Case Information
*1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA )
UNITE HERE LOCAL 23, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. ) Civ. No. 15-cv-1165 (KBJ) )
I.L. CREATIONS OF MARYLAND INC., )
)
Defendant. )
)
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Defendant I.L. Creations of Maryland Inc. (“IL Creations”) is a food-service company that entered into a collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) with a labor union, Plaintiff Unite Here Local 23 (“Unite Here”), pertaining to the employment of some of IL Creations’s employees. In the fall of 2013, Unite Here filed a grievance pursuant to procedures outlined in the CBA, asserting that IL Creations was tasking non-union workers at its United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) location with work that is reserved for union members under the CBA. Thereafter, IL Creations and Unite Here engaged in arbitration as prescribed in the CBA, and the arbitrator ultimately and generally resolved the dispute in Unite Here’s favor. When IL Creations responded by expressly refusing to comply with the arbitrator’s ruling absent a court order, the instant action followed; Unite Here seeks to enforce the arbitrator’s judgment pursuant to Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (“LMRA”), 29 U.S.C. § 185. (Compl., ECF No. 1, ¶¶ 1–5.)
Before this Court at present is Unite Here’s motion to confirm the arbitration *2 award and also its request for an award of attorneys’ fees. (Pl.’s Mot. to Confirm Arbitration Award & for an Award of Attorneys’ Fees (“Pl.’s Mot.”), ECF No. 7; Pl.’s Mem. in Support of Pl.’s Mot (“Pl.’s Mem.”), ECF No. 7 -1.) IL Creations opposes the motion (Def.’s Opp’n to Pl.’s Mot. (“Def.’s Opp’n”), ECF No. 15), and has also filed a separate counterclaim (Def.’s Answers, Aff. Defenses & Countercl. (“Def.’s Countercl.”), ECF No. 10), asserting that the arbitrator’s award should be vacated on the grounds that the arbitrator lacked jurisdiction to resolve the dispute and that, in any event, the arbitrator’s decision is substantively flawed because it deviates impermissibly from the terms of the CBA. Because this Court finds that arbitration awards are entitled to extreme deference; that IL Creations has forfeited any challenge to this arbitrator’s jurisdiction to rule; and that IL Creations’s attack on the arbitrator’s decision comes nowhere near to overcoming the high barrier to judicial overrides of arbitrator decisions, Unite Here’s motion to enforce the arbitration award will be GRANTED and IL Creations’s counterclaim will be DISMISSED . In addition, as explained below, this Court concludes that Unite Here is entitled to recoup reasonable attorneys’ fees that this case forced it to incur. A separate order consistent with this Memorandum Opinion will follow.
I. BACKGROUND
The CBA at issue in the instant case establishes that Unite Here members must be the individuals who perform certain positions and duties at various IL Creations facilities. ( See Collective Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”), Ex. A to Pl.’s Mot., ECF No. 7-4, at 5, 8.) [1] Specifically, and as relevant here, the agreement states that “[IL *3 Creations] shall recognize [Unite Here] as the representative of all [IL Creations] employees . . . in the classifications listed in Exhibit B, or in classifications called by different names when performing similar duties” in various IL Creations facilities, including those in the District of Columbia. ( Id. at 5.) Exhibit B to the CBA lists sixteen different “job classifications” within the bargaining unit of represented employees, including Head Cook, Cook, Grill Cook, and Junior Cook. ( Id. at 32.) Unite Here and IL Creations also signed a Memorandum of Agreement that supplements the CBA—titled Appendix 7—that applies only to bargaining-unit employees at IL Creations’s USDA location and lists similar job-classification breakdowns as those listed in Exhibit B. ( See id. at 44 (listing, inter alia , “First Cook” and “Cook” positions).)
