In the Matter of Arbitration Between:)
Transportation-Communications )
International Union -- BRAC )
Union Pacific Railroad Company.
Pursuant to Article I, Section 11
of the New York Dock Conditions
Imposed by the Interstate Commerce
Commission in Finance Docket No.
30,000
and
Before Arbitration Committee
Members:
Richard D. Meredith
General Director -- Labor Relations
William R. Miller
Lamont E. Stallworth
Labor Arbitrator
Hearing Held:
ISSUE IN DISPUTE:
Case No. 4
Carrier Member
Employe
Organization
Member
Neutral Member
Chicago, Illinois
August 18, 1988
The Parties have submitted the following issue to the Committee:
1. Did the following employees fail to timely file for New
York Dock benefits?
Cases: L. A. Avery
M. A. Rogers-Dopheide
R. T. Ford
J. 0. Kjosa
G. D. Points
M. F. Mull
SACRGROUND:
This case addresses whether certain employees filed for New
York Dock benefits so late that they are no longer entitled to
those benefits. In September, 1982 the Interstate Commerce
Commission (I.C.C.) approved the merger and consolidation of the
Missouri Pacific Railroad Company (MP), the Western Pacific
Railroad Company (WP) and the Union Pacific Railroad Company
(UP). As a condition of that merger the I.C.C. imposed a set of
labor protective conditions upon the railroads involved to afford
some protection to the employees affected by the merger. This
protection, known as the New York Dock Conditions, offers certain
benefits and guarantees to employees who are affected by mergerrelated transactions.
On May 1, 1986, the Carrier announced a company-wide force
reduction. On this date the Carrier offered employees certain
benefits under a voluntary force reduction program. In the same
announcement the Carrier also described the terms of an
involuntary force reduction program, which it said it would put
into effect if it did not obtain enough volunteers for the
voluntary program.
In June, 1987, in another case before an Arbitration
Committee between the same Parties, the Committee decided that
the force reduction was related to the merger, at least as it
affected the claimant, P. J. Kelly, who worked in the Accounting
Department. Therefore the committee determined that the claimant
was eligible for benefits under the New York Dock Conditions,
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which are more generous than the benefits and protection offered
by the Carrier under its force reduction programs.
Most if not all of the Claimants in the instant case were
affected by force reductions which occurred prior to the force
reduction which affected Mr. Kelley. Most of them applied for
benefits shortly after the Kelley decision was rendered; two
applied for benefits approximately five months before that
decision was rendered. (See chart, p. 11 of Carrier's
Submission).
The Carrier denied the claims on several grounds, e.g. that
even though Mr. Kelley may have been affected by a merger-related
transaction, they were not. In each of the cases before us, the
Carrier also denied the claims on the basis that the Claimants
had not filed in a timely fashion.
For purposes of this case the Parties have narrowed the
issue to the timeliness of the claims. Therefore the only
question before this Committee is" whether the doctrine of laches
dictates that the Claimants have waived their rights to the
protective benefits of the New York Dock Conditions".
EMPLOYEE'S ORGANIZATION'S POSITION:
The Employee Organization contends that the claims involved
in this dispute should not be denied on the basis that they were
not filed in a timely fashion. The Employee Organization argues
first that there is no dispute that the New York Dock Conditions
contain no time limit for filing claims. According to the
Organization, this issue is so well-settled that the issue has
become a foregone conclusion, an accepted fact.
The Organization also asserts that the doctrine of laches
does not apply to this case. The organization suggests that
standard time limit provisions do not apply to disputes arising
under employee protective agreements, which are particularly
attuned to the rights of employees.
Even if the doctrine of laches does apply to these claims,
the Organization insists that it does not apply in this case to
bar the claims. According to the Organization, the doctrine of
laches encompasses more than the mere passage of time. In
spirit of equity which governs the application of laches,
Organization contends that it does not apply because there
been no lack of due diligence on the part of the Claimants,
because the Carrier has not been harmed by the delays.
According to the organization, the Carrier agreed to hold
the time limits on similar claims in abeyance until the Kelley
decision was rendered. According to the Organization, it has been
clearly established in this record, as well as other records
before this Committee, that the Carrier told all of the Claimants
initially that they were not entitled to the protective
provisions of New York Dock. The Claimants accepted the
Carrier's contention until the Kelley decision was issued. The
organization argues that because the Carrier led the Claimants
astray in terms of defining their rights, the Carrier is estopped
from interposing laches as a bar to the claim.
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and
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The organization also urges the Committee to consider the
Claimants' situation in relation to the pendancy and findings of
the Kelley, case. According to the Organiztion, the Carrier's
agreement to hold the disputes of similarly-situated employees in
abeyance pending the outcome of the Kelley case delayed the
filing of the written claims.
In addition, the Organization contends that the Carrier has
not been prejudiced by the delay. The claims represent no
surprise for the Carrier; according to the Organization they
represent the culmination of an ongoing dispute and most of the
delay is the Carrier's own fault for refusing to pay benefits
earlier. The Claimants, not the Carrier have suffered more from
the delay, the Organization contends.
For all of the above reasons the organization argues that
the claims should not be denied on the grounds of laches.
The Carrier contends that these claims should be denied on
the basis of laches for a number of reasons. As a preliminary
matter the Carrier contends that although there are no precise
time limits set forth in the New York Dock Conditions, there is
inherent in the agreement an obligation to file a claim in a
timely manner. The Carrier cites several arbitration opinions to
support this proposition, including one which states that even in
the absence of contractual or statutory time limits, the failure
of a party to process a claim. within a reasonable time must be
construed as an abandonment of the claim.
