Sokolowski v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority

12-1704-cv
Sokolowski v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A
SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY
FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN
CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE
EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION
“SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY
PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated Term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the
Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, at 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on
the 10th day of July, two thousand thirteen.
Present: AMALYA L. KEARSE,
ROBERT A. KATZMANN,
Circuit Judges,
JED S. RAKOFF,*
District Judge.
____________________________________________________________
EUGENE SOKOLOWSKI,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
-v- No. 12-1704-cv
METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, MTA
METRO-NORTH RAILROAD, MTA METRO-NORTH
COMMUTER RAILROAD,
Defendants-Appellees.**
___________________________________________________________
*
The Honorable Jed S. Rakoff, of the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York, sitting by designation.
**
The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the official caption as set forth above.
For Plaintiff-Appellant: BRIAN GARDNER, Sullivan Gardner, P.C., New York, NY
For Defendants-Appellees: CAROL SUE BARNETT (Sofia C. Hubscher, on the brief), for
Seth J. Cummins, General Counsel, Metro-North Commuter
Railroad Company, New York, NY
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of
New York (Koeltl, J.).
ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,
AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
Plaintiff-Appellant Eugene Sokolowski appeals from a March 29, 2012, Judgment of the
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Koeltl, J.), which dismissed
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction Sokolowski’s appeal from a special adjustment board
decision made pursuant to the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. We assume the
parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history of the case.
Sokolowski contends that the district court had jurisdiction because the special
adjustment board (“the Board”) exceeded its jurisdiction. See 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (q)
(providing for judicial review of a National Railroad Adjustment Board order “for failure of the
order to conform, or confine itself, to matters within the scope of the [National Railroad
Adjustment Board’s] jurisdiction.”); Ollman v. Special Bd. of Adjustment No. 1063, 527 F.3d
239, 246 n.8 (2d Cir. 2008) (observing that the jurisdictional provision of 45 U.S.C. § 153 First
(q) “has been applied with equal force to proceedings before a special adjustment board.”).
Sokolowski argues that the Board acted extra-jurisdictionally by (1) improperly reading an
exception for “egregious” conduct into the SAVE Agreement between Sokolowski’s union and
Defendants-Appellees the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its subsidiaries the MTA
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Metro-North Railroad and MTA Metro-North Commuter Railroad (collectively, the “MTA”);
(2) “misapprehending its authority to review and overturn the [MTA’s] decision,” and
(3) “finding that there had been no discrimination, animus, or disparate treatment.” Brief for
Plaintiff-Appellant Sokolowski at 15-16.1 We address each allegedly extra-jurisdictional act in
turn.
First, even if we assume that inserting a provision into the collectively bargained SAVE
Agreement would be an extra-jurisdictional act, we do not agree with Sokolowski that the Board
did so here. The Board did not improperly insert a provision that excepts from waiver eligibility
any employee who commits an “egregious” violation. Instead, the Board ruled that Sokolowski
committed multiple violations and that the MTA therefore properly denied him a waiver
pursuant to the SAVE Agreement. See J. App’x 40-42 (stating that the MTA argued that the
SAVE Agreement did not require the MTA to give Sokolowski a waiver because the Agreement
does not apply where an employee commits multiple violations, and holding that while the
multiple charges “could be construed as somewhat over-blown piling on, we find no fatal error
in the redundancies.”). To the extent that the Board relied on the egregious nature of
Sokolowski’s violations, it appears to have done so in response to Sokolowski’s contention that
the multiple-violation exception to the SAVE Agreement was only intended “to be used in cases
of additional serious rule violations,” J. App’x 39 (emphasis in original) (internal quotation
marks omitted). The Board did not insert a provision into the SAVE Agreement, but instead
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Sokolowski also contends on appeal that the Board acted extra-jurisdictionally by
reviewing the MTA’s decision despite the MTA’s failure to convene a “committee of three” as
Sokolowski argues was required by the SAVE Agreement. This argument is addressed in a
separate Opinion filed simultaneously with this Summary Order.
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adopted a portion of Sokolowski’s interpretation of the multiple-violation rule. In doing so, the
Board did not exceed its jurisdiction.
Second, we disagree with Sokolowski’s contention that the Board exceeded its
jurisdiction because “it felt constrained to impose an arbitrary and capricious standard of review
in determining whether the MTA’s refusal to offer the SAVE Waiver was proper.” Brief for
Plaintiff-Appellant Sokolowski at 23. Even if we assume that an adjustment board’s
misapprehension of the possible scope of its review constitutes an extra-jurisdictional act, the
Board here never indicated that it believed itself to be constrained to apply any particular
standard of review. Sokolowski cites two statements made by the Board in support of his view
that the Board believed that it had no discretion with respect to the standard of review. The first
statement, that “leniency in such a case simply cannot rightfully be dictated by an arbitration
Board based solely on our personalized notions of industrial justice,” J. App’x 42, does not
address the standard of review but instead draws on the Supreme Court’s admonition that an
arbitrator’s decision “must draw its essence from the contract and cannot simply reflect the
arbitrator’s own notions of industrial justice,” United Paperworkers Int’l Union, AFL-CIO v.
Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 38 (1987). The second statement, that “termination for such serious
proven charges is not on its face arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable,” J. App’x 43, indicates
what standard of review was applied to Sokolowski’s termination but does not indicate that the
Board believed that the Railway Labor Act required it to apply such a standard. Neither
statement indicates that the Board misapprehended the possible scope of its review of the MTA’s
decision to terminate Sokolowski.
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Finally, we reject Sokolowski’s argument that the Board’s finding that there was no
“persuasive showing of discrimination, animus or disparate treatment,” J. App’x 43, was wholly
baseless. Even assuming that baseless fact-finding constitutes an extra-jurisdictional act, we
hold that Sokolowski has pleaded insufficient facts to demonstrate that the Board’s fact-finding
was without basis. The Board found that the MTA was not required to offer Sokolowski a
waiver because Sokolowski had committed multiple violations. Consequently, the Board was
entitled to reject Sokolowski’s argument that the MTA’s denial of a waiver was based on
discrimination.
We have considered Sokolowski’s remaining arguments and find them to be without
merit. Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
FOR THE COURT:
CATHERINE O’HAGAN WOLFE, CLERK
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