UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-1999
TINA MAWING; HORSEMEN’S BENEVOLENT PROTECTION ASSOCIATION,
Plaintiffs - Appellees,
v.
PNGI CHARLES TOWN GAMING, L.L.C., d/b/a Charles Town Races
and Slots,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern
District of West Virginia, at Martinsburg. John Preston Bailey,
Chief District Judge. (3:09-cv-00068-JPB)
Submitted: March 28, 2011 Decided: May 2, 2011
Before MOTZ, GREGORY, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Brian M. Peterson, Charles F. Printz, Jr., BOWLES, RICE,
MCDAVID, GRAFF & LOVE, P.L.L.C., Martinsburg, West Virginia,
Joseph E. Wolfson, Stacey A. Scrivani, STEVENS & LEE, P.C., King
of Prussia, Pennsylvania, for Appellant. David M. Hammer,
HAMMER, FERRETTI & SCHIAVONI, Martinsburg, West Virginia, Harry
P. Waddell, LAW OFFICE OF HARRY P. WADDELL, Martinsburg, West
Virginia, Gregory A. Bailey, ARNOLD & BAILEY, Shepherdstown,
West Virginia, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Tina Mawing, a racehorse trainer, and the Horseman’s
Benevolent Protective Association (“HBPA”), a non-profit
bargaining representative for West Virginia horsemen, filed a
complaint against PNGI Charles Town Gaming, LLC, d/b/a Charles
Town Races and Slots (“CTRS”), seeking injunctive relief and
damages for breach of contract, due process, and retaliation
claims arising out of CTRS’s denial of horse stalls to Mawing.
CTRS moved for summary judgment, and the district court
submitted the claims to arbitration pursuant to the arbitration
provision 1 in the collective bargaining agreement between HBPA
and CTRS. 2 CTRS filed a Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion to alter or
amend the judgment, which the district court denied.
CTRS appealed, arguing that (1) the contractual claim
was correctly submitted to arbitration but that the due process
and retaliation claims were not covered by the arbitration
1
The arbitration provision reads:
In the event there is a disagreement between the
parties as to whether any party has complied with the
terms or conditions in this Agreement, then Charles
Town Races and the HBPA shall each choose an
Arbitrator and the two Arbitrators shall choose a
third Arbitrator. The Board of Arbitrators shall
decide the issues involved and each party agrees to be
bound by the decision of the arbitration panel.
2
Mawing is an HBPA member. Pursuant to the agreement, HBPA
is the exclusive bargaining agent of its members.
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agreement; (2) the district court erred in declining to grant
summary judgment on the non-contract claims; and (3) the
district court erred in denying its Rule 59(e) motion. Finding
no reversible error, we affirm.
We review a district court’s arbitrability
determination de novo. United States v. Bankers Ins. Co., 245
F.3d 315, 319 (4th Cir. 2001). The Federal Arbitration Act, 9
U.S.C. §§ 1-14 (2006), provides that a written arbitration
agreement “shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save
upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the
revocation of any contract.” 9 U.S.C. § 2. To compel
arbitration, a court must find that an arbitration agreement
exists between two parties and that the dispute at issue falls
within the scope of the agreement. Hightower v. GMRI, Inc., 272
F.3d 239, 242 (4th Cir. 2001). “To decide whether an
arbitration agreement encompasses a dispute a court must
determine whether the factual allegations underlying the claim
are within the scope of the arbitration clause, regardless of
the legal label assigned to the claim.” J.J. Ryan & Sons,
Inc. v. Rhone Poulenc Textile, S.A., 863 F.2d 315, 319 (4th Cir.
1988). In assessing arbitrability, a court is obliged to give
effect to the intentions of the parties, but any ambiguities
regarding the scope of an arbitration clause should be resolved
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in favor of arbitration. Wachovia Bank, Nat’l Ass’n v. Schmidt,
445 F.3d 762, 767 (4th Cir. 2006).
We hold that the district court properly submitted all
of Plaintiffs’ claims to arbitration. The allocation of stalls
is governed by the HBPA agreement’s “stalls” provision. As the
arbitration agreement covers disputes over compliance with the
terms or conditions of the HBPA agreement, it extends to the
stalls provision. Thus, regardless of Plaintiffs’ due process
and retaliation labels, their factual allegation that CTRS
improperly refused to allocate stalls to Mawing falls within the
scope of the arbitration agreement. Because the district court
did not err in submitting the claims to arbitration, we further
hold that the district court correctly declined to reach the
merits of the due process and retaliation claims, see AT&T
Tech., Inc. v. Commc’n Workers for Am., 475 U.S. 643, 649
(1986), and properly denied CTRS’s Rule 59(e) motion. See
Robinson v. Wix Filtration Corp., 599 F.3d 403, 407 (4th Cir.
2010).
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s orders.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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