The CBA also establishes processes for grievances and arbitration. For example, the agreement lays out a two-step process for grieving “any dispute arising out of the expressed terms or conditions contained within th[e] [CBA]” and makes clear that this process must be followed at the outset. ( Id. at 21–22.) First, any grievance must be “submitted in writing to the General Manager within [ten] calendar days of its occurrence or of the date when the employee or the Union first became aware of the circumstances giving rise to the alleged grievance.” ( Id. at 22.) Next, if step one is insufficient to resolve the matter, the grievance has to be “submitted in writing to the District Manager . . . within [seven] calendar days after receipt of the [General Manager’s response].” ( Id. ) The CBA also directs that, if need be, the matter may subsequently be “referred by [Unite Here] for final decision and determination to an Court’s electronic filing system automatically a ssigns.
impartial arbitrator[,]” whose decision would “be final and binding on [IL Creations], [Unite Here], and [any employees] involved.” ( Id. ) Finally, these provisions direct that the arbitrator does not have “the ability or power to in any way modify, change, restrict, or extend any of the terms of [the CBA,]” and that “[f]ailure to file a grievance or to proceed to the next step within the prescribed time limits shall constitute a waiver of all rights to grieve and arbitrate such matters.” ( Id. at 22–23.)
The dispute that prompted the instant litigation began in November of 2013. ( See Compl. ¶ 11; Arbitrator’s Op. & Award, Ex. B to Pl.’s Mot. (“Award”), ECF No. 7-5, at 3.) It is undisputed that, at its USDA location, IL Creations assigned certain positions “to individuals . . . who were not members of the bargaining unit” (Def.’s Opp’n at 6; see also Pl.’s Mem. at 5), and that these positions all required performing some type of chef work ( see Def.’s Opp’n at 6 (listing the individuals’ position titles as “Asian Chef,” “Chinese Sous Chef,” “Salad Chef,” “Salad Sous Chef,” and “Sous Chef for the American Department”)). According to Unite Here, this meant non-bargaining- unit employees were “perform[ing] work reserved for Union-Represented employees”— i.e. , work similar to the duties of the positions listed in Exhibit B and Appendix 7 of the collective bargaining agreement—in violation of the agreement. (Compl. ¶ 11; see also Award at 3.) Unite Here initiated a grievance process that was unsuccessful ( see Award at 3), and the parties proceeded to arbitration ( see Compl. ¶ 12).
During the evidentiary hearing that the arbitrator held in July of 2014, both parties presented evidence and arguments in support of their positions . Unite Here reiterated its contention, supported by evidence, that IL Creations had violated the CBA by permitting non-bargaining-unit employees to perform certain jobs. ( See Award at 4– *5 6.) IL Creations contended, inter alia , that the individuals in the challenged positions were not, in fact, performing bargaining-unit work; that the present organizational structure was essential to proper performance of IL Creations’s food-service duties; and that, in any event, the current setup was not adversely affecting any union workers. ( See Def.’s Opp’n at 6; IL Creations’s Post-Hearing Brief, Ex. D to Pl.’s Reply, ECF No. 16-2, at 3.) Moreover, and significantly for present purposes, nothing in the post- hearing brief that IL Creations submitted or in the record before this Court indicates that IL Creations challenged the arbitrator’s power to render a decision on this dispute.
On July 10, 2015, the arbitrator rendered a decision that largely favored Unite Here. The arbitrator began by laying out the relevant provisions and position restrictions contained in the CBA ( see Award at 3, 8), and then evaluated each of the disputed positions in comparison to Exhibit B and Article 7’s job classifications and the qualities of the individuals actually working in the disputed positions ( id. at 9–12). Ultimately, the arbitrator found that IL Creations had violated the CBA with respect to four of the five disputed positions; that is, that the job descriptions of those positions demanded bargaining-unit work and should have been performed by bargaining-unit workers. ( See id. at 11–13; see also id. at 11 (noting that the qualities required to perform the positions “approximate[d] the requirements demanded of Head Cooks [and] Cooks”).) With respect to the fifth position, which was referred to as the “Asian Chef” position, the arbitrator did not entirely accept IL Creations’s contention that the job demanded skills “so unique and extraordinary” that it could be performed by non- bargaining-unit individuals consistent with the CBA, but concluded that the particular individual who held the position at the time of the dispute likely possessed a unique set *6 of skills that IL Creations could not afford to lose, and thus determined that that individual should be “grandfather[ed]” into— i.e., permitted to stay in—the position until the CBA’s termination date in January of 2016. ( Id. at 12.) Furthermore, to remedy the CBA violations, the arbitrator ordered that the four other positions be reclassified as “Head Cook” positions; posted as open within fifteen days; and filled within fifteen more days in accordance with the procedures set forth in the CBA. ( Id. at 13–14.)
