Eastern Associated Coal Corp. v. Massey ( 2004 )


Menu:
  •                           PUBLISHED
    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
    EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL                
    CORPORATION,
    Plaintiff-Appellee,
    v.
    GARY D. MASSEY,
    Defendant-Appellant.              No. 03-1991
    UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA,
    Amicus Curiae supporting
    Appellant.
    
    EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL                
    CORPORATION,
    Plaintiff-Appellant,
    v.
    GARY D. MASSEY,
    Defendant-Appellee.              No. 03-2012
    UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA,
    Amicus Curiae supporting
    Appellee.
    
    Appeals from the United States District Court
    for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Charleston.
    Joseph Robert Goodwin, District Judge.
    (CA-03-309)
    Argued: May 7, 2004
    Decided: July 2, 2004
    2               EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL v. MASSEY
    Before WILKINSON, LUTTIG, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.
    Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded by published opin-
    ion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Luttig and
    Judge Shedd joined.
    COUNSEL
    ARGUED: Roger Daniel Forman, FORMAN & HUBER, L.C.,
    Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant/Cross-appellee Gary D.
    Massey. Charles David Morrison, STEPTOE & JOHNSON, Clarks-
    burg, West Virginia, for Appellee/Cross-appellant Eastern Associated
    Coal Corporation. ON BRIEF: Rodney L. Bean, Jill O. Florio,
    STEPTOE & JOHNSON, Clarksburg, West Virginia, for
    Appellee/Cross-appellant Eastern Associated Coal Corporation. Brad-
    ley J. Pyles, CRANDALL, PYLES, HAVILAND & TURNER,
    Logan, West Virginia, for Amicus Curiae United Mine Workers of
    America.
    OPINION
    WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:
    Appellant Gary D. Massey filed a complaint in West Virginia state
    court against his employer, appellee Eastern Associated Coal Corpo-
    ration, after Eastern terminated him in April 2001. Massey alleged
    workers’ compensation discrimination in violation of the West Vir-
    ginia Workers’ Compensation Act, see W. Va. Code §§ 23-5A-1 and
    23-4-9 (2002), and disability discrimination in violation of the West
    Virginia Human Rights Act, see 
    id. § 5-11-9(1)
    ("WVHRA"). Eastern
    in turn brought suit in federal court, arguing that the collective bar-
    gaining agreement ("CBA") that governed Massey’s employment —
    the National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreement (the "Wage Agree-
    ment") — required him to arbitrate both state law claims. The district
    court ruled that the Wage Agreement compelled Massey to arbitrate
    EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL v. MASSEY                    3
    his workers’ compensation discrimination claims, but that it did not
    waive his right to sue Eastern for violating the WVHRA. Because we
    find no clear and unmistakable waiver in the Wage Agreement of
    Massey’s right to bring either statutory claim against Eastern in a
    judicial forum, we affirm in part and reverse in part. See Wright v.
    Universal Maritime Serv. Corp., 
    525 U.S. 70
    , 80 (1998).
    I.
    Massey worked as an electrician in a coal mine operated by Eastern
    in Boone County, West Virginia. In January 2000, Massey was
    injured while on the job, and he subsequently applied for and received
    workers’ compensation benefits, including vocational rehabilitation
    benefits. On April 18, 2001, however, Eastern discharged Massey on
    the ground that his physical condition prevented him from working
    his job at the mine.
    Massey filed suit against Eastern in the Circuit Court of Boone
    County, West Virginia in January 2003. He claimed that he was dis-
    charged on account of his receipt of workers’ compensation benefits,
    including rehabilitation benefits, constituting workers’ compensation
    discrimination and related violations under the West Virginia Work-
    ers’ Compensation Act. See W. Va. Code §§ 23-5A-1 and 23-4-9.
    Massey further alleged that Eastern discriminated against him on
    account of his handicap, constituting disability discrimination under
    the WVHRA. See 
    id. § 5-11-9(1)
    .
    In response, Eastern brought suit in federal court pursuant to § 301
    of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185 (2000), and
    the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 2 (2000), seeking to compel
    Massey to arbitrate his pending state law claims. As a member of the
    United Mine Workers of America ("UMWA"), Massey’s employment
    with Eastern was governed by the Wage Agreement. Eastern asserted
    that the Wage Agreement precluded Massey from litigating his claims
    in a judicial forum, and instead committed them to arbitration.
    The Wage Agreement establishes a grievance process for resolving
    disputes between Eastern and the UMWA or its members. In Article
    XXIII(c), the Wage Agreement provides that "disputes arising under
    this Agreement shall be resolved" by following three preliminary
    4                EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL v. MASSEY
    steps involving just the employee, the UMWA, and Eastern. Then, "in
    cases where the [UMWA’s] district representative and the representa-
    tive of [Eastern] fail to reach agreement, the matter shall . . . be
    referred to the appropriate district arbitrator who shall decide the case
    without delay." Furthermore, Article XXVII states in relevant part
    that "all disputes and claims which are not settled by agreement shall
    be settled by" the grievance process in Article XXIII, and that "the
    purpose of this provision [is] to provide for the settlement of all such
    disputes and claims through the machinery in this contract . . . without
    recourse to the courts."
    The Wage Agreement also includes two substantive provisions that
    are relevant to the arbitrability of Massey’s claims. First, Article III(l)
    is pertinent to Massey’s workers’ compensation discrimination
    claims:
    Each employer who is a party to this Agreement will pro-
    vide the protection and coverage of the benefits under work-
    ers’ compensation and occupational disease laws, whether
    compulsory or elective, existing in the states in which the
    respective Employees are employed. Refusal of any
    Employer to carry out this directive shall be deemed a viola-
    tion of this Agreement.
    Moreover, a non-discrimination provision in Article XXV is relevant
    for considering the arbitrability of Massey’s WVHRA claims:
    Neither the Employer nor the Union shall discriminate
    against any Employee or with regard to the terms or avail-
    ability of classified employment on the basis of race, creed,
    national origin, sex, age, political activity, whether intra-
    Union or otherwise. In addition, the Employer and Union
    agree that they will adhere to applicable provisions of the
    Vietnam Era Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974, the
    Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans With Dis-
    abilities Act.
    Asserting that these clauses waived Massey’s right to litigate his
    state law claims, Eastern filed a motion to compel arbitration and to
    enjoin Massey from prosecuting his causes of action in state court.
    EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL v. MASSEY                      5
    For his part, Massey filed a motion to dismiss Eastern’s federal law-
    suit.
    The district court was persuaded that Massey was required by the
    Wage Agreement to arbitrate his claims under the West Virginia
    Workers’ Compensation Act. It therefore enjoined Massey from pur-
    suing these claims further in state court and ordered him to submit
    them to the Wage Agreement’s grievance process. See also Pine
    Ridge Coal Co. v. Loftis, 
    271 F. Supp. 2d 905
    , 909 (S.D. W. Va.
    2003) (reaching the same conclusion when interpreting the Wage
    Agreement in a lawsuit brought by another union employee under the
    same West Virginia anti-discrimination provision). However, the dis-
    trict court held that the Wage Agreement did not prevent Massey
    from bringing his WVHRA claim in state court, and it therefore dis-
    missed Eastern’s complaint as it related to that count. Both parties
    appeal the district court’s judgment, and the UMWA filed an amicus
    brief supporting Massey’s position in the case.1
    II.
    We have consistently held that a union-negotiated CBA may waive
    an employee’s statutory right to litigate his employment discrimina-
    tion claims in a judicial forum. See, e.g., Safrit v. Cone Mills Corp.,
    
