Clayton v. International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, & Agricultural Implement Workers

Justice Rehnquist,

with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Stewart, and Justice Powell join, dissenting.

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the defense of exhaustion of internal union remedies was available to the union defendant in this § 301 action but not to the employer defendant. The result of this ruling was to put the employer in the unenviable position of having to defend the manner in which the union represented one of its employees (Clayton) during a grievance procedure. The Court’s opinion today rights what I view as the principal error in the decision below by requiring the actions against the employer and union to proceed simultaneously. Ante, at 695. The Court reaches this conclusion by holding that in this particular case the exhaustion defense should not be available to either the union or employer. I, however, view differently than does the Court the benefits to be obtained from requiring exhaustion in these cases, and would require Clayton to exhaust his intraunion remedies before proceeding against either his union or employer.

The Court does not require exhaustion of internal union remedies in this case because it finds the remedies cannot provide Clayton with all the substantive relief he seeks (i. e., money damages and reinstatement) or with reactivation of his grievance. Ante, at 693. The Court, however, concedes that where the internal remedies can provide such relief, the exhaustion defense should be available to the employer and union alike. Ante, at 692, and n. 20. Presumably, this would require exhaustion in a § 301 case where the only relief sought was money damages and money damages were obtainable through the internal union procedures. In such a case, the employee would be able to obtain all “the substantive relief he seeks.” Ante, at 693.

*699 The Court creates a three-prong test for determining when a district court should exercise its discretion and require exhaustion of intraunion remedies. Ante, at 689. Admittedly, a district court when exercising this discretion should carefully consider the first criterion referred to by the Court— whether union officials are so hostile to the employee that he could not obtain a fair hearing on his claim. Ibid. However, there is no question that this criterion does not come into play in this case. Ibid.

The second prong of the Court’s test is “whether the internal union appeals procedures would be inadequate either to reactivate the employee’s grievance or to award him the full relief he seeks under § 301 . . . .” Ibid. Exhaustion is not required in this case, the Court says, because the UAW’s internal union appeals procedures cannot provide Clayton with reinstatement or reactivation of his grievance.

However, no prior case of this Court has held that exhaustion should not be required unless the internal union remedies can provide all the substantive relief requested or reactivation of the grievance. The principal difficulty with the Court’s opinion lies in its framing of this second criterion which reflects much too narrow a view of the purposes of the exhaustion defense and the benefits which will likely result from requiring exhaustion in a case where a union has established a means for reviewing the manner in which it has represented an employee during a grievance. It is worth noting that neither NLRB v. Marine Workers, 391 U. S. 418 (1968), on which the Court so heavily relies, nor any other case of this Court, supports the language used by the Court in the second prong of its test. In fact, Marine Workers simply states exhaustion should not be required “when the administrative remedies are inadequate.” Id., at 426, n. 8 . Our focus therefore should be on the adequacies of the union remedies when viewed in the context of the underlying purpose of the exhaustion defense — which is to encourage private rather than judicial resolution of disputes.

*700 The exhaustion of intraunion remedies, even where those remedies cannot provide reinstatement or reactivation of a grievance, does promote private resolution of labor disputes. Resort to the intraunion appeals procedures provides the union with its first opportunity to focus on the issue of fair representation — as opposed to the alleged breach of the collective-bargaining agreement. Resort to the union appeals procedures gives the union an opportunity to satisfy the employee that its decision not to pursue a grievance was correct. If successful on this score, litigation is averted. Where a union determines through its appeals procedures that it mishandled an employee’s grievance, litigation may also be averted because at that point both the union and the employer have a strong incentive to pursue private resolution of the grievance. Even where a collective-bargaining agreement does not provide for reactivation of a grievance, it is reasonable to assume that many employers, when confronted with both a determination by a union that it had breached its duty of fair representation and the immediate prospect of an employee commencing litigation, would seriously consider voluntarily reactivating the grievance procedure to avoid the additional burden and costs of litigation. Should litigation nonetheless occur, exhaustion may well have narrowed the factual and legal issues to be decided and thus result in a savings of judicial resources. A fact that should also not be discounted is that the conscientious handling by a union of an employee’s intraunion appeal cannot help but enhance the union’s prestige with its members. Cf. Republic Steel Corp. v. Maddox, 379 U. S. 650, 653 (1965). Exhaustion promotes union democracy and self-government as well as the broader policy of noninterference with internal union affairs. A union’s incentive to maintain internal procedures which provide substantial procedural protection and which can afford significant substantive relief will be greatly undermined if an employee can simply bypass the procedures at will.

