# Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala.

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 3, 1957 · 353 U.S. 448

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9421447

## Case

- **Full name:** Textile Workers Union of America v. Lincoln Mills of Alabama
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 3, 1957
- **Citations:** 353 U.S. 448; 40 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2113; 77 S. Ct. 912; 1 L. Ed. 2d 972; 1957 U.S. LEXIS 1559
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Burton
- **Judges:** Douglas, Burton, Frankfurter, Black, Harlan
- **Cited by:** 2,564 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9421447

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that Section 301(a) of the Labor Management and Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Section 185(a) not only grants jurisdiction over defined areas of labor law but also vests in the courts the power to develop a common law of labor-management relations within that jurisdiction
- holding that, because collective bargaining agreements require uniform interpretation, federal law based on "the policy of our national labor laws” must substitute for state law
- holding that when Congress passed § 301(a) it “adopted a policy which placed sanctions behind agreements to arbitrate grievance disputes, by implication rejecting the common-law rule” and requiring courts to fashion federal law from national labor policy
- holding that Section 301(a) of the Labor Management and Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Section 185(a
- holding that 18 No. 10-1543 federal common law governs suits under § 301(a) of the LMRA

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Burton,
whom Mr. Justice Harlan joins,
concurring in the result.
This suit was brought in a United States District Court under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act of *460 1947, 61 Stat. 156 , 29 U. S. C. § 185 , seeking specific enforcement of the arbitration provisions of a collective-bargaining contract. The District Court had jurisdiction over the action since it involved an obligation running to a union — a union controversy — and not uniquely personal rights of employees sought to be enforced by a union. Cf. Association of Westinghouse Employees v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 348 U. S. 437 . Having jurisdiction over the suit, the court was not powerless to fashion an appropriate federal remedy. The power to decree specific performance of a collectively bargained agreement to arbitrate finds its source in § 301 itself, 1 and in a Federal District Court’s inherent equitable powers, nurtured by a congressional policy to encourage and enforce labor arbitration in industries affecting commerce. 2
I do not subscribe to the conclusion of the Court that the substantive law to be applied in a suit under § 301 is federal law. At the same time, I agree with Judge Magruder in International Brotherhood v. W. L. Mead, Inc., 230 F. 2d 576 , that some federal rights may necessarily be involved in a § 301 case, and hence that the constitutionality of § 301 can be upheld as a congressional grant to Federal District Courts of what has been called “protective jurisdiction.”
See the dissent of Judge Brown in the Court of Appeals in this case, 230 F. 2d 81, 89 .

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9421447. Public record. Not legal advice.