    248 F.3d 306
    , 308 (4th Cir. 2001). However, the Supreme Court made
    clear in Wright v. Universal Maritime Serv. Corp., 
    525 U.S. 70
    , 80
    (1998), that any such waiver must be "clear and unmistakable." While
    a presumption in favor of arbitration normally governs the interpreta-
    tion of arbitration clauses in CBAs, this presumption is inapplicable
    in the context of statutory discrimination claims. 
    Id. at 77-79.
    Waivers
    of statutory claims in CBAs are subject to a stricter standard, because
    the right to a judicial forum is so important that it must "be protected
    against less-than-explicit union waiver." 
    Id. at 80.
    Thus, "in the col-
    lective bargaining context, the parties ‘must be particularly clear’
    about their intent to arbitrate statutory discrimination claims." Carson
    1
    The district court also rejected Massey’s contention that it should
    abstain from considering Eastern’s federal lawsuit in light of Massey’s
    ongoing state proceedings and the ongoing state litigation of another for-
    mer employee against Eastern. We find no error on this point.
    6                EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL v. MASSEY
    v. Giant Food, Inc., 
    175 F.3d 325
    , 331 (4th Cir. 1999) (quoting Uni-
    versal 
    Maritime, 525 U.S. at 79
    ).
    In Carson, we outlined two ways in which a waiver in a CBA can
    meet the clear and unmistakable standard from Universal Maritime.
    See 
    id. at 331-32.
    First, parties can include in a CBA an "explicit arbi-
    tration clause," which is a self-contained, "clear and unmistakable
    provision under which the employees agree to submit to arbitration all
    [statutory discrimination claims] arising out of their employment." 
    Id. at 331.
    Second, in cases where the arbitration clause is not as specific
    and instead refers broadly to "all disputes" or "all disputes under this
    agreement," a CBA may meet the clear and unmistakable requirement
    by explicitly incorporating the statutory anti-discrimination require-
    ments elsewhere in the contract. 
    Id. at 332.
    Where such a separate
    provision "makes it unmistakably clear that the discrimination statutes
    at issue are part of the agreement," we have said that a general arbitra-
    tion clause would be sufficient to satisfy the strictures of Universal
    Maritime. 
    Id. While it
    is thus possible to meet the clear and unmistakable waiver
    standard of Universal Maritime, it is not easy. In Carson, the arbitra-
    tion clauses provided generally for arbitration of any disputes regard-
    ing the meaning of the CBAs. 
    See 175 F.3d at 328
    , 332. While the
    various CBAs contained contractual anti-discrimination clauses, none
    of them specifically incorporated any anti-discrimination statutes. See
    
