Oil, Chemical, & Atomic Workers International Union v. Conoco, Inc.

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
MAR 7 2001
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT

OIL, CHEMICAL, & ATOMIC
WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION
(AFL-CIO) and its LOCAL 5-857, Labor
Organizations,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,
No. 99-5173
v.

CONOCO, INC., a Delaware corporation,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Oklahoma
(D.C. No. 97-CV-682-H)

David A. Scott, Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler, & Krupman, Dallas, Texas (J. Patrick Cremin
and William D. Fisher, Hall, Estill, Hardwick, Gable, Golden, & Nelson, P.C., Tulsa,
Oklahoma, on the briefs), for Defendant-Appellant.

Stephen R. Hickman, Frasier, Frasier, and Hickman, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Plaintiffs-
Appellees.

Before HENRY and BRISCOE, Circuit Judges, and SHADUR, District Judge,*

*
The Honorable Milton I. Shadur, Senior District Judge for the Northern District
of Illinois, sitting by designation.
HENRY, Circuit Judge.

Conoco appeals the district court’s decision to submit a series of grievances filed

by the plaintiffs, the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union (AFL-CIO)

and its Local 5-857 (the union) to arbitration. After staying the instant action pending

the completion of arbitration, the district court issued an order explaining that it had not

yet made a dispositive ruling on the issue of whether the grievances were arbitrable. We

hold, consistent with developing case law, that the district court should have decided

whether the grievances at issue were arbitrable before submitting them to arbitration.

Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s orders and remand the case to the district

court.

I. BACKGROUND

In 1995 and 1996, the union filed a series of grievances against Conoco

challenging the company’s handling of job reductions at its Ponca City, Oklahoma

refinery. The union alleged that Conoco had hired a number of nonunion personnel to fill

vacant positions and had thereby violated the provisions of three separate collective

bargaining agreements governing three different groups: (1) refinery workers, (2)

technology workers, and (3) clerical workers.

Each agreement contains a management rights clause that sets forth certain

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functions that are “solely the responsibility of Management,” Aplt’s App. vol. I, at 51, 95,

134, including “[h]iring, maintaining order, and discipline or discharge for just cause”

and “the assignment of work subject only to other provisions of [the] Agreement.” See

id. Each management rights clause proceeds to list additional, management-only

functions in some detail. Importantly, all of the clauses state that “[g]rievances

originating under [the management rights clause] are subject to the grievance procedure

but cannot be submitted to arbitration; and no arbitrator has the authority to rule on [the

management rights clause] with the exception of determination of just cause.” Id. at 52,

95, 134.

The union’s grievances proceeded through the initial stages outlined in the

collective bargaining agreements. When they could not be resolved, the union requested

arbitration. Conoco objected, arguing that the grievances were governed by the

management rights clauses and were therefore not arbitrable.

In July 1997, the union filed this action. It alleged that Conoco had refused to

submit to arbitration, and it requested specific performance of the arbitration clauses in

the collective bargaining agreements. Conoco filed a motion for summary judgment,

arguing that the management rights clauses rendered the grievances non-arbitrable. The

district court denied Conoco’s motion, reasoning that there were controverted issues of

material fact as to the arbitrability of the grievances and stating that there would be a non-

jury trial on the question. The court also ordered the parties to evaluate each individual

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grievance to determine whether each was subject to arbitration.

After hearing further arguments from the parties, the court entered an order finding

that “doubts regarding the arbitrability of Plaintiffs’ grievances require that this case be

submitted to arbitration.” Id. vol. II, at 314 (District Court Order, filed May 20, 1999).

Conoco moved for reconsideration, and, on July 22, 1999, the district court entered an

order reaffirming its original decision.

The court explained that it was not deciding the question of the whether the

management rights clauses barred arbitration. According to the court, the parties could

reargue that issue at the conclusion of arbitration:

[Plaintiff union] respond[s] that “to the extent the Arbitrator has
jurisdiction to decide a matter and does decide a matter, then his
decision is binding unless it falls within the narrow exceptions
that give[] the Court the power to review.”
The Court agrees with Plaintiffs’ analysis. The Court’s
order does not permit the arbitrator to decide whether a
grievance falls within the management rights clause of the
agreement, because any decision by the arbitrator affecting the
question of arbitrability is not subject to the high level of
deference suggested by Conoco. The existence of a free-
standing management rights clause in this case alters the
otherwise applicable standard for reviewing an arbitrator’s
decision as to whether the grievances alleged in this case are
arbitrable. Accordingly, the Court’s decision to compel
arbitration neither constitutes a dispositive ruling on this issue
of arbitrability nor works a manifest injustice on Conoco.

