[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
___________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
JUL 14, 2006
No. 05-14959
THOMAS K. KAHN
___________________
CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 05-00018 CV-J-20-MMH
BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS
AND TRAINMEN GENERAL COMMITTEE OF
ADJUSTMENT CSX TRANSPORTATION
NORTHERN LINES,
Plaintiff-
Counter-Defendant-
Appellee,
versus
CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC.,
Defendant-
Counter-Defendant-
Appellee,
and
UNITED TRANSPORTATION UNION
BALTIMORE & OHIO SYSTEM C-T & E,
Defendant-
Counter-Claimant-
Appellant.
__________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
___________________
(July 14, 2006)
Before TJOFLAT and BARKETT and GOODWIN*, Circuit Judges.
GOODWIN, Circuit Judge:
This is an appeal from a summary judgment which set aside a Railway
Labor arbitration award. We reverse and remand.
BACKGROUND
Recent mergers of railway carriers, combined with revisions of routes, and
modernization of equipment, created three pools of qualified and available railroad
employees seeking selection to engine crews on the Northern Lines of CSX
Transportation, Inc. (“CSXT”) and three mutually inconsistent and competitive
streams of contract-based seniority claims. These competing seniority claims were
similar to, but not identical with, nationwide controversies over seniority in the
wake of the vanishing caboose and reduced demand for freight conductors,
firemen, hostlers, and other crew personnel made redundant by technical change.
*
Honorable Alfred T. Goodwin, United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, sitting
by designation.
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The controversy that became the source of this appeal involved 43 new
engine-crew hires (the “New Hires”) who had been trained and released by merged
carriers and hired by CSXT, purportedly during a period of local and temporary
scarcity of qualified trainmen already on the CSXT payroll. The two relevant
unions, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen General Committee
of Adjustment CSX Transportation Northern Lines (“BLET”) and United
Transportation Union Baltimore & Ohio System C-T&E (“UTU CGA”), each
having its own seniority track, and each obligated to advance the seniority claims
of its members, immediately claimed that their members deserved seniority
preference. Every attempt to blend the competing seniority rankings into a single
seniority roster to which CSXT, BLET and UTU CGA could agree failed. The
last-straw event took place in May of 2001, when CSXT aborted its publication of
seniority rosters including the New Hires, which representatives of BLET and
UTU CGA had initially reviewed and approved, but which BLET subsequently
demanded that CSXT rescind. The controversy went to arbitration by a National
Railway Adjustment Board, with the first hearing on December 3, 2001.
After lengthy arbitration, an award was made that satisfied some, but not all
of the parties. The controversy proceeded to the district court pursuant to the
National Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (q), which in due course
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rejected the arbitration award and entered the judgment appealed from. The
district court adopted generally the position favored by BLET, and UTU CGA,
whose position had prevailed in the arbitration, brings this appeal.
DISCUSSION
Both the Board Opinion and Award and the district court order vacating the
award contain lengthy, and detailed, discussions of the factual and legal issues
involved in this case. For judicial review purposes, however, only a few key
points require discussion.
In his decision, the experienced arbitrator engaged in a thorough review and
analysis of the applicable collective bargaining agreements, and concluded that
they did not resolve the hiring and seniority issues posited by the parties. The
arbitrator’s first key finding was that the rosters published and subsequently
revoked by CSXT in 2001 constituted a binding resolution of the dispute, and that
CSXT was not justified in revoking the rosters after BLET and UTU CGA had
acquiesced in their publication.
Furthermore, the arbitrator determined that CSXT did not comply with its
contractual obligations when it retained the New Hires from outside the Northern
Lines rather than promoting from within the ranks of displaced trainmen. This
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finding significantly weakened BLET’s argument that the 43 New Hires should
receive preferential placement on the Northern Lines seniority rosters.
The arbitrator rejected the balance of BLET’s post hoc objections to the
2001 rosters, reasoning that basic principles of contract law prohibited their
revocation.
The district court vacated the award, concluding that the Board exceeded its
jurisdiction in its placement of the New Hires on the Northern Lines engineer
seniority rosters. Alternatively, the court found that the Board failed to comply
with the National Railway Labor Act when it determined that the BLET’s General
Chairman did not have the authority to enter into the 2001 BLET Agreement,
which gave rise to the publication of the revised rosters.
The district court declared the arbitrator’s interpretation of the relevant
contracts to be beyond the arbitrator’s jurisdiction, in an attempt to fit its decision
within the “extremely narrow” scope of judicial review allocated by the RLA to
the federal courts when reviewing railway arbitration awards. However, the
district court’s recitation of the proper standard of review does not transform its
substantive disagreement with the arbitrator into a sustainable decision.
An arbitral award may be vacated for failure “to conform, or confine itself,
to matters within the scope of the division’s jurisdiction . . . .” 45 U.S.C. § 153
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First (q). “It is thus firmly established that courts will not review the substance of
a labor arbitration award for ordinary error and that courts will not vacate an
award because a judge might have reached a different result.” See Loveless v.
Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 681 F.2d 1272, 1276 (11th Cir. 1982). Substantive
judicial review of an arbitral award is limited to a determination of whether the
award is irrational, whether it fails to draw its essence from the collective
bargaining agreement, or whether it exceeds the scope of the arbitrator’s
contractual authority. Id.; see also Norfolk & W. Ry. Co. v. Transp. Commmc’ns
Int’l Union, 17 F.3d 696, 700 (4th Cir. 1994) (acknowledging that an award may
not ignore the plain and unambiguous language of the contract, but ‘“[a]s long as
the arbitrator is even arguably construing or applying the contract,” the arbitrator’s
award must not be disturbed’) (quoting United Paperworkers Int’l Union v. Misco,
Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 38 (1987)).
By the time of this arbitration, the parties could not even stipulate to the
phrasing of the question(s) presented to the Special Board of Adjustment for
decision. The arbitrator had to sort through volumes of claims supporting
competing views of seniority rights in order to understand the claims. It is
apparent that no solution to the seniority dispute could have satisfied both unions.
Technology had rendered obsolete many of the jobs of senior trainmen, and the
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employer was obligated to move them toward engine crew jobs consistent with
realistic needs and qualifications, and in compliance with the relevant collective
bargaining agreements made in an earlier time. Faced with the polarized positions
of the two unions, the arbitrator attempted to find the more reasonable, to him, of
several imperfect choices. No arbitrator, even one gifted with Solomonic wisdom,
could have harmonized the terms of the relevant bargaining agreements. And for
that reason, as demonstrated by the competing claims here, arbitration law wisely
relies upon the experience, perspective, understanding of industrial practice, and
knowledge of logistics and economics, of the officer chosen as arbitrator.
“Because the parties have contracted to have disputes settled by an
arbitrator chosen by them rather than by a judge, it is the arbitrator’s view of the
facts and of the meaning of the contract that they have agreed to accept. Courts
thus do not sit to hear claims of factual or legal error by an arbitrator . . . .”
United Paperworkers Int’l Union v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 37-38 (1987).
Under the present circumstances, the arbitrator’s award was within the
statutory scope of the arbitration and within the Board’s jurisdiction. Accordingly,
the award was due to be enforced when challenged in the district court.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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