HOWE v. PACIFIC ELECTRIC RAILWAY COMPANY (1965)

Plaintiffs appeal from the judgment entered herein which dismissed their action ‘for want of jurisdiction.’ By their complaint appellants, all of whom are former employees of respondent railway company, sought declaratory relief and the recovery of pension benefits to which they allegedly were entitled under the pension plan maintained by respondent prior to the enactment of the Railroad Retirement Act of 1937 (45 U.S.C.A. §§ 228a to 228z–1).

In substance, appellants alleged: (1) that they had established rights under this private pension plan by reason of respondent's representations made in connection therewith at the time they accepted employment with respondent; (2) that appellants' rights under this existing plan were of greater value than those which they had received under the provisions of the Railroad Retirement Act; and (3) that by reason of respondent's false and mishad relied, their action was not barred by laches or by any applicable statute of limitations.

It was stipulated that the trial court leading statements upon which appellants need not rule on the several defenses presented by respondent in its motion for summary judgment, and that counter-affidavits by appellants in opposition to the motion need not be submitted pending a determination of the issue as to the court's jurisdiction to entertain the action. Respondent contended that jurisdiction to adjudicate appellants' claims resided solely in the National Railroad Adjustment Boards under the terms of the Railway Labor Act. (Cf. 45 U.S.C.A. § 153.) The trial court accepted this contention and dismissed the action. We have concluded that this determination was erroneous.

The United States Supreme Court in Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., 312 U.S. 630, 634 et seq., 61 S.Ct. 754, 85 L.Ed. 1089, held that a discharged employee of a railway might maintain an action in the state or federal courts without having recourse to the Adjustment Boards. This ruling has been consistently reaffirmed although its application has been considerably restricted in subsequent cases in which it was apparent that an adequate understanding of the controversy involved would require great expertise in the specialized field of railroad problems and familiarity with the technical vocabulary of the industry (Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 339 U.S. 239, 240 et seq., 70 S.Ct. 577, 94 L.Ed. 795), or would create a class of preferred claimants who could bypass the Adjustment Boards while others could not, thus creating the industrial conflict the Act was designed to avoid (Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Day, 360 U.S. 548, 550 et seq., 79 S.Ct. 1322, 3 L.Ed.2d 1422).

However, we find nothing in these later decisions indicating that the United States Supreme Court has intended to completely negate the previously recognized right of a former railroad employee to pursue his judicial remedies in a case presenting no problem of special classification and in which the determinative issues are of such nature that they remain peculiarly within familiar areas of judicial experience and in the traditional province of the courts rather than in a field better suited to the specialized expertise of the Adjustment Administrative Boards. Indeed, these later decisions reveal a carefully expressed intention to limit, but not to nullify, the basic rule enunciated in Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra, 312 U.S. 630, 634 et seq., 61 S.Ct. 754.

In Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., supra, 339 U.S. 239, 244, 70 S.Ct. 577, 580, the court stated in reference to Moore: ‘Our holding here is not inconsistent with our holding in Moore v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 312 U.S. 630, 61 S.Ct. 754, 85 L.Ed. 1089. Moore was discharged by the railroad. He could have challenged the validity of his discharge before the Board seeking reinstatement and back pay. Instead he chose to accept the railroad's action in discharging him as final, thereby ceasing to be an employee, and brought suit claiming damages for breach of contract. As we there held, the Railway Labor Act does not bar courts from adjudicating such cases. A common-law or statutory action for wrongful discharge differs from any remedy which the Board has power to provide, and does not involve questions of future relations between the railroad and its other employees. If a court in handling such a case must consider some provision of a collective-bargaining agreement, its interpretation would of course have no binding effect on future interpretations by the Board.’ (Emphasis added.) (Also cf. Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. v. Koppal, 345 U.S. 653, 661, 73 S.Ct. 906, 97 L.Ed. 1325.)

It appears appropriate to set forth at length the language of the majority of the court in the United States Supreme Court in Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Day, supra, 360 U.S. 548, 550 et seq., 79 S.Ct. 1322, 1323, because it most clearly expresses the significant donsiderations underlying the decision therein:

‘The Act establishes, inter alia, the National Railroad Adjustment Board with the following purposes and functions:

“The disputes between an employee or group of employees and a carrier or carriers growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or working conditions, including cases pending and unadjusted on the date of a approval of this Act, shall be handled in the usual manner up to and including the chief operating officer of the carrier designated to handle such disputes; but, failing to reach an adjustment in this manner, the disputes may be referred by petition of the parties or by either party to the appropriate division of the Adjustment Board with a full statement of the facts and all supporting data bearing upon the disputes.' Railway Labor Act, § 3, First (i), 45 U.S.C. § 153, First (i), 45 U.S.C.A. § 153, subd. 1(i).

