confront two questions of first impression. First, given the RLA’s silence on remedies, are damages ever available for violations of the Act? Second, if so, are damages appropriate for this type of violation? Judge Batchelder answers both questions in the affirmative. We agree that damages are available under the RLA in some circumstances, but we hold damages are not appropriate here.
In Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, —. U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 1028, 117 L.Ed.2d 208 (1992), the Supreme Court clarified the analysis that must be used to determine whether a particular remedy is available under a federal statute. Once an implied right of action has been found, a court must “presume the availability of all appropriate remedies unless Congress has expressly indicated otherwise.” Id., — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 1032 (emphasis added).
The RLA contains no provisions for private enforcement. However, the legislative history, much of which Judge Batchel-der quotes, leaves no doubt that Congress intended for the courts to develop remedies. Within four years of the RLA’s enactment, the Supreme Court had held that private parties could enforce its provisions. Texas & N.O. R.R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Ry. and S.S. Clerks, 281 U.S. 548, 569-70, 50 S.Ct. 427, 433, 74 L.Ed. 1034 (1930).
Since'the RLA contains an implied right of action, Franklin directs us to presume that this right can be enforced by damages in appropriate cases unless Congress has clearly spoken to the contrary. As Judge Batchelder has demonstrated, the legislative history reveals that Congress did not rule out the possibility of damages for violations of the RLA. Therefore, it follows from Franklin that damages are available under the RLA in appropriate cases.
The more difficult question is whether this is an appropriate case for damages under the RLA. We conclude that it is not.
The legislative history of the RLA demonstrates that Congress intended for the courts to develop private remedies on a case-by-case basis.1 That is, Congress ex*380pected the courts to develop a body of law, analogous to the common law, for the enforcement of the RLA.
The federal courts responded to that challenge by developing appropriate private remedies to redress various types of violations of the RLA. See, e.g., Texas & N.O. R.R. Co., 281 U.S. at 571, 50 S.Ct. at 434 (upholding injunction against railroad to protect employees’ right to organize); Steele v. Louisville & N. R.R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 207, 65 S.Ct. 226, 234, 89 L.Ed. 173 (1944) (allowing injunctive relief and damages to redress union’s breach of duty of fair representation).
Historically, however, the courts have been reluctant to find that damages are an appropriate remedy for an RLA violation.2 With the exception of awards of damages against unions for breaches of their duty to represent employees fairly, see Steele, 323 U.S. at 207, 65 S.Ct. at 234, the federal courts have enforced the RLA almost exclusively through injunctive relief. We are aware of only four published decisions that have approved the use of damages to remedy RLA violations other than breaches of the duty of fair representation. See Burke v. Compania Mexicana De Aviacion, S.A., 433 F.2d 1031, 1034 (9th Cir.1970) (approving damages for employee discharged for union activities); Belton v. Air Atlanta, Inc., 647 F.Supp. 28, 31-32 (N.D.Ga.1986) (same); Brown v. World Airways, Inc., 539 F.Supp. 179, 181 (S.D.N.Y.1982) (same); Brady v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 223 F.Supp. 361, 370 (D.Del.1963) (approving damages for employee wrongfully discharged at union’s behest), aff'd, 401 F.2d 87 (3d Cir.1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1048, 89 S.Ct. 681, 684, 21 L.Ed.2d 691 (1969).3
In the 66-year history of the RLA, no federal court has published an opinion holding that a union may recover damages from a railroad or that a railroad may recover damages from a union. On rare occasions,'individual employees have been allowed to recover damages from their unions or their carriers, but the courts have not permitted the railroads and unions to use the club of damages against each other.
Congress intended for the courts to set up a “common law” for the appropriate enforcement of the RLA. We conclude that the common law that has emerged does not contemplate awards of damages between unions and railroads.
Damages awards between railroads and unions are inappropriate because they threaten the delicate balance intended by the RLA. A court’s task in enforcing the RLA “is to implement a remedial scheme that will best effectuate the purposes of the Railway Labor Act, recognizing that the overarching legislative goal is to facilitate collective bargaining and to achieve industrial peace.” International Bhd. of Elec. Workers v. Foust, 442 U.S. 42, 47, 99 S.Ct. 2121, 2125, 60 L.Ed.2d 698 (1979).