    id. at 327-28,
    332. Likewise in Brown v. ABF Freight Sys., Inc., 
    183 F.3d 319
    , 320 (4th Cir. 1999), the arbitration clause simply referred
    to "all grievances or questions of interpretation arising under this . . .
    Agreement." And although the CBA had a fairly elaborate contractual
    anti-discrimination provision (it parroted in part the language of fed-
    eral statutes, it stated that the parties would not "engage in any other
    discriminatory acts prohibited by law," and it specified that it pro-
    tected employees who qualify as disabled under the Americans with
    Disabilities Act), this clause also failed to specifically incorporate any
    anti-discrimination statutes into the CBA. 
    Id. at 322-23.
    In both cases,
    we held that the CBAs fell short of meeting the clear and unmistak-
    able standard. See 
    Carson, 175 F.3d at 332
    ; 
    Brown, 183 F.3d at 323
    .
    As we observed in Carson, "broad, general language is not sufficient
    to meet the level of clarity required to effect a waiver in a 
    CBA." 175 F.3d at 331
    .
    EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL v. MASSEY                     7
    In Safrit, we did find that a CBA met the requisite level of clarity
    for waiving an employee’s right to litigate her Title VII discrimina-
    tion claim. 
    See 248 F.3d at 308
    . But there, the CBA contained an
    explicit, self-contained arbitration clause for Title VII claims, declar-
    ing that the parties agreed to "abide by all the requirements of Title
    VII" and, in the same section, that "unresolved grievances arising
    under this Section are the proper subjects for arbitration." 
    Id. Simply put,
    we have required explicit, unambiguous language to satisfy the
    standard laid out in Universal Maritime.
    III.
    It is within this framework that we consider whether Massey was
    compelled by the Wage Agreement to arbitrate his statutory claims.
    Eastern makes no claim that the Wage Agreement contains an explicit
    arbitration clause that would satisfy the first approach in Carson.
    Article XXIII(c) simply provides that "disputes arising under this
    Agreement shall," after three steps involving the employer, the
    employee, and the union, be submitted to an arbitrator. And Article
    XXVII only directs that "all disputes and claims which are not settled
    by agreement" shall be resolved through arbitration. Thus Eastern
    cannot rest on an explicit arbitration clause in seeking to satisfy the
    Universal Maritime standard.
    Nonetheless, the district court found (and Massey concedes) that
    Articles XXIII(c) and XXVII are sufficient to constitute a general
    arbitration clause. The court then held that Article III(l) of the Wage
    Agreement explicitly incorporates the West Virginia Workers’ Com-
    pensation Act, thus constituting a clear and unmistakable waiver of
    Massey’s workers’ compensation discrimination claims under the sec-
    ond approach outlined in Carson. As for Massey’s WVHRA claim,
    the district court ruled that there is no explicit incorporation of the
    statute in Article XXV of the Wage Agreement, and consequently that
    Massey could pursue his WVHRA claim in state court. We consider
    each ruling in turn.
    A.
    First, Massey argues that the district court erred in ruling that his
    workers’ compensation discrimination claims must be arbitrated
    8                EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL v. MASSEY
    under the Wage Agreement. As noted above, Article III(l) directs that
    every "employer who is a party to this Agreement will provide the
    protection and coverage of the benefits under workers’ compensation
    . . . laws, whether compulsory or elective, existing in the states in
    which" covered employees are employed. And it further declares that
    an employer’s failure "to carry out this directive shall be deemed a
    violation of this Agreement." According to the district court, this Arti-
    cle makes clear that Eastern’s failure to comply with state workers’
    compensation laws results in a breach of the Wage Agreement. Thus,
    the court concluded, the West Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act
    is fully incorporated into the Wage Agreement, and Eastern’s alleged
    failure to comply with the anti-discrimination provisions in that Act
    could only be resolved through the grievance process.
    It is true that one could reasonably construe Article III(l), as the
    district court did, to incorporate into the Wage Agreement the anti-
    discrimination provision of the West Virginia Workers’ Compensa-
    tion Act. Article III(l) could be read to mean that Eastern is required