Less than one week later, IL Creations informed Unite Here in writing that it did
not intend to comply with the arbitrator’s decision and award. (Email from Matthew
Yoo to Emilio Abate on July 16, 2015 (“Yoo Email”), Ex. C to Pl.’s Br., ECF No. 7-6,
at 2 (stating that IL Creations “do[es] not have to follow the decision until a court order
affirming the decision”). Consequently, Unite Here filed the instant lawsuit, invoking a
section of the LMRA that grants federal district courts statutory jurisdiction to enforce
labor-arbitration awards. (
See
Compl. ¶¶ 4–5);
see also United Bhd. of Carpenters &
Joiners of Am., AFL-CIO v. Operative Plasterers’ & Cement Masons’ Int’l Ass’n of the
U.S. & Can., AFL-CIO
,
II. LEGAL STANDARDS
The “paramount goal” of the LMRA is “the promotion of labor peace through the
collective efforts of labor and management.”
Titanium Metals Corp. v. NLRB
, 392 F.3d
439, 447 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). To this end,
few principles are as well established as the general federal policy preference for “the
peaceful resolution of labor disputes through arbitration”—a process that, when
properly used, helps “resolve industrial strife quickly and inexpensively.”
Office and
Prof’l Emps. Int’l Union, Local 2 v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth.
,
Consequently, when a court considers a motion to enforce an arbitration award
under the LMRA, judicial review is “very limited.”
Major League Baseball Players
*8
Ass’n v. Garvey
,
Parsing out the narrow set of circumstances in which a federal court may reject a
labor-arbitration award illustrates how much deference is required. One potential basis
for challenging the enforcement of an arbitration award is that the arbitrator lacked
“jurisdiction” over the particular dispute decided.
Nw. Airlines
,
Where arbitrability is not an issue and there are no allegations of fraud or
dishonesty on the part of the arbitrator, a court may reject an arbitration award “
only
if
the arbitrator strays from interpretation and application of the agreemen t and effectively
dispense[s] his own brand of industrial justice.”
Nat’l Postal Mail Handlers
, 589 F.3d
at 441 (alteration in original; emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted)
(quoting
Garvey
,
Occasionally, a party displeased with the arbitrator’s remedy, in contrast to his
reasoning, casts its objection as a claim that the breadth of the remedy selected evinces
an impermissible infidelity to the contract.
See, e.g.
,
Madison Hotel
,
III. ANALYSIS
Unite Here has received an arbitration award in its favor; yet, IL Creations has refused to comply with the arbitrator’s decision absent a court order. Moreover, IL Creations has asked this Court to countenance its audacity by vacating the award on the *11 grounds that the arbitrator had no jurisdiction to rule on the disputed issues in this case, and that the arbitrator “ignored the terms of the CBA[,]” thereby issuing an impermissible remedy. (Def.’s Countercl. at 8.) As explained below, IL Creations has waived its jurisdictional challenge, and its contention that the arbitrator ’s remedy transcends the bounds of the CBA is entirely unpersuasive. Additionally, and even more fundamentally, under the well-established legal standards that are applicable in this case, once a party elects to submit disputes to arbitration for final determination in lieu of proceeding in court, it also necessarily agrees to abide by the arbitrator’s decision—meaning that courts must generally refrain from interfering with the outcome and the losing party to a consented-to arbitration proceeding cannot just refuse to perform as the arbitrator directs. This is especially so where, as here, the losing party willingly participated in an arbitration process that the parties’ agreement clearly contemplated and the arbitrator’s jurisdiction to rule was not previously questioned . Thus, this Court easily concludes both that the arbitration award must be enforced, and that Unite Here is entitled to recover the reasonable attorneys’ fees that it incurred in litigating this matter.
