Court Opinion

ID: 9469716
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:47:14.439453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:31.602478
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
By our decision today we allow a federal district court to cross the boundary line separating its functions under the minor-dispute provisions of the Railway Labor Act from those of a railroad adjustment board, and to decide a question that is within the board’s exclusive competence to decide because it is a question of the meaning of a collective bargaining agreement. The question is whether “time lost” from work by reason of an improper dismissal includes time during which the employee was collecting disability benefits.
Mr. Choate was dismissed by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad allegedly for failing without good cause to report to work. The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen prosecuted a grievance on Choate’s behalf and a special adjustment board was convened, pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement, to consider the grievance. The board concluded that the company had failed to sustain the charge on which it had based its dismissal of Choate, and the board ordered the railroad to comply with its award which the order describes simply as “claim sustained.”
Rule 55 of the collective bargaining agreement states that “if the charge or charges against an employee are not sustained [as the board had found with respect to Choate], his record shall be cleared of the charge or charges and if suspended or dismissed he shall be reinstated with all rights unimpaired and paid for time lost.” But a latent ambiguity in the rule as applied to Choate’s case, and hence in the board’s award, developed when the railroad discovered after the board had issued its order that Choate had applied to the Railroad Retirement Board for disability benefits when he was dismissed, and had been awarded them. The railroad’s position was that if Choate was disabled during this period it was not (for him) “time lost” from work within the meaning of rule 55. The railroad therefore asked the special adjustment board to interpret its award, pursuant to section 3 First (m) of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (m), which provides that “in case a dispute arises involving an interpretation of the award, the [board] upon request of either party shall interpret the award in light of the dispute.”
The board issued an interpretation that did not interpret. It stated that “the major thrust of the [railroad in asking for an interpretation] is with the question of compliance with the Award. Compliance with an Award ... is not within the jurisdiction of [the board] but rather rests in the Courts. For this reason, which is beyond question, most of the issues raised by [the railroad] cannot be considered by this Board.” The board did state — or rather repeated — that its award was “claim sustained,” and added unhelpfully: “that statement can be clarified only to the extent provided in the applicable [collective bargaining] agreement.” The board then quoted rule 55 and commented: “In its sustained Award it was the intention of this Board that Carrier comply fully with Rule 55 insofar as Claimant is concerned.... In summary, therefore, this Board intended that Carrier comply fully with the provisions of Rule 55 with respect to Claimant as the remedy in this dispute.”
When the railroad still refused to pay Choate’s back wages for the period when he was receiving disability benefits, the Brotherhood brought this suit, asking that the period during which Choate was receiving *546disability benefits be included in computing his time lost. The Brotherhood presented evidence to the district court that whatever Choate may have told the Railroad Retirement Board he had not in fact been disabled. The court so found, interpreted the award in the manner urged by the Brotherhood, and ordered the railroad to satisfy the award as so interpreted.
The district court based its decision in favor of the Brotherhood on section 3 First (p) of the Act, which (read together with section 3 Second) provides that the order of a railway adjustment board “may not be set aside except for failure of the [board] to comply with the requirements of this Act, for failure of the order to conform, or confine itself, to matters within the scope of the [board’s] jurisdiction, or for fraud or corruption by a member of the [board] making the order.” None of these grounds was made out here. But in basing decision on the absence of any statutory ground for setting aside the board’s award the district court overlooked the fact that this is not a proceeding to set aside the award but a proceeding to enforce it: a distinction that is not, at least in the circumstances of this case, a merely technical one. The part of the board’s order- that is in issue simply directs that Choate be “paid for time lost.” No sum of money, or formula for computing a sum of money, is specified. I assume that the order is invulnerable to being set aside by a federal court but that does not tell me what number of dollars and cents Choate is entitled to. The board’s award simply states, and its “interpretation” merely repeats, that the railroad has to comply fully with rule 55, that is, has to pay Choate for time lost. The board has never explained what “time lost” means, or replied to the railroad’s argument that the term was not intended to include the period during which an employee is receiving disability benefits on the basis of his representation that he is disabled from doing railroad work. The board’s statement that compliance matters are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts, and therefore that “most of the issues raised by the [railroad] cannot be considered by this Board,” suggests the board may have considered the railroad’s argument beyond its competence to address.