    to give Massey all of the "protection[s] . . . under workers’ compensa-
    tion . . . laws" in West Virginia, which would include the Act’s "pro-
    tection" against discrimination in the receipt of benefits. Under this
    construction, Massey would indeed be compelled to arbitrate his
    claims predicated on the Act’s anti-discrimination provision.
    Yet the UMWA advances another plausible reading of Article
    III(l). Article III(l) can be interpreted to require Eastern to "provide
    the protection . . . of the benefits under workers’ compensation . . .
    laws" in West Virginia. Under this construction, Article III(l) man-
    dates simply that signatory employers, such as Eastern, provide the
    proper amount of benefits to which their employees are entitled under
    state workers’ compensation laws. Indeed, the fact that Article III(l)
    contemplates that state workers’ compensation laws may be "compul-
    sory or elective" — and then makes clear that employers bound by the
    Wage Agreement must provide the relevant benefits — supports this
    interpretation. But this basic requirement on employers to provide
    benefits under state workers’ compensation laws is not the same as
    explicitly incorporating into the Wage Agreement the entire West
    Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act, along with its legal rights and
    remedies for (among other things) discrimination. See 
    Brown, 183 F.3d at 322
    (holding that for a waiver to explicitly incorporate an anti-
    EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL v. MASSEY                       9
    discrimination statute, "a simple agreement not to engage in acts vio-
    lative of that statute . . . will not suffice," because "the parties must
    make ‘unmistakably clear’ their intent to incorporate in their entirety
    the ‘discrimination statutes at issue’") (citations omitted).
    Our task here, of course, is not to decide which of these interpreta-
    tions is the correct one. The fact that there are at least two plausible
    and competing interpretations of Article III(l) is enough to demon-
    strate that the Article fails to provide a clear and unmistakable waiver.
    See 
    Carson, 175 F.3d at 332
    ("[C]lear and unmistakable does not
    mean general language that under ordinary principles of contract
    interpretation might very well be interpreted to require arbitration.").
    At bottom, Article III(l) requires that Eastern provide its employees
    with the "protection and coverage of the benefits" under state laws.
    This may be interpreted to include protection against discrimination
    in the receipt of benefits, but it does not do so clearly and unmistak-
    ably. See 
    Brown, 183 F.3d at 322
    . It is not nearly as explicit as the
    CBA in Safrit, in which the same section mandated compliance with
    Title VII and, further, expressly directed that "unresolved grievances"
    dealing with such claims "are the proper subjects for 
    arbitration." 248 F.3d at 308
    . Accordingly, Massey was not compelled by the Wage
    Agreement to arbitrate his workers’ compensation discrimination
    claims.2
    B.
    On its cross-appeal, Eastern argues that the district court erred in
    finding that Massey’s WVHRA claim is not committed to arbitration
    under Article XXV of the Wage Agreement. Yet if the Wage Agree-
    ment does not clearly and unmistakably waive Massey’s workers’
    compensation discrimination claims, it certainly does not do so for his
    2
    Massey advances a number of alternative arguments relating to the
    district court’s ruling that his worker’s compensation discrimination
    claims must be arbitrated. For instance, Massey asserts that he would be
    unable to vindicate all his statutory remedies in arbitration, and that the
    district court erred in rejecting Massey’s motion for reconsideration
    based on an affidavit submitted after the close of evidence. Because we
    find that Massey may pursue his workers’ compensation discrimination
    claim in a judicial forum, we need not address these contentions.
    10               EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL v. MASSEY
    WVHRA claim. The first sentence in Article XXV merely provides
    that "neither the Employer nor the Union shall discriminate against
    any Employee . . . on the basis of race, creed, national origin, sex,
    age, [or] political activity." As we have held, it is not enough for a
    contractual anti-discrimination clause to loosely approximate the lan-
    guage of anti-discrimination statutes. See 
    Brown, 183 F.3d at 322
    .
    Such statutory provisions must be explicitly incorporated into the
    CBA in order to constitute a valid waiver under Universal Maritime.
    
