Court Opinion

ID: 9498708
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:25:55.255197+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:01.370933
License: Public Domain

RYAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring separately.
Like my colleagues, I believe the arbitration award for Salters must be set aside because it did not “draw its essence” from the collective bargaining agreement (CBA), but I come to that conclusion for a different reason than my colleagues offer. Beacon Journal Pub. Co. v. Akron Newspaper Guild, Local No. 7, 114 F.3d 596, 600 (6th Cir.1997).
In my view, this case is not about an arbitrator incorrectly deciding that the CBA was amended by the parties’ separate and subsequent agreement; it is about his deciding the dispute in violation of the CBA, because his decision did not draw its essence from the CBA. It drew its essence from what the arbitrator called the January 3, 2003, oral “contract[ ],” which was mentioned in the January 8, 2003, letter. Consequently, I do not understand this case as having anything to do with how the parties could properly have modified the CBA and whether they did so. Rather, it is a case about an arbitrator’s decision “drawing its essence” from something besides the CBA, and therefore, under settled law, it must be set aside.
Finally, I would not reverse and remand to the district court. I have real doubt that this court has any authority to tell the district court, to tell the parties, to tell their hired arbitrator to go back to work, and then specifically what to do. Whether the parties wish to hire more arbitration is entirely in their discretion, not the federal court’s. I would simply vacate the district court’s judgment confirming the arbitrator *331award and leave the next step to the parties.