So while the district court’s decision is in form merely a refusal to set aside the board’s order, in substance -it is a judicial interpretation of rule 55, a provision of the collective bargaining agreement. Relying on a case that stands for the unrelated proposition that the Railroad Retirement Board would be entitled to recover the disability benefits it had paid Choate if he was awarded back pay for the same period from the railroad, United States v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R., 237 F.2d 137 (4th Cir. 1956), the district court held that the railroad was not entitled to set off those benefits against the back pay due under the award. But set-off is not the railroad’s argument. Its argument is that Choate should be estopped by his representations to the Railroad Retirement Board to deny that he was disabled and to get back pay for the period of alleged disability. This argument calls for a construction of rule 55 of the collective bargaining agreement, which is a task for the adjustment board rather than for the district court or this court. The very limited scope of judicial review of board orders reflects, in part at least, a judgment that the board is better at interpreting collective bargaining agreements than the courts are, see, e.g., Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Ry. v. Burley, 327 U.S. 661, 664, 66 S.Ct. 721, 722, 90 L.Ed. 928 (1946); and it should make no difference (contrary to what the board may have believed) whether the term to be interpreted appears in a substantive or in a remedial section of the agreement.
If the board’s order were clear enough to be enforced, the mere fact that it did not actually specify a sum certain to be paid the employee would not be fatal; the court could properly in such a case make the actual computation. See, e.g., Sweeney v. Florida East Coast Ry., 389 F.2d 113, 115— 16 (5th Cir. 1968). But where reduction to a sum certain would require interpreting the collective bargaining agreement, as is true in this case, or otherwise trenching on the area of the board’s special competence, *547the only thing the district court can properly do is remand the case to the board to carry out its duty under section 3 First (m) to interpret its award. The fact that the board has this express statutory duty is additional evidence that the court was not intended to interpret these awards itself.
I imagine that my brethren agree with my statement of principles and disagree only on the question whether the board’s order was unambiguous, but I submit that it is not unambiguous, so that this court’s decision, though in form it merely enforces the board’s order, in reality interprets the term “time lost” in the collective bargaining agreement; and that is beyond our power to do.
We should instead direct the district court to remand this case to the board for further interpretation — provided, of course, that the district court has the power to remand. The only express such power is conferred in section 3 First (q), which relates to proceedings to challenge, rather than as in this case to enforce, board orders. But there is abundant authority that the court has the power to remand in enforcement proceedings as well. See, e.g., Transportation-Communication Employees Union v. Union Pac. R.R., 385 U.S. 157, 165 n.4, 87 S.Ct. 369, 373 n.4, 17 L.Ed.2d 264 (1966); Laday v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & P.R.R., 422 F.2d 1168, 1170 n.2 (7th Cir. 1970). The power can be rationalized by pointing out that when the defendant in an enforcement action complains that the award is ambiguous, he is in effect seeking review under section 3 First (q), thus invoking the district court’s power to remand. See Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & P.R.R., 284 F.Supp. 401, 407 (N.D.Ill.1968). There is a problem with this approach: section 3 Second, governing proceedings of special adjustment boards, purports to incorporate only those provisions of section 3 First that relate to “enforcement of compliance,” and First (q) as I said is not one of those provisions. But the power to remand in actions to enforce awards of special adjustment boards is too well settled to be seriously questioned at this late date; and it indicates the proper disposition of a case such as this where the award is too ambiguous to enforce and where dispelling the ambiguity requires an interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement, a task within the exclusive jurisdiction of the board. The board failed to interpret the award the first time it was asked to do so; it should be told to try again. Cf. United Transport. Union v. Southern Pac. Transport Co., 529 F.2d 691, 693 (5th Cir. 1976). We are not authorized to do its job for it.