holding the plaintiff’s wrongful discharge claim was preempted by the RLA because “the only source of [the plaintiff]’s right not to be discharged, and therefore to treat an alleged discharge as a ‘wrongful’ one that entitles him to damages, is the collective-bargaining agreement”
How later courts described this case
- holding the plaintiff’s wrongful discharge claim was preempted by the RLA because “the only source of [the plaintiff]’s right not to be discharged, and therefore to treat an alleged discharge as a ‘wrongful’ one that entitles him to damages, is the collective-bargaining agreement”
- claims of breach of “common law contract” is insufficient under Railway Labor Act for federal jurisdiction
- breach of alleged settlement agreement
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result:
The CBA had exclusive jurisdiction to consider Brown’s claim because it was a “minor dispute” under the contract. Even if the airline did all that Mr. Brown asserts, the putative agreement could not be enforced independently of the statutory grievance procedure because any ostensible “contract” would be inextricably involved in the collective bargaining pattern.
Because the CBA jurisdiction is exclusive and the claim was not presented to it, I agree that, under the statute, we lack jurisdiction. Brown’s withdrawal of the claim merely because the company asserted that the CBA lacked jurisdiction was ill-advised, but no authority is cited to us that would support our assuming jurisdiction merely to resolve the problem.