A. This Court Must Defer To The Decision That The Arbitrator Made In This Case, Which Is Based On An Interpretation And Application Of The Parties’ CBA After An Arbitration Proceeding In Which The Defendant Fully Participated
As explained above, arbitration is an optional alternative to the resolution of a labor-related dispute in court, and if the parties elect to submit potential disputes to arbitration for final decision, they generally must abide by the result. That is, in essence, what Unite Here maintains in bringing this enforcement action and filing the motion to confirm, and this principle undermines IL Creations’s “ understanding” that it *12 “do[es] not have to follow the [arbitrator’s] decision until a court order affirming the decision.” (Yoo Email at 2.)
As applied here, the parties’ CBA provides that any “dispute[s] arising out of the
expressed terms or conditions” of the CBA that are unresolved through the two-step
grievance process may be referred “for final decision and determination to an impartial
arbitrator[,]” and records the parties’ agreement that any decision rendered in these
circumstances would be “final and binding” on all parties involved. (CBA at 21–22.)
The bargaining-unit-work dispute indisputably arises from the terms of the CBA, and
notwithstanding IL Creations’s protestations, there is also no question that the arbitrator
“constru[ed] or appl[ied]” the CBA in reaching his decision,
Nat’l Postal Mail
Handlers
,
First, with respect to arbitrability, IL Creations claims that it need not adhere to
the arbitrator’s decision due to the arbitrator’s lack of jurisdiction under the CBA to
rule on this dispute, because Unite Here waived its right to arbitrate. (
See
Def.’s Opp’n
*13
at 9–14 (basing this argument—somewhat contradictorily—on the assertions that Unite
Here failed to submit a written grievance in accordance with the CBA’s grievance
procedure, and that the grievance it submitted was untimely).) But IL Creations said
nothing
about this alleged procedural defect during the arbitration process, which is
fatal to its current lack-of-jurisdiction contention.
See Howard Univ.
,
IL Creations fares no better with respect to its arguments regarding the reach of
the arbitrator’s remedy, and in particular, its assertion that the award should be vacated
because the selected remedy “disregards the terms of the CBA.” (Def.’s Opp’n at 16.)
IL Creations first rails against the arbitrator’s requirement that it post four of the
disputed positions as available and fill them in accordance with the CBA’s
requirements, asserting that the arbitration award “includes a remedy that goes well
*14
beyond the confines of the alleged grievance.” (
Id.
at 14.) This contention is patently
flawed, first, because it is based on the assumption that an arbitrator’s remedy must be
limited to the confines of the initial grievance, an assumption that is not based in the
CBA and appears to have been plucked from thin air.
[2]
IL Creations also ignores the
fact that, if a CBA contemplates that an arbitrator will craft remedies for CBA
violations, courts are not free to disagree with an arbitrator’s “honest judgment”
regarding the proper remedy absent an agreed-upon limitation on that judgment.
Misco
,
Understanding that much resolves the point. As already noted, the arbitrator in
the instant case made explicit and repeated references to the CBA both in framing the
dispute and in explaining what IL Creations had to do to comply with the agreement
(
see, e.g.
, Award at 3, 11–14), and in so doing, sufficiently demonstrated that he was
construing and applying that contract in crafting the remedy. And no contractual
limitations upon that remedial authority are apparent—in particular, nothing in the CBA
*15
supports IL Creations’s belief that the remedy an arbitrator issues cannot deviate from
the scope of the initial grievance. Consequently, this Court has “no authority to
disagree” with the arbitrator’s honest judgment regarding this remedy’s propriety.