‘The clash of economic forces which led to the passage of this Act, the history of its enactment, and the legislative policies which it expresses and which guide judicial interpretation have been too thoroughly and recently canvassed by this Court to need repetition. On the basis of these guides to judicial construction we have held that the National Railroad Adjustment Board had exclusive primary jurisdiction over disputes between unions and carriers based on the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement. Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 339, U.S. 239, 70 S.Ct. 577, 94 L.Ed. 795. On the same day, we also decided Order of Railway Conductors of America v. Southern Ry. Co., 339, U.S. 255, 70 S.Ct. 585, 94 L.Ed. 811, holding that the principles of Slocum were fully applicable to a claim by a group of conductors that they were entitled to extra compensation for certain ‘side trips' under the terms of their agreement with the carrier. That case, like the case now before us, involved claims for compensation which could only be adjudicated by a determination of the relevant facts and construction of the collective bargaining agreement. However, here, as was not the case in Order of Railway Conductors of America the claimant has retired from railroad service. The immediate question is whether that factual difference makes a legal difference.

‘The Act grants jurisdiction to the Board of ‘disputes between an employee * * * and a carrier * * *.’ It defines ‘employee’ as including:

“* * * every person in the service of a carrier (subject to its continuing authority to supervise and direct the manner of rendition of his service) who performs any work defined as that of an employee or subordinate official in the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission * * *.'

‘The National Railroad Adjustment Board was established as a tribunal to settle disputes arising out of the relationship between carrier and employee. All the considerations which led Congress to entrust an expert administrative board with the interpretation of collective bargaining agreements are equally applicable when, as here, the employee has retired from service after initiating a claim for compensation for work performed while on active duty. The nature of the problem and the need for experience and expert knowledge remain the same. The same collective bargaining agreement must be construed with the same need for uniformity of interpretation and orderly adjustment of differences. There is nothing in the Act which requires that the employment relationship subsist throughout the entire process of administrative settlement. The purpose of the Act is fulfilled if the claim itself arises out of the employment relationship which Congress regulated. The Board itself has accepted this construction and adjudicates the claims of retired employees. This uniform administrative interpretation is of great importance, reflecting, as it does, the needs and fair expectations of the railroad industry for which Congress has provided what might be termed a charter for its internal government. Moreover, the discharged employee may challenge the validity of his discharge before the Board, seeking reinstatement and back pay. See Union Pacific R. Co. v. Price, 360 U.S. 601, 79 S.Ct. 1351, 3 L.Ed.2d 1460. Thus it is plain both from a reading of the Act in light of its purpose and the needs of its administration and from the settled administrative interpretation that the Board has jurisdiction over respondent's claim for compensation.

‘Since the Board has jurisdiction, it must have exclusive primary jurisdiction. All the considerations of legislative meaning and policy which have compelled the conclusion that an active employee must submit his claims to the Board, and may not resort to the courts in the first instance, are the same when the employee has retired and seeks compensation for work performed while he remained on active service. A contrary conclusion would create a not insubstantial class of preferred claimants. Retired employees would be allowed to bypass the Board specifically constituted for hearing railroad disputes whenever they deemed it advantageous to do so, whereas all other employees would be required to present their claims to the Board. This case forcefully illustrates the difficulties of such a construction. Several active workers have had claims similar to that of respondent rejected by the Board. To allow respondent now to try his claim in the District Court would only accentuate the danger of inequality of treatment and its consequent discontent which it was the aim of the Railway Labor Act to eliminate. We can take judicial notice of the fact that provisions in railroad collective bargaining agreements are of a specialized technical nature calling for specialized technical knowledge in ascertaining their meaning and application. Wholly apart from the adaptability of judges and juries to make such determinations, varying jury verdicts would imbed into such judgments varying constructions not subject to review to secure uniformity. Not only would this engender diversity of proceedings but diversity through judicial construction and through the construction of the Adjustment Board. Since nothing is a greater spur to conflicts, and eventually conflicts resulting in strikes, than different pay for the same work or unfair differentials, not to respect the contralized determination of these questions through the Adjustment Board would hamper if not defeat the central purpose of the Railway Labor Act.