In Foust, the Court reversed an award of punitive damages against a union that had breached its duty of fair representation. The Court agreed that punitive damages would induce unions to represent members *381fairly, but decided that such awards could impair unions’ financial stability and thereby upset the careful balance of interests necessary to achieve the purposes of the RLA. Id., 442 U.S. at 48, 50-51, 99 S.Ct. at 2125, 2127. See also Brotherhood of Ry. Carmen v. Delpro Co., 579 F.Supp. 1332, 1335-36 (D.Del.1984) (holding that award of punitive damages against carrier would undermine purposes of RLA).
With this general background in mind, we now turn to the specific question of whether damages are appropriate to remedy a union’s violation of its duty to refrain from striking over a minor dispute. In 1957, the Supreme Court held that injunc-tive relief is appropriate to enforce the union’s duty to submit such minor disputes to a conference. Brotherhood of R.R. Trainmen v. Chicago River & Ind. R.R. Co., 353 U.S. 30, 39-42, 77 S.Ct. 635, 640-41, 1 L.Ed.2d 622 (1957). Since 1957, the courts have approved such injunctive relief on many occasions. See, e.g., Chicago & N. W. Transp. Co. v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 855 F.2d 1277, 1287 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 966, 109 S.Ct. 493, 102 L.Ed.2d 529 (1988); Louisville & N. R.R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Eng’rs, 297 F.2d 608, 609 (6th Cir.1961), aff'd, 373 U.S. 33, 83 S.Ct. 1059, 10 L.Ed.2d 172 (1963).
One year after Chicago River approved the use of an injunction to stop a strike over a minor dispute, the Fifth Circuit decided that a damages remedy was not available to a railroad that had been injured by such a strike. Louisville & N. R.R. Co. v. Brown, 252 F.2d 149, 155 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 356 U.S. 949, 78 S.Ct. 913, 2 L.Ed.2d 843 (1958).
Eighteen years after Brown was decided, a district court within the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed its holding. National Airlines, Inc. v. Airline Pilots Ass’n Int’l, 431 F.Supp. 53 (S.D.Fla.1976). Like the Supreme Court’s opinion in Foust, the National Airlines decision explained that a damages remedy could impair , the labor-management relationship inténded by the RLA:
The life cycle of labor-management bargaining is heated and oftentimes results in bitter accusations. Representatives attempt to secure the best possible terms for their respective sides. To create a right of action in favor of an employer against a union and its collective bargaining representatives for losses the former incurs in the course of the collective bargaining process would, in effect, give the employer a weapon with which to keep the unions and their agents “in line.” Surely, neither Congress nor the Appel- ■ late Courts would fashion a remedy which would give the employer a lever upon which to gain such an unfair advantage.
National Airlines, 431 F.Supp. at 54. Accordingly, the court, which .had issued an injunction against the union, dismissed the carrier’s claim for damages. Id. at 54-55.
Most recently, the Fifth Circuit reconsidered Brown in Burlington Northern Railway Co. v. Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, 961 F.2d 86 (5th Cir.1992). The court, noting that neither the Supreme Court nor any other circuit had visited'the issue since 1958, concluded that Brown remains good law. Burlington Northern, 961 F.2d at 89.
No published opinion has ever held that a carrier may recover damages against a union for an illegal strike over a minor dispute.4 Of course, the decisions of the Fifth Circuit do not bind us. However, since at least 1958, the RLA “common law” has been that a railroad may not recover damages for- a strike over a minor dispute.
Congress envisioned that the courts would set up a body of law to enforce the RLA. The resulting body of law has not permitted railroads and unions to recover damages against each other generally and, *382particularly, in the situation presented m this case. After 66 years, a court should be reluctant to change the balance that has been struck between railroads and unions. At a minimum, a party requesting such a change should be required to demonstrate why the remedies that have been appropriate for 66 years are no longer good enough.
CSX has made no such demonstration. We have no reason to believe that the need for damages to deter illegal strikes over minor disputes is any greater today than it was when Brown was decided in 1958 or when the RLA was enacted in 1926.