Misco
,
IL Creations’s alternative attack on the remedy is similarly unsuccessful. As far
as the Court can tell, IL Creations seems to think that the arbitrator believed Article 16
of the agreement, which deals with promotions and job openings, gave him his power to
order the remedy, although Article 16 does not expressly authorize the remedy the
arbitrator ordered. (
See
Def.’s Opp’n at 16–17.) But the arbitrator did not purport to
find remedial authority in Article 16; rather, the decision as a whole makes clear that
the arbitrator was simply reminding IL Creations of the fact that, when it posted the
new positions as ordered, it would have to abide by the terms of the agreement that
relate to the posting of new job vacancies, which appear in Article 16. (
See, e.g.
,
Award at 12 (“[IL Creations] must post the positions within [fifteen] days of receipt of
this [Award] and fill the positions in accord with Article 16 of the CBA.”). ) And,
again, it is key that IL Creations identifies no CBA provision that restricts the
arbitrator’s otherwise broad remedial powers such that ordering the positions to be
reclassified and filled as the arbitrator did constituted a violation of the agreement.
Thus, while this Court would be required to overlook even a serious error under the
applicable deferential standard,
see Nat’l Postal Mail Handlers
,
In sum, IL Creations has forfeited any objection to the arbitrator’s jurisdiction
and the arbitrator in this case “neither rendered a judgment based on external legal
sources, wholly without regard to the terms of the parties’ contract, nor made a finding
completely inexplicable and border[ing] on the irrational.”
OPCMIA, AFL-CIO v.
Pullman Shared Sys. Tech., Inc.
,
B. Unite Here Is Entitled To Attorneys’ Fees, And The Parties Are
Directed To Meet And Confer Regarding Reasonable Fees
Unite Here has requested that this Court award attorneys’ fees. To be sure, the
LMRA does not explicitly authorize an award of fees in these cases,
see Wash. Hosp.
Ctr.
,
This case clearly calls for the Court’s exercise of that inherent power. Upon
examination of the record and the parties’ arguments, the Court finds that IL Creations
had no basis for refusing to “to follow the decision until a court order af firming the
decision.” (Yoo Email at 2.) Moreover, if widespread, that attitude would completely
undermine the purposes of arbitration, as it did here, by forcing the winning party to
spend time, effort, and money seeking judicial enforcement of the arbitrator’s award.
When a party has no good reason to refuse to comply with an arbitrator’s award, it
cannot be permitted to “spin[] out the arbitral process unconscionably through the filing
of meritless suits and appeals.”
Dreis & Krump Mfg. Co. v. Int’l Ass’n of Machinists
and Aerospace Workers, Dist. No. 8
,
IV. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated in this opinion, Unite Here’s motion to confirm and enforce the arbitration award will be GRANTED , and IL Creations’s counterclaim will be DISMISSED . Additionally, as set forth in the accompanying order, judgment will be entered in Unite Here’s favor with respect to its complaint, and Unite Here is *18 entitled to reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred in this matter, which the parties will address pursuant to Local Rule 54.2(a). Ketanji Brown Jackson
DATE: December 11, 2015 KETANJI BROWN JACKSON United States District Judge
Notes
[1] Page-number citations to the documents the parties have filed refer to the page numbers that the
[2] IL Creations points to a paragraph in the CBA that addresses the requirements of a properly filed
grievance and provides that a grievance must contain “the remedy that is being sought [.]” (Def.’s
Opp’n at 14 (referencing CBA at 22).) But that requirement is not at all the same as manda ting that the
arbitrator’s remedy be identical to the relief described in the grievance ; indeed, it is “commonplace in
arbitration proceedings” that “the scope of the issues develop[s] informally during the course of the
parties’ presentations.”
Madison Hotel
,