The error in the Court’s analysis results in part from its *701 apparent belief that intraunion remedies must provide a complete substitute for either the courts or the contract grievance procedure in order to be deemed “adequate.” The purpose of intraunion remedies, however, is quite different. These remedies are provided to facilitate or encourage the private resolution of disputes, not to be a complete substitute for the courts. Intraunion remedies can serve this purpose so long as they have the capacity to address whether the union wrongfully handled the grievance. Obviously, if a union appeals procedure cannot address this question, exhaustion should not be required.

An additional question which is also of great importance is whether a union should ever be found to have breached its duty of fair representation when a union member shuns an appeals procedure which is both mandated by the union con-sitution and established for the purpose of allowing the union to satisfy its duty of fair representation. It seems to me not at all unreasonable to say that a union should have the right to require its members to give it the first opportunity to correct its own mistakes. Responsible union self-government demands a fair opportunity to function. This is especially true in a situation such as here where exhaustion of the union remedies could eliminate the need to litigate altogether. Congress has recognized the importance of these values in § 101 (a) (4) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 522 , 29 U. S. C. § 411 (a) (4). This section provides in part:

“No labor organization shall limit the right of any member thereof to institute an action in any court, or any proceeding before any administrative agency .... Provided, That any such member may be required to exhaust reasonable hearing procedures (but not to exceed a four-month lapse of time) within such organization, before instituting legal or administrative proceedings against such organizations or any officer thereof . . . .”

*702 In §101 (a)(4), Congress has restricted the power of unions to limit the rights of their members to resort to the courts. At the same time, however, Congress gave the judiciary the discretion to require union members to exhaust hearing procedures. As this Court explained in Marine Workers , the language in § 101 (a) (4) is

“a statement of policy that the public tribunals whose aid is invoked may in their discretion stay their hands for four months, while the aggrieved person seeks relief within the union. We read it, in other words, as installing in this labor field a regime comparable to that which prevails in other areas of law before the federal courts, which often stay their hands while a litigant seeks administrative relief before the appropriate agency.” 391 U. S., at 426 .

Section 101 (a)(4) reflects what I believe to be the reasonable compromise Congress reached when trying to balance two somewhat competing interests — furtherance of the national labor policy in favor of private resolution of disputes on the one hand and the desire not to unduly burden or “exhaust” an individual employee with time-consuming procedures on the other. It is fair to say that § 101 (a) (4) represents Congress’ judgment that limiting access to the courts for at least four months is not an unreasonable price to pay in exchange for the previously mentioned benefits exhaustion may provide.

The language of § 101 (a) (4) also goes a long way to satisfy the third prong of the test set forth by the Court today. Exhaustion of internal union procedures should not be required where such would unreasonably delay an employee’s opportunity to obtain a judicial hearing on the merits of his claim. Ante, at 689. Intraunion procedures which take years to complete serve no worthwhile purpose in the overall scheme of promoting the prompt and private resolution of claims. But a requirement that an employee not be per *703 mitted to go to court without first having pursued an intra-union appeal for at least four months does substantially further this national labor policy without placing any unfair burden on an employee. As such, I think all interested parties would be well served by a requirement that employees exhaust their intraunion procedures for this limited period of time prescribed by Congress.