Summary
concluding that court had jurisdiction to determine whether a dispute was arbitrable
Summary of this case from Univ. Sys. of New Hampshire Bd. of Trs. & A. v. DorfsmanOpinion
No. 3761.
Decided November 3, 1948.
The question of whether a labor dispute is arbitrable under a collective bargaining contract between the employer and a labor union is a proper matter for judicial determination. An injunction staying interlocutory proceedings until the rights of the contracting parties are judicially determined was properly granted where the remedy at law was inadequate. The plaintiff's remedy at law may be inadequate when, without equitable relief and a determination of his rights under a contract, the pursuance of one of two remedies may operate as a bar to the maintenance of the other. "Vacation pay" to employees which varies in accordance with earnings is deemed to be included in the term "wages" and is therefore arbitrable under a collective bargaining agreement between the labor union and employer.
BILL IN EQUITY, for injunctive relief against a labor union and others to prevent the union from proceeding with arbitration of allegedly non-arbitrable disputes and for a judicial determination that the plaintiff is not obligated under a collective bargaining contract to arbitrate the disputes involved. After the issuance of a temporary injunction, ex parte, the defendants filed a demurrer, to the overruling of which they excepted, and the case was transferred. During the oral arguments before this court counsel agreed to waive certain claims and to submit only the questions of whether the demurrer was properly overruled and whether the dispute about vacation pay was arbitrable under the contract.
The agreement, which is a part of the reserved case, is signed by the negotiating committee and general representative of the union and the agent of the plaintiff company. It contains fifteen articles under separate headings, certain significant ones being: Article III, "minimum wages," article IV, "vacations and vacation pay" and article VI, "adjustment of grievances