Id. at 348. (District Court Order, filed July 22, 1999) (internal citation omitted).

Conoco then filed a motion with the district court requesting leave to file an

interlocutory appeal. The district court denied the motion, and Conoco then filed this appeal.

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 II. DISCUSSION

A. Appellate Jurisdiction

In light of the district court’s denial of Conoco’s request to certify its order as

appealable, as well as its statement that it had not made a dispositive ruling on the issue of

arbitrability, we must first consider whether we have appellate jurisdiction. As a general

rule, this court has jurisdiction over only final orders, those that “‘end[] the litigation on

the merits and leave[] nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.’” Coopers &

Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 467 (1978) (quoting Catlin v. United States, 324 U.S.

229, 233 (1945)); 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

However, in cases involving a district court order directing arbitration under a

collective bargaining agreement subject to § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act,

29 U.S.C. § 185, the Supreme Court has established a particular rule of appellate

jurisdiction. See Goodall-Sanford v. United Textile Workers of Am., 353 U.S. 550, 551

(1957). If the arbitration ordered by the district court “is not merely a step in judicial

enforcement of a claim nor auxiliary to a main proceeding, but the full relief sought,”

then the district court ruling constitutes “a ‘final decision’ within the meaning of 28

U.S.C. § 1291.” Id. ; see also Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of N. Y., Inc. v. Soft Drink &

Brewery Workers Union, Local 812, Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 39 F.3d 408, 410 (2d Cir.

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1994) (concluding that the district court’s order denying the plaintiff employer’s motion

for summary judgment and directing arbitration was appealable because it “den[ied] the

only relief sought in the [c]ompany’s declaratory judgment action”); Laborers’ Int’l

Union of N. Am., AFL-CIO v. Foster Wheeler Energy Corp., 26 F.3d 375, 385 (3rd Cir.

1994) (finding appellate jurisdiction to review the district court’s determination that the

parties were required to arbitrate a grievance); International Union, United Auto.

Aerospace & Agric. Implement Workers of Am. v. United Screw & Bolt Corp., 941 F.2d

466, 472 (6th Cir. 1991) (“Because the district court has ordered enforcement of the

arbitration provision in [the collective bargaining agreement], a final decision has been

made and it is appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.”). On the other hand, appellate

jurisdiction is lacking if the order directing arbitration is made “in the course of a

continuing suit for other relief.” Zosky v. Boyer, 856 F.2d 554, 557 (3d Cir. 1988)

(quoting Rogers v. Schering Corp., 262 F.2d 180, 182 (3d Cir. 1959)).1

1
There is some question as to whether the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. §§ 1-
16, applies to this case. Section 16 of that act authorizes appeals from certain district
court orders involving arbitration proceedings, including “a final decision with respect to
an arbitration that is subject to this title.” See 9 U.S.C.§ 16(a)(3). With regard to appeals
of decisions ordering arbitration under the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. §
185, courts have adopted a rule of appellate jurisdiction that resembles the rule
formulated in Goodall-Sanford. See Adair Bus Sales, Inc. v. Blue Bird Corp., 25 F.3d
953, 955 (10th Cir. 1994) (“A majority of the circuits have adopted the view that an order
can only be final within the meaning of § 16(a)(3) and therefore immediately appealable
if arbitrability is the sole issue before the district court.”). However, the Act excludes
from coverage “contracts of employment of. . . any workers engaged in foreign or
interstate commerce.” 9 U.S.C. § 1.
This circuit has held that the exception for “workers engaged in foreign or

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 Like the plaintiff in Goodall-Sanford, the union here seeks an order compelling

specific performance of grievance arbitration clauses. By entering its May 20, 1999 order

compelling the parties to submit to arbitration, the court granted the union “the full relief

sought.” See Goodall-Sanford, 353 U.S. at 551. As we later explain in this opinion, the

court should have first decided whether the grievances were arbitrable before ordering

arbitration. But, as concluded in Goodall-Sanford, 353 U.S. at 552, the district court’s

skipping that step and ordering arbitration at the outset does not deprive this court of

jurisdiction.