‘Our decision in Moore v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 312 U.S. 630, 61 S.Ct. 754, 85 L.Ed. 1089, does not stand in the way of this. The decision in that case has been given its proper, limited scope in Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 339 U.S. 239, 70 S.Ct. 577, 94 L.Ed. 795. Moore carved out from the controlling doctrine of primary jurisdiction the unusual and special situation of wrongful discharge where the aggrieved employee had been expelled from the employment relationship. Moreover, since the discharge had been accepted as final by the employee, it is probable that the damages accrued primarily after the employment relationship had terminated.

‘Our consistent regard for the importance of having disputes between railroad employees and carriers settled by the administrative Board which Congress established for that purpose requires respondent to resort to the NRAB for adjudication of his claim.’ (Emphasis added.)

It is apparent that none of the influential considerations advanced and emphasized by the United States Supreme Court in support of its decision in Day, supra, is present in the instant case. In fact, the very converse of each of these considerations appears to be present herein. No special knowledge of railroad problems or of technical vocabulary is here required. No present or past collective bargaining agreement is involved. Hence, there is no demand ‘for specialized technical knowledge in ascertaining [its] meaning and application.’

In determining whether appellants have a cause of action against their former employer by reason of the essentially contractual aspects of a pension plan that allegedly had served as an inducement to their accepting employment, it is quite immaterial that the employment was in railroading rather than in some other industry.

The resolution of the issues presented in actions for damages resulting from the alleged violations of pension rights, including estoppel and promissory estoppel, are traditionally within the province of the courts. (45 Cal.Jur.2d Social Security, etc. § 36, pp. 213–215, and cases cited therein.)

We have been cited to no cases in which the Adjustment Boards have enforced such rights or dealt with such issues. It is true that in certain instances such as National Railroad Adjustment Board, First Division, Award No. 4932, and National Railroad Adjustment Board, Third Division, Award No. 2173, the Boards necessarily considered the provisions of private pension plans by which certain railroads sought to justify the termination of employees upon their attaining a specified age. However, these were not cases in which pension plans were enforced or damages for their breach allowed. The Boards' rulings merely held that the dismissal of the employees had been wrongful and ordered their reinstatement with payment for time lost. The nature of the controversy and the relief sought in the instant case are entirely different.

It is equally apparent that a judicial determination of appellants' rights, if any, in the courts of this state will not tend to create a class of preferred claimants. By definition no one presently employed by respondent railroad can assert a similar claim. Each claimant must accept as final the termination of his employment with the railroad before he can seek pension benefits. All damages necessarily accrued ‘after the employment relationship had terminated.’ Therefore, the possibility does not exist that active employees might be forced to bring their identical claims before the Boards, as was true in the Day case.

Finally, respondent has not suggested any potential source of labor strife involved in the judicial determination of the issues here presented. As indicated, the limited record presently before us does not reveal the existence of any collective bargaining agreement. The appellants are not prosecuting their individual claims through, or as exmembers of, any labor organization. There is nothing in the record indicating the existence of any contract grievance procedures whose exhaustion could be deemed a condition precedent to appellants' action herein. (Cf. Republic Steel Corp. v. Maddox, 379 U.S. 650, 85 S.Ct. 614, 13 L.Ed.2d 580, 583 et seq.) In sum, none of the considerations that have been stressed in those instances where the United States Supreme Court has held that the Adjustment Boards had exclusive jurisdiction of the subject matter is to be found in the instant case.

If the United States Supreme Court's decision in Moore, as interpreted in Slocum, is to be overruled and if former employees of railroads are to be stripped of all right to prosecute their ordinary common-law or statutory causes of action in the courts, such departure and charge of law must be wrought by that court. As recently as January 25, 1965, the United States Supreme Court expressly refused to overrule its decision in Moore. In Republic Steel Corp. v. Maddox, supra, 379 U.S. 650, 85 S.Ct. 614, 13 L.Ed.2d 580, footnote 14, p. 586, 85 S.Ct. p. 619, the court stated:

‘By refusing to extend Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co. to § 301 suits, we do not mean to overrule it within the field of the Railway Labor Act. Consideration of such action should properly await a case presented under the Railway Labor Act in which the various distinctive features of the administrative remedies provided by that act can be appraised in context, e. g., the makeup of the Adjustment Board, the scopt of review from monetary awards, and the ability of the Board to give the same remedies as could be obtained by court suit.’

Even if the instant case, with its most limited record, could be deemed to be ‘a case presented under the Railway Labor Act in which the various distinctive features of the administrative remedies provided by that act can be appraised in context,’ we do not believe that any of the United States Supreme Court's decisions to date would authorize us to usurp the prerogative expressly reserved to itself by that court and to ‘overrule’ Moore.

The judgment is reversed.

HERNDON, Justice.

ROTH, P. J., and FLEMING, J., concur.