NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD

Award Number 20654

THIRD DIVISION Docket Number SG-20536

Joseph A. Sickles, Referee

(Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen PARTIES TO DISPUTE:

(Kansas City Terminal Railway Company

STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee of the Brotherhood of
Railroad Signalmen on the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company:

On behalf of Mr. F. L. Carver for two (2) hours pay account Union Pacific track forces removing bond wires and feed wires in A 70 track circuit on June 15, 1972, while changing rail.

(Carrier's File: SG-5.72.22)

OPINION OF BOARD: Carrier notes, in its Submission to this Board, that
"...at no time during the progressing of this claim on the property has petitioner identified the rule or rules that were violated." Our review of the record confirms the above recitation.

In its Rebuttal Statement, Claimant minimizes the Carrier's assertion because Carrier did not raise that issue on the property.

This Board has held repeatedly that a claim is properly dismissed if the Claimant has failed to cite a rule while the matter is under consideration on the property. S 19973 and 18964. To be sure, certain Awards of this Board have commented upon individual Claimants' failures to respond to Carriers. admonitions (on the property) that no rule had been cited; but, we do not conclude that a Carrier is foreclosed from properly raising that issue in its Submission to this Board, even
To rule otherwise would tend to ignore basic concepts of jurisdiction and Petitioners' burdens.<

See, for example, Award 15835:

"The jurisdictional issue here involved recently has been considered by us in several Awards, involving similar circumstances. (Awards 13741, 14081, 14118 and 15700).

We find the following statement from our Award 13741 applicable in the instant dispute.

Award Number 20654 Page 2

Docket Number SG-20536

'When a respondent denies a general alle

gation that the agreement has been violated

for the given reason that it is not aware

of any rule which supports the alleged vio

lation, the movant, in the perfection of

its case on the property, is put to supply

ing specifics. It is too late to supply

the specifics, for the first time, in the

Submission to this Board - this because:

(1) it in effect raises new issues not the

subject of conference on the property; and

(2) it is the intent of the Act that issues

in a dispute, before this Board, shall have

been framed by the parties in conference

on the property.

Upon the record, as made on the property, we are unable to adjudicate the merits of the alleged violation. We will dismiss the Claim'."

On the property, Carrier consistently defended its actions on the ground that there had been no violation of the agreement. See Award 14772:

"Where, as here, when in response to the Claim Carrier reasons that there was no violation of the Rules, Petitioner has the burden of specifying the Rules it alleges were violated - in effect it must submit a bill of particulars. Petitioner herein failed to satisfy this burden. We must, therefore, dismiss th Claim."

FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds and holds:

That the parties waived oral hearing;

That the Carrier and the Employes involved in this dispute are respectively Carrier and Employes within the meaning of the Railway Labor Act, as approved June 21, 1934;

That this Division of the Adjustment Board has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein; and

That the claim be dismissed.

Award Number 20654 Page 3

Docket Number SG-20536

A W A R D

Claim dismissed.

NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD

By Order of Third Division

ATTEST: ~· ~( i
Executive Secretary

Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 21st day of March 1975.