We therefore conclude that the district court’s order requiring the parties to submit

to arbitration constitutes a final order that we have jurisdiction to review. See generally

University Life Ins. Co. v. Unimarc, Ltd., 699 F.2d 846, 849 (7th Cir. 1983) (noting that

interstate commerce” does not encompass all employment contracts but instead only those
of workers “engaged in the channels of interstate commerce.” See McWilliams v.
Logicon, 143 F.3d 573, 575-76 (10th Cir. 1998). However, this circuit had previously
concluded that collective bargaining agreements are “contracts of employment” within
the exclusion and are thus not covered by the Federal Arbitration Act. See United Food
& Comm’l Workers, Local Union No. 7R, v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 889 F.2d 940, 943-44
(10th Cir. 1989).
The Supreme Court has granted certiorari on this question. See Circuit City
Stores, Inc. v. Adams, no. 99-1379, 2000 WL 1132951 (Aug. 7, 2000) (brief in support of
petition for a writ of certiorari on the question of “[w]hether the Ninth Circuit erred in
holding . . . that the Federal Arbitration Act does not apply to contracts of employment”);
194 F.3d 1070 (9th Cir. 1999), cert. granted, 120 S. Ct. 2004 (May 22, 2000). In light of
this uncertainty, we decide the jurisdictional issue on the basis of the federal law
governing collective bargaining agreements rather than on the basis of the provisions of
the Federal Arbitration Act.

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“[i]f the appeal is postponed too long, the appellant may be deprived of a meaningful

appellate review and the parties and the trial court harrowed by lengthy proceedings that

could have been averted if the error on which they were founded had been corrected by

the appellate court earlier”). We therefore proceed to the merits of Conoco’s appeal.

B. The District Court’s Refusal to Issue a Dispositive Ruling on Arbitrability

On the merits, Conoco argues that the district court’s postponement of a ruling on

the arbitrability of the grievances violates established principles regarding the

construction of collective bargaining agreements, depriving it of its right to a judicial

determination of that issue. The union responds that Conoco has not been deprived of

such a determination but instead must simply wait until the conclusion of the arbitration

proceedings to receive it.

There is a “longstanding federal policy of promoting industrial harmony through

the use of collective bargaining agreements.” AT&T Tech., Inc v. Communication

Workers of Am., 475 U.S. 643, 651 (1986). Federal policy also favors voluntary

arbitration as a means of settling disputes about the terms of such agreements. See Nolde

Brothers, Inc. v. Local No. 358, Bakery & Confectionery Workers Union, AFL-CIO,

430 U.S.243, 254 (1977). However, in spite of that federal policy, the question of

whether the parties to a collective bargaining agreement are obligated to submit a dispute

to arbitration is essentially a matter of construing the agreement. AT&T, 475 U.S. at 648-

8
49. Thus, “‘a party cannot be required to submit to arbitration any dispute which he has

not agreed so to submit.’” Id. at 648 (quoting Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation

Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582 (1960)).

Importantly, the Court has also held that “the question of arbitrability—whether a

collective-bargaining agreement creates a duty for the parties to arbitrate the particular

grievance—is undeniably an issue for judicial determination.” Id. at 649. Unless the

collective bargaining agreement “clearly and unmistakably” provides otherwise, the

question of whether a dispute is arbitrable is for the court rather than the arbitrator to

decide. Id.; see also First Options of Chicago, Inc. v, Kaplan, 514 U.S. 938, 944 (1995)

(“Courts should not assume that the parties agreed to arbitrate arbitrability unless there is

“clear and unmistakable evidence that they did so.”) (internal quotation marks omitted);

Salinas Cooling Co. v. Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Workers, Local P-78-A, 743 F.2d 705,

707 (9th Cir. 1984) (stating that the “strong policy favoring arbitration of labor disputes . .

. does not relieve the district court of its duty to make the arbitrability determination”).

In light of the courts’ authority to decide whether a dispute is arbitrable, the

Supreme Court has indicated that an arbitration should not proceed until a court has

resolved the threshold question of whether the dispute is arbitrable:

The duty to arbitrate being of contractual origin, a compulsory
submission to arbitration cannot precede judicial determination
that the collective bargaining agreement does in fact create such
a duty. Thus, just as an employer has no obligation to arbitrate
issues which it has not agreed to arbitrate, so a fortiori, it cannot
be compelled to arbitrate if an arbitration clause does not bind

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 it at all.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Livingston, 376 U.S. 543, 547 (1964) (emphasis added).

Several circuits have applied that statement to conclude that district courts have

erred in failing to resolve the arbitrability question before allowing the arbitration to

proceed. For example, in Independent Lift Truck Builders Union v. Hyster Co., 2 F.3d

233 (7th Cir. 1993), the district court issued a ruling that appeared in one instance to

conclude that the plaintiff union’s grievance was arbitrable and in other instances to

conclude that the question of arbitrability should be decided by the arbitrator. The

Seventh Circuit concluded that, even though a court ruling on the issue of arbitrabilty

might require the district court to rule on the merits of the grievance, the court was still

required to decide that issue first. Thus, “the district court erred in ordering the dispute to

arbitration without first determining that it was arbitrable. . . . Only after the district court

has determined that the parties intended the agreement to apply to [the employees who

filed the grievances] may the court order the dispute to arbitration.” Id. at 236-37

(emphasis added).

Similarly, in General Drivers, Warehousemen & Helpers, Local Union 89 v. Moog

Louisville Warehouse, 852 F.2d 871 (6th Cir. 1988), the district court concluded that the

question of whether the plaintiff union had made a timely request for arbitration was a

question to be decided by the arbitrator. It therefore granted the union’s request for an

order compelling arbitration. Reversing that decision, the Sixth Circuit concluded that

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“[t]he fact that there is a general agreement, under certain circumstances, to afford

arbitration as a last resort is not controlling. The court must first determine from the

contract provisions dealing with arbitration, the particular grievances that are intended to

be subject to arbitration.” Id. at 875 (emphasis added). Other courts have characterized

the district courts’ duty to decide arbitrability in similar terms. See, e.g., Bell-Atlantic-

Pennsylvania, Inc. v. Communications Workers of Am., AFL-CIO, Local 13000, 164

F.3d 197, 201 (3rd Cir. 1999) (stating that “parties may be sent to arbitration only after

the court so directing them is satisfied that this was their intent and that both parties

consented to do so in their contractual agreement” and describing this decision as a

“threshold determination”) (emphasis added); Kansas City S. Transport Co. v. Teamsters

Local Union No. 41, 126 F.3d 1059, 1067 (8th Cir. 1997) (concluding that the district

court appropriately held an order compelling arbitration in abeyance pending an

evidentiary hearing on arbitrability); Smith v. Currency Trading Int’l, Inc., 10 F. Supp. 2d

1189, 1190 (D. Colo. 1998) (concluding that “ a judicial determination of whether an

arbitration agreement exists should have been made before the matter was submitted to

arbitration”) (emphasis added), aff’d, no. 98-1311,1999 WL 565460 (10th Cir. Aug. 3,

1999).2

2
We have found only one decision suggesting that, in the absence of an agreement
to submit arbitrability to the arbitrator, arbitration proceedings may proceed before a court
determination of arbitrability. In National Ass’n of Broadcast Employees & Technicians
v. American Broadcasting Co., 140 F.3d 459, 462 (2d Cir. 1998), the plaintiff union
brought an action seeking to vacate an arbitrator’s award because the issue of arbitrability

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 We have found no case involving a decision precisely like the one at issue here: a

postponement of a dispositive ruling on arbitrability until the conclusion of arbitration

proceedings. However, because there is no “clear and unmistakable evidence” that the

plaintiff union and Conoco agreed that the arbitrator should decide the arbitrability of the

grievances, see First Options, 514 U.S. at 944, such a postponement is inconsistent with

the Supreme Court’s decisions in AT&T and John Wiley & Sons, as well as the lower

court decisions applying them. The district court’s postponement allows what those

decisions forbid: “a compulsory submission to arbitration [prior to a] judicial

determination that the collective bargaining agreement does in fact create such a duty.”

John Wiley & Sons, 376 U.S. at 547. The possibility that the district court might revisit

the arbitrability question at the conclusion of the arbitration proceedings is not an

adequate substitute for a pre-arbitration ruling. Conoco is entitled to a ruling on

had not been addressed by a court before the arbitration proceeded. The Second Circuit
rejected the union’s argument that the arbitration award was invalid, stating that it saw
“no reason why arbitrability must be decided by a court before an arbitration award can be
made.” NABET, 140 F.3d at 462. The Second Circuit observed that “[i]f the party
opposing arbitration desires that order of proceedings, it can ask a court to enjoin
arbitration on the ground that the underlying dispute is not arbitrable.” Id. Moreover, if
the objecting party did not seek to enjoin the arbitration, it could raise the arbitrability
question in the judicial proceeding seeking a confirmation of the arbitration award. See
id.
In our view, NABET is distinguishable from this case. There, neither party
requested a determination of arbitrability before the arbitration commenced. The Second
Circuit was careful to observe that the party objecting to the proceeding could have done
so by seeking an injunction. Here, Conoco requested the district court to determine
arbitrability before ordering arbitration, and the court refused to do so. Thus, NABET
does not support the district court’s decision to postpone a dispositive ruling.

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arbitrability before it is compelled to submit to arbitration. AT&T, 475 U.S. at 648-49;

John Wiley & Sons, 376 U.S. at 547.

III. CONCLUSION

We VACATE the district court’s decision postponing a dispositive ruling on the

arbitrability of the plaintiff union’s grievances, and we REMAND the case to the district

court for proceedings consistent with this opinion. On remand, the district court should

determine whether, and to what extent, the subject grievances are arbitrable. Only after a

determination of arbitrability may it order the parties to submit to arbitration.

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