Consolidated Rail Corporation v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn.

How later courts described this case

• concluding that the employer met its “relatively light burden” of convincing the Court that is practice was arguably justified by the implied terms of the collective bargaining agreement, but emphasizing that in rendering such a decision it did not “seek to minimize any force in the Union’s arguments that the discretion afforded [the employer] by the parties’ implied agreement, as interpreted in light of past practice, cannot be understood to extend this far”
• holding that the The district courts have inclusion of drug testing as part of subject-matter railroad’s physical examinations jurisdiction to enjoin a arguably was justified by implied terms violation of the status of collective bargaining agreement, and quo pending completion therefore dispute was minor
• holding that the distinction between major and minor disputes turns not on a “case-by-case determination of the importance of the issue presented,” but on whether “the terms of an existing agreement either establish or refute the presence of a right to take the disputed action”
• holding that carrier’s unilateral implementation of a drug-screening policy was arguably justified because the carrier’s long-term practice of conducting physical examinations on employees established that practice as an implied term of the collective bargaining agreement

Written by the judges who cited it.