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The Carrier also contends that all of the following
requirements for imposing laches to bar a claim have been
satisfied in this case. First, the Carrier acted in such a way
to trigger an obligation on the part of Claimants to act or
exercise their rights. Second, the Claimants delayed in filing
their claims, long after they were clearly aware of the Carrier's
action. Third, the Carrier had no notice that the Claimants
would assert their rights until they filed their claims. Fourth,
the Carrier asserts that it was prejudiced by the Claimants'
failure to assert their rights. In particular the Carrier claims
that the Claimants' delays made it impossible to mitigate the
Carrier's liability for protective benefits, as the New York Dock
Conditions require
.
At the arbitration hearing the Carrier specifically pointed
out the difficulty of recreating seniority rosters now for
employees affected several years ago. These rosters would need
to be recreated in order to determine the
highest position
each
employee should have been offered in order to mitigate the
damages of the Carrier in offering protective benefits.
The Carrier also contends that a "reasonable" period of time
for filing a claim in the
instant case
should be relatively
short, because the Claimants had immediate and definitive
knowledge of their displacements as soon as they occurred.
According to the Carrier, any delay beyond the date of the
alleged displacement represents pure procrastination on the part
of the Claimants.
Therefore the Carrier argues that an appropriate
"reasonable" time frame within which to file claims for
displacement allowances is ninety (90) days. Therefore the
Carrier urges that all of the instant claims in this case should
be denied.
OPINION
The Parties submitted the following issue to the Arbitrator:
1. Did the following employees fail to timely file for
M. A. Rogers-Dopheide
R. T. Ford
G. D. Points
M. F. Mull
After considering the evidence and arguments presented by the
Parties the Arbitrator concludes that the Claimants did not fail
to timely file for their New York Dock benefits. The
Arbitrator's conclusions, findings and reasoning follow.
The Carrier concedes, as it must, that there is no precise
period for filing claims which is stated in the New York Dock
Conditions. However, the Carrier, after examining other parts of
the Conditions, contends that a period of ninety (90) days after
the initial displacement is a sufficient period in which to file.
Claims filed after that period should be barred by laches,
according to the Carrier.
This Committee concurs that laches may apply to claims filed
under the New York Dock Conditions or other labor protective
agreements. in the railroad industry, as another Committee wrote
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in Gerald Thomas and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and
Union Pacific Railroad Company, (Stallworth Neutral Member 1988).
The Carrier in this case has asked the Committee to establish a
precise filing period after which laches takes effect. To
establish one period for an entire group of cases would violate
the spirit of laches. The Committee point out that laches is an
equitable doctrine which depends to a large extent upon the
circumstances of a particular case. Furthermore, there is no
need for the Committee to establish a standard filing period,
because the agreed-upon issue asks only whether these individual
claimants filed in a timely manner. Therefore the Committee
declines to set a precise filing period.
In deciding the individual cases at issue here, the
Committee notes first of all that the employees were grouped
together for the purposes of this claim actually hold somewhat
distinct positions. All but one of the employees was involved in
a transaction that occurred before the transaction which formed
the basis of the Kelley claim. It is a bit difficult to see how
these employees could have been waiting for the resolution of the
Kelley claim, when their own situations arose as much as three
years before the circumstances giving rise to the Kelley claim.
Nevertheless, the organization has argued that the
transactions were similar, that the same type of non-agreement
employees were involved, and most important, that the Parties had
an ongoing dispute about whether non-agreement employees were
entitled to New York Dock benefits. The Carrier has not refuted
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this assertion. Therefore the Carrier cannot reasonably argue
that the claimants should have known about their claims as soon
as they were displaced, or with the first paycheck thereafter.
Furthermore, in a sense the Carrier's failure to grant
benefits to the non-agreement employees can be viewed as a
continuing violation. Under the applicable New York Dock
agreement an affected employee generally is entitled to six
years' protection, including six years' monetary benefits if
dismissed or displaced to a job which pays less than the
claimant's original job. For every monthly payment missed, the
claimants were injured. Where there is a continuing violation it
is not uncommon to hold that a reasonable filing period does not
begin only with the first missed payment.
Finally, the Committee notes that the Carrier has not
pointed to a single case in which laches has been applied to
block New York Dock claims, except perhaps where the Parties had
a well-established past practice establishing a certain time
limit. Furthermore, given the particular circumstances of this
case, the Committee holds that the application of laches is not
appropriate.
Notwithstanding this ruling, the Committee concludes that it
would greatly serve to ensure and preserve the rights of
employees if they were to file their claims in a more timely
fashion, notwithstanding the filing of a Kelley type test claim.
After all, in order for the mechanism of the grievance and
arbitration process to operate, a claim must be filed. Several
of the claims here arose long before Kelley. Perhaps any of them
could have served as a Kelley-type test claim, and resolved these
issues at an earlier date.
Nevertheless, based upon the circumstances of this case, the
claims will not be denied on the basis of laches.
AWARD
The claims will not be denied on the basis of laches.
Lamont E. Stallworth
Neutral Member
Richard D. Meredith
Carrier Member
Signed this~f'~~.y of November, 1988.
City of Chicago
County of Cook
State of Illinoi
William R. Miller
Employee organization Member