    Id. But Eastern
    places heavy reliance on the second sentence in Article
    XXV, which states that "the Employer and Union agree that they will
    adhere to applicable provisions of," among other statutes, the Ameri-
    cans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"). Eastern assumes that this clause
    is sufficiently clear and unmistakable to compel arbitration of all
    ADA claims. It then argues that, because the WVHRA is the state
    counterpart to the ADA and is interpreted in the same manner by
    West Virginia courts and administrative agencies, Article XXV’s
    incorporation of the ADA also constitutes a specific incorporation of
    the WVHRA.
    As an initial matter, it is not clear that West Virginia courts have
    interpreted the WVHRA as federal courts have construed the ADA.
    See Stone v. St. Joseph’s Hosp., 
    538 S.E.2d 389
    , 404 (W. Va. 2000)
    ("[W]e recognize that the [WVHRA], as created by our Legislature
    and as applied by our courts and administrative agencies, represents
    an independent approach to the law of disability discrimination that
    is not mechanically tied to federal disability discrimination jurispru-
    dence."); but see 
    id. at 408-10
    (Scott, J., concurring) (disputing the
    majority’s characterization of the relationship between the WVHRA
    and the ADA, asserting that "the pattern and practice of this Court
    have been to follow the federal courts’ interpretation of various statu-
    tory provisions" in discrimination cases).
    Regardless, if we entertain Eastern’s assumptions that the ADA is
    explicitly incorporated into the Wage Agreement in Article XXV, and
    further that the WVHRA is treated similarly to the ADA, this does not
    mean that there is a clear and unmistakable waiver of WVHRA
    claims. The standard enunciated in Universal Maritime makes clear
    that a valid waiver must explicitly incorporate the anti-discrimination
    EASTERN ASSOCIATED COAL v. MASSEY                    11
    statute at issue. See Universal 
    Maritime, 525 U.S. at 79
    -81; 
    Carson, 175 F.3d at 332
    . It is insufficient, then, for a waiver provision to
    incorporate one statute into a CBA by referring to another, indepen-
    dently created (though analogous) statute.
    Sensing the lack of textual support for its position, Eastern protests
    that we must not ignore the intent of the parties in Article XXV. It
    would make no sense, Eastern contends, to construe the parties as
    having decided to handle all ADA claims through the grievance pro-
    cess but to leave the state courts open to hear ADA-like claims under
    the WVHRA. This contention misses the point. Even if Eastern could
    offer more than speculation as to what the parties intended when
    agreeing to Article XXV, it is "the parties’ expressed intentions" that
    control our inquiry into whether there was a clear and unmistakable
    waiver. 
    Carson, 175 F.3d at 331
    (emphasis added). Here, the lan-
    guage unquestionably fails to provide such a clear and unmistakable
    waiver of Massey’s WVHRA claim. Massey was therefore entitled to
    pursue his disability discrimination claim in state court.
    IV.
    For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is
    affirmed in part and reversed in part. We remand with directions that
    Eastern’s suit be dismissed.
    AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART,
    AND REMANDED.
    

Document Info

Docket Number: 03-1991, 03-2012

Judges: Wilkinson, Luttig, Shedd

Filed Date: 7/2/2004

Precedential Status: Precedential

Modified Date: 10/19/2024