Non-frivolous Argument

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, et al. v. Union Pacific Railroad Company

Case No.: 17-1563

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and RIPPLE and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Non-frivolous Argument

The Union argues in the alternative that MAPS must be a change in policy rather than an application of existing contractual authority because it conflicts with the terms of a separate agreement—Article 18 of the Southern Pacific Western Lines Agreement.

MAPS imposes a “three-strike” policy that counts prior license revocations as strikes. The Union argues that since MAPS allows the Railroad to escalate punishment based on past license revocations, then license revocations must be “information concerning discipline.” Further, since nothing in MAPS distinguishes between revocations more or less than five years old, it contends that MAPS and Article 18 cannot coexist. It concludes that MAPS implements a change in disciplinary policy, not just an interpretation or application of an existing policy, and thus the dispute over its implementation is major.

Again, the Railroad has a non-frivolous argument for the compatibility of the two policies. This in turn (if accepted by an arbitrator) would mean that MAPS has not changed the prior rules. In the Railroad’s view, license revocations fall within Article 18’s exception for violations of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) regulations.

Union Pacific must do very little to show that this dispute is minor. It has passed that low bar and shown that the proper forum for further proceedings under the RLA system is arbitration. Observing that the playing field is tilted heavily in favor of arbitration, the district court agreed with the Railroad that the dispute is minor, and it accordingly dismissed the lawsuit in favor of arbitration. Although the Union has made a number of good points, we conclude that there is at least a non-frivolous argument that interpretation of the agreement between the parties, not change, is at stake. We therefore affirm the district court’s decision dismissing the suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.