Court Opinion

ID: 9494746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:45:15.472221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:35.202672
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
A.
The basic principles that govern this case are straightforward. The federal courts serve a gatekeeper function in relation to arbitration processes found in many collective bargaining agreements and contracts. In Litton Financial Printing Division v. NLRB, 501 U.S. 190, 111 S.Ct. 2215, 115 L.Ed.2d 177 (1991), the Supreme Court of the United States reiterated the general rule that the courts, rather than the arbitrator, must determine if the parties have agreed, through the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, to submit a particular dispute to arbitration. See Litton Fin. Printing Div., 501 U.S. at 208, 111 S.Ct. 2215 (citing AT & T Tech., Inc. v. Communications Workers of America, 475 U.S. 643, 651, 106 S.Ct. 1415, 89 L.Ed.2d 648 (1986)). The parties may avoid this default rule by contracting to permit the *559arbitrator, rather than the courts, to determine if a dispute falls within the scope of the arbitration clause. See First Options of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, 514 U.S. 938, 944, 115 S.Ct. 1920, 131 L.Ed.2d 985 (1995). To do so, however, the parties must evidence in their agreement a clear and unmistakable intent to cede the arbi-trability question to the arbitrator. See id. (citing AT & T Tech., Inc., 475 U.S. at 649, 106 S.Ct. 1415). Even in this latter instance, the court retains authority to determine if the parties, in fact, have agreed to commit the question of arbitrability to the arbitrator. See id.
In this case, the collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) between the Air Line Pilots Association (“ALPA”) and Midwest Express Airlines (“Midwest”) contains an extremely broad arbitration clause:
The Board shall have jurisdiction over disputes between any employee covered by this Agreement and- [Midwest] growing out of grievances or out of interpretation or application of any of the terms of this Agreement.
Appellants’ Appendix at 16. When a court confronts such a broad arbitration clause, “there is a presumption of arbitrability in the sense that ‘[a]n order to arbitrate should not be denied unless it may be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted dispute.’ ” AT & T Tech., Inc., 475 U.S. at 650, 106 S.Ct. 1415 (quoting Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582-83, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409 (1960)).
The plain wording of the arbitration clause encompasses Mr. Moffatt’s grievance against Midwest; he is an employee of the airline covered by the CBA who seeks an interpretation of the terms of the agreement. Given the expansive scope of the arbitration clause, it cannot be said with positive assurance that the preexisting settlement agreement, entered into prior to the enactment of the CBA, precludes necessarily arbitration of Mr. Mof-fatt’s grievance. The panel therefore correctly concludes that the district court should have ordered Midwest to arbitrate Mr. Moffatt’s grievance.
B.
Although I agree with the majority that this dispute is subject to arbitration, I cannot agree that the procedural posture of this case permits us to reach, nevertheless, the supersession issue that is central to the merits of Mr. Moffatt’s grievance. Once the court concludes that the parties have agreed to arbitrate a particular dispute, “it is [then] for the arbitrator to determinate the relative merits of the parties’ substantive interpretations of the [CBA].” AT & T Tech., Inc., 475 U.S. at 651, 106 S.Ct. 1415. In its brief to this court, the ALPA stressed repeatedly that the district court lacked the authority to interpret the CBA’s supersession clause. To the extent the union addressed the interpretation of this provision in its brief before this court, it only did so because the district court had reached the issue and because Midwest, defending the district court’s conclusion, submitted that the court had to address this issue in order to determine if Mr. Moffatt’s grievance was arbi-trable.
Under the panel’s own analysis, this issue is for the arbitrator. Because we have concluded that the plain terms of the arbitration clause require arbitration of this issue, we ought to refrain from construing the supersession clause.
In my view, the panel’s decision to construe the supersession clause treads on the prerogative of the arbitrator and deprives the parties of the determination for *560which they bargained. Although the panel majority takes the view that the plain language of the supersession clause makes clear that the CBA supercedes the earlier “last chance” settlement agreement, it is not at all clear that an arbitrator necessarily would reach the same result. The parties do not dispute that, by virtue of the supersession clause, the CBA takes precedence over “all agreements, supplemental agreements, amendments and similar related documents executed between [Midwest] and [ALPA] prior to the signing of this Agreement.” Appellants’ Appendix at 20. Rather, Midwest and the ALPA dispute the precise meaning of these terms in the supersession clause. More precisely, the parties differ as to whether the terms of this provision encompass Mr. Moffatt’s settlement agreement. Certainly the arbitrator, in engaging in contract interpretation, would have been within his rights to deem the meaning of these terms sufficiently ambiguous to consider extrinsic evidence — including the oral or written negotiations used to form this CBA — to interpret this provision. See Jasper Cabinet Co. v. United Steelworkers of America, 77 F.3d 1025, 1030-31 (7th Cir.1996) (noting that it was permissible for arbitrator, in an effort to shed light on ambiguous terms of CBA, to consider bargaining history of agreement); Johnson Controls, Inc., Sys. & Servs. Div. v. United Ass’n of Journeymen & Apprentices of the Plumbing & Pipe Fitting Indus. of the United States & Canada, 39 F.3d 821, 824-25 (7th Cir.1994) (approving arbitrator’s use of bargaining history to elucidate the meaning of ambiguous terms of a CBA). See also Local 1199, Drug, Hosp. & Health Care Employees Union v. Brooks Drug Co., 956 F.2d 22, 25 (2d Cir.1992); Manville Forest Prods. Corp. v. United Paperworkers Int’l Union, 831 F.2d 72, 75 (5th Cir.1987). Although the arbitrator’s award must “draw[ ] its essence from the collective bargaining agreement,” United Steelworkers of America v. Enter. Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 597, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960), he may “look for guidance from many sources.” Id. The principle simply recognizes that
The collective bargaining agreement ... is more than a contract; it is a generalized code to govern a myriad of cases which the draftsmen cannot wholly anticipate .... It calls into being a new common law — the common law of a particular industry or of a particular plant.... Gaps may be left to be filled in by reference to the practices of the particular industry and of the various shops covered by the agreement.... The labor arbitrator’s source of law is not confined to the express provisions of the contract, as the industrial common law — the practices of the industry and the shop — is equally a part of the collective bargaining agreement although not expressed in it.
Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. at 578-82, 80 S.Ct. 1347. Parties agree to arbitrate so that a specialist, someone intimately familiar with their industry, may resolve disputes arising under their collective bargaining agreement. See Sphere Drake Ins. Ltd. v. All American Ins. Co., 256 F.3d 587, 592 (7th Cir.2001). Here, the panel majority, having just concluded that the parties’ agreement reserves the construction of the supersession clause to the arbitrator, nevertheless deprives the parties of this benefit. From this portion of today’s decision, I respectfully dissent.