Uniontown Hosp v. Local Union No 491 , 172 F. App'x 442 ( 2006 )

Opinions of the United
2006 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
3-27-2006
Uniontown Hosp v. Local Union No 491
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 05-1403
Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2006
Recommended Citation
"Uniontown Hosp v. Local Union No 491" (2006). 2006 Decisions. Paper 1384.
http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2006/1384
This decision is brought to you for free and open access by the Opinions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit at Villanova
University School of Law Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in 2006 Decisions by an authorized administrator of Villanova
University School of Law Digital Repository. For more information, please contact Benjamin.Carlson@law.villanova.edu.
NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 05-1403
THE UNIONTOWN HOSPITAL,
Appellant
v.
CHAUFFEURS, TEAMSTERS AND HELPERS,
LOCAL UNION NO. 491
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil No. 04-cv-00836)
District Judge: Honorable Donetta W. Ambrose
Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
March 6, 2006
Before: RENDELL and AMBRO, Circuit Judges,
and SHAPIRO, District Judge*
(Filed: March 27, 2006)
OPINION OF THE COURT
* Honorable Norma L Shapiro, Senior District Court Judge for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.
RENDELL, Circuit Judge.
This case arises out of the parties’ conflicting interpretations of a clause in the
“Side Letter Regarding Wages” attached to their collective bargaining agreement. The
clause provides for wage increases to be paid to eligible employees in semi-annual lump
sums. Defendant Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers Local Union 491 (“Local 491”)
believes that the clause requires the payments to be calculated cumulatively; plaintiff
Uniontown Hospital (the “Hospital”) disagrees. Unable to resolve the grievance between
themselves, the parties proceeded to arbitration under the terms of the collective
bargaining agreement. When the arbitrator returned an award in Local 491's favor, the
Hospital filed an action to vacate it in the District Court for the Western District of
Pennsylvania. Local 491 counter-claimed to enforce the award, and both parties moved
for summary judgment. The District Court denied the Hospital’s motion, and granted
summary judgment in favor of Local 491. The Hospital now appeals. For the following
reasons, we agree with the District Court’s thorough and well-reasoned decision, and will
affirm.
We exercise plenary review over a decision resolving cross motions for summary
judgment, but apply the same standard as the District Court in reviewing the arbitration
award. Teamsters Local 312 v. Matlack, Inc., 118 F.3d 985, 994 (3d Cir. 1997). As the
District Court correctly pointed out, our authority to vacate arbitral awards is extremely
limited: “As long as the arbitrator has arguably construed or applied the contract, the
award must be enforced, regardless of the fact that a court is convinced that [the]
2
arbitrator has committed a serious error.” News Am. Publ’ns, Inc. v. Newark
Typographical Union, Local 103, 918 F.2d 21, 24 (3d Cir. 1990). A reviewing court
“may not review the merits of the arbitral decision.” Id.
The Hospital has not identified, either in the District Court or on appeal, any basis
upon which we could vacate the arbitrator’s award. The award was supported by record
evidence. The arbitrator chose to interpret the disputed provision consistently with other
provisions in the side letter, which clearly provided for cumulative annual increases for
other employees (i.e., those who were not eligible for the lump sum payments), and the
Union’s stated intention to obtain increases for all employees in the same manner. The
Hospital’s argument to the contrary amounts to no more than an assertion that the
arbitrator should have weighed the evidence differently. As noted above, however, we
have no authority to disturb the award on that basis.
Nor may we vacate the award based on the Hospital’s second argument, that the
arbitrator improperly ignored the canon of contract construction that holds that
ambiguities in a contract should be construed against the drafter. “A court does not
review the award to ascertain whether the arbitrator has applied the correct principles of
law.” Id. We may vacate an award that is “totally unsupported by principles of contract
construction,” id. (citation omitted), but that is not the case here. The arbitrator followed
a generally accepted contract construction technique. He looked first to the plain
language of the agreement. When he determined that to be ambiguous, he referred to
extrinsic evidence of the parties’ intent.
3
In the words of the District Court, the opinion and award in this case were
“rationally derived from the agreement and its context; the arbitrator did not rely solely
upon his own brand of industrial justice.” We will accordingly affirm.
4