# DelCostello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters > Supreme Court of the United States · June 8, 1983 · 462 U.S. 151 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9429230 ## Case - **Full name:** DelCOSTELLO v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS Et Al. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** June 8, 1983 - **Citations:** 462 U.S. 151; 51 U.S.L.W. 4693; 113 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2737; 103 S. Ct. 2281; 76 L. Ed. 2d 476; 1983 U.S. LEXIS 51 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Stevens - **Judges:** Brennan, Burger, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor - **Cited by:** 3,062 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Questioned — as noted by a later court. - Negative treatments: 3 - Distinguished by: 6 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9429230 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - stating that, while an employee will ordinarily be bound by the results of a grievance procedure "according to the final- ity provisions of the [collective bargaining] agreement," an employee can challenge the results of that grievance procedure by bringing a hybrid claim agai… - explaining that when “there is no federal statute of limitations expressly applicable to [a] suit…[the Court] do[es] not ordinarily assume that Congress intended that there be no time limit on actions at all; rather, [the Court’s] task is to ‘borrow’ the most suitable statute … - holding that claims against union for breach of duty of fair representation and claims against employer for breach of contract are “inextricably interdependent,” and that “[t]o prevail against either the company or the Union, employee-plaintiffs must not only show that their d… - explaining that “[t]o prevail against either the company or the [u]nion” on a hybrid claim, an employee “must not only show” a breach of the collective bargaining agreement, “but must also carry the burden of demonstrating a breach of duty by the [union]” (emphasis added, inte… - stating that in “hybrid” section 301 actions, i.e. actions containing allegations against both the employer and the union, courts should borrow the six-month statute of limitations period set forth in section 10(b)' of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158 ## Opinion text Justice Stevens, dissenting. For the past century federal judges have “borrowed” state statutes of limitations, not because they thought it was a sen *173 sible form of “interstitial law making,” but rather because they were directed to do so by the Congress of the United States. 1 Today the Court holds that the Rules of Decision Act does not determine the result in these cases, because it believes that a separate federal law, growing out of “the policies and requirements of the underlying cause of action,” ante, at 159, n. 13, “otherwise require[s] or provide[s].” The Court’s opinion sets forth a number of reasons why it may make good sense to adopt a 6-month statute of limitations, but nothing in that opinion persuades me that the Constitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States “require or provide” that this particular limitations period must be applied to this case. 2 *174 Congress has given us no reason to depart from our settled practice, grounded in the Rules of Decision Act, of borrowing analogous state statutes of limitation in cases such as this. For the reasons set forth in my separate opinion in United Parcel Service, Inc. v. Mitchell, 451 U. S. 56, 71 (1981), I believe that in a suit for a breach of the duty of fair representation, the appropriate “laws of the several states” are the statutes of limitations governing malpractice suits against attorneys. I would apply those laws to resolve the worker-union disputes in these two cases. And I would continue to abide by our holding in Mitchell in resolving the employee-employer dispute presented in No. 81-2886. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent. In 1789 the First Congress enacted the Rules of Decision Act (Act), Rev. Stat. § 721, 1 Stat. 92 , plainly stating: “That the laws of the several states, except where the constitution, treaties or statutes of the United States shall otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at common law in the courts of the United States in cases where they apply.” In 1895, construing that Act, we held that state statutes of limitations provided the relevant rules of decision in patent infringement actions, explaining: “That this section [Rev. Stat. § 721] embraces the statutes of limitations of the several States has been decided by this court in a large number of cases, which are collated in its opinion in Bauserman v. Blunt, 147 U. S. 647 .... Indeed, to no class of state legislation has the above provision been more steadfastly and consistently applied than to statutes prescribing the time within which actions shall be brought within its jurisdiction.” Campbell v. Haverhill, 155 U. S. 610, 614 . Accord, McClaine v. Rankin, 197 U. S. 154 (1905). In response to the suggestion that the Act was not intended to govern nondiversity cases raising federal questions — such as patent suits or suits under the National Labor Relations Act — we bluntly observed that “[t]he section itself neither contains nor suggests such a distinction.” 155 U. S., at 616 . When the Court recognized the cause of action in Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171 (1967), the majority explained: “We cannot believe that Congress, in conferring upon employers and unions the power to establish exclusive grievance procedures, intended to confer upon unions. . . unlimited discretion to deprive injured employees of all remedies for breach of con *174 tract.” Id., at 186 . But nothing in the language, structure, or legislative history of the National Labor Relations Act compels the further conclusion that Congress intended the federal judiciary to abandon the traditional practice of borrowing state statutes of limitations when no federal statute directly applies. Saying that a statute impliedly creates a cause of action is not the same thing as saying that it impliedly commands the courts to abandon the standard procedure for choosing limitations periods and instead to borrow a period that Congress established for a different purpose. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9429230. Public record. Not legal advice.