By contrast, the concerns that weigh against such a remedy are as present today as they ever were. In the volatile atmosphere of labor-management relations, the threat of a damages action could upset the balance intended by the RLA.
The problem 'is particularly acute in a case such as' this where, the union cannot know with 'certainty at the time it calls a strike whether a court will later decide that the dispute was minor or major. If damages were available and the union guessed wrong, it would be liable for damages that could deplete the union treasury and impair its effectiveness as the collective bargaining agent. Cf. Foust, 442 U.S. at 50-51, 99 S.Ct. at. 2127. This threat of crushing financial loss allows the carrier to keep the union “in line” and the employees off the picket line even in cases where the dispute is later adjudged to be major. See National Airlines, 431 F.Supp. at 54.
Even if CSX could point to modern developments justifying an award of damages under the RLA, such an argument properly should be made to Congress. Five years ago, the Supreme Court considered for the first time a claim that the RLA implicitly bars secondary picketing. Burlington N. R.R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes, 481 U.S. 429, 107 S.Ct. 1841, 95 L.Ed.2d 381 (1987). The Court rejected this novel claim:
We decline, at this advanced stage of the RLA’s development, to find in it an implied limit on a union’s resort to secondary activity. Instead, “if Congress should now find that abuses.in the nature of secondary activities have arisen in the railroad industry ... it is for Congress, and not the Courts, to strike the balance ‘between the uncontrolled power of management and labor to fur- ' ther their respective interests.’ ”
Id. at 452-53, 107 S.Ct. at 1855 (citation omitted) (emphasis added). If changes in the industry merit the result CSX seeks, Congress, not the courts, should create the appropriate remedy.
An award of damages would change the careful balance between labor and management that has evolved in the 66 years since the RLA was enacted. Since CSX has not shown that any change in the industry or the law warrants such a result, we AFFIRM the decision of the district court to dismiss CSX’s claim for damages.

. See 1 The Railway Labor Act of 1926 — A Legislative History at 282-84 (1988) (remarks of Representative Newton, floor manager of the bill: “The law for enforcement would be developed in the courts”); see also Hearings on H.R. 7180 Before the House Commerce Committee, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. 40 (1926) (remarks of labor spokesman D. Richberg: "[T]he law for such *380enforcement or compulsion should be developed in the courts”). The bill'itself was an agreement hammered out between labor and the railroads and ratified by Congress. Therefore, courts have treated the statements of labor and railroad representatives as part of the legislative history. See, e.g., Chicago & N.W. R.R. Co. v. United Transp. Union, 402 U.S. 570, 577, 91 S.Ct. 1731, 1735, 29 L.Ed.2d 187 (1971) (quoting Richberg testimony).

. As Judge Batchelder points out, however, the adjustment boards set up under the RLA have awarded damages in some cases.

. In support of the proposition that damages are generally appropriate under the RLA, Judge Batchelder cites United Industrial Workers v. Board of Trustees of Galveston Wharves, 400 F.2d 320 (5th Cir.1968), cert. denied, 395 U.S. 905, 89 S.Ct. 1747, 23 L.Ed.2d 219 (1969), and United Transportation Union v. Florida East Coast Railway Co., 586 F.2d 520 (5th Cir.1978). However, in Galveston Wharves, the Fifth Circuit approved the award of backpay. 400 F.2d at 327. Backpay is considered to be an equitable remedy because it represents a benefit wrongfully withheld. See Local No. 391 v. Terry, 494 U.S. 558, 570, 110 S.Ct. 1339, 1348, 108 L.Ed.2d 519 (1990). In Florida East Coast Railway, the court limited its holding to determining the applicable statute of limitations and did not reach the propriety of the award of damages.

. However, in an unreported case, a district court, without discussion, awarded damages to a railroad for an illegal strike. Denver & Rio Grande W. R.R. v. Brotherhood of R.R. Trainmen, 58 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2568 (D.Colo.1965), rev’d on other grounds, 367 F.2d 137 (10th Cir.1966), rev’d, 387 U.S. 556, 87 S.Ct. 1746, 18 L.Ed.2d 954 (1967). On remand, the damages award was not reinstated.