August Paul ROSSI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES, INC., Defendant-Appellee

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit1974-11-27No. No. 73-1458

507 F.2d 404

Summary · law.co

Holding. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment, holding that arbitration awards under the Railway Labor Act are not subject to judicial review of their merits so long as the award is grounded in the applicable collective bargaining agreement, including both express terms and established industry customs.

Rossi, a flight engineer at TWA, was dismissed from the airline's First Officer Training Program due to unsatisfactory progress and subsequently discharged from his position. An arbitration board established under the Railway Labor Act, called the Pilots' System Board of Adjustment, upheld his dismissal. Rossi filed suit in district court seeking reinstatement, arguing that failure in a training program for promotion had no reasonable connection to his ability to work as a flight engineer, but the district court declined to review the arbitration award and entered summary judgment in TWA's favor.

Courts have limited authority to scrutinize arbitration awards issued under the Railway Labor Act framework. An arbitration award is final and binding if it rests on the applicable collective bargaining agreement, whether that agreement is expressed in written terms or derives from established industry customs and practices. The arbitrator need not explain its reasoning in detail, and courts cannot second-guess the arbitrator's judgment about factual matters within its domain. Here, the arbitration board decided the case on its merits rather than on procedural grounds, and nothing in the record suggests it departed from the collective bargaining agreement or acted with fraud or corruption.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Standard of judicial review for Railway Labor Act arbitration awards
Whether arbitrators must justify their decisions in writing
Scope of arbitrator authority to apply industry custom and practice
Sufficiency of evidence to dispute an arbitration board's award

Procedural posture

Rossi appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of TWA following denial of his reinstatement claim after an arbitration board upheld his dismissal from training and discharge from employment.

Authorities cited

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Opinion · public domain

majority opinion

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Rossi, a flight engineer employed by TWA, enrolled in the company’s First Officer Training Program. Because his progress in the program was unsatisfactory, he was dismissed from the program and discharged as flight engineer. The Pilots’ System Board of Adjustment, an arbitration board established by the collective bargaining agreement pursuant to the mandate of the Railroad Labor Act as applied to air carriers, 45 U.S.C. § 184, sustained his dismissal.

Rossi sought reinstatement in district court, claiming that failure to complete the training program bore no rational relationship to his ability to continue serving as flight engineer. The court refused to review the Board’s award and granted TWA summary judgment. Ros-si appeals. We affirm.

Awards of the National Railroad Adjustment Board (NRAB) enjoy the same finality as awards of arbitration panels. Gunther v. San Diego & A.E.R. Co., 382 U.S. 257, 263, 86 S.Ct. 368, 15 L.Ed.2d 308 (1965); Barrett v. Manufacturers R. Co., 453 F.2d 1305, 1307 (8th Cir. 1972). Therefore, whether awards of airline adjustment boards established pursuant to 45 U.S.C. § 184 should be treated like those of private arbitration boards rather than like those of the NRAB is irrelevant in the context of this dispute. Courts will not review the merits of arbitration awards so long as the award is based properly on the applicable collective bargaining agreement. United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 596-597, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960). An arbitrator is not confined to the express terms of the contract, however. Where the contract is not explicit, he may apply the “common law of the shop.” Anaconda Co. v. Great Falls Mill & Smeltermen’s Union No. 16, 402 F.2d 749, 752 (9th Cir. 1968).

When the Pilots’ Adjustment Board decided that Rossi’s discharge was justified, it decided his case on its merits, not on a procedural technicality. Therefore, so long as that decision was based on TWA’s collective bargaining agreement, it is not subject to our review Rossi argues that the Board had no reasonable basis to decide that his dismissal as flight engineer was justified simply because he failed to achieve promotion to first officer. The arbitration board, drawn from the industry, was better able to make that determination than is this court. The Board may have found that the company’s policy of dismissing employees who failed in programs leading to promotion was so well-known and accepted by both union and management as to be part of the “common law” of the TWA agreement. In any event, we cannot require an arbitration board to spell out for our benefit the logical process by which it makes its decision. Enterprise Wheel, 363 U.S. at 598, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424. We find no indication in the record that the Board ignored the terms of the collective bargaining agreement — as derived both from its express provisions and from the customary practices of the industry — and dispensed its “own brand of industrial justice.” Id. at 597, 80 S. Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424.

The court correctly granted summary judgment. Following TWA’s motion, supported by affidavits, Rossi failed to support by affidavits any factual allegation necessitating a trial. His affidavit alleging fraud and corruption by the Board in arriving at its decision contained only inadmissible hearsay and was properly disregarded by the trial court. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e).

Affirmed.

. See Devita v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 494 F.2d 347, 348 (9th Cir. 1974) ; Holly Sugar Corp. v. Distillery, Rectifying, Wine & Allied Workers Int’l Union, AFL-CIO, 412 F.2d 899, 903 (9th Cir. 1969) ; San Francisco-Oakland Newspaper Guild v. Tribune Publishing Co., 407 F.2d 1327 (9th Cir. 1969) ; Anaconda Co. v. Great Falls Mill & Smeltermen’s Union No. 16, 402 F.2d 749, 752 (9th Cir. 1968).

. The Railway Labor Act provides three statutory bases for judicial reversal of NRAB arbitration awards, none of which permits reexamination of the merits: failure to comply with the Act, lack of jurisdiction, and fraud or corruption by a member of the Board. 45 U.S.C. § 153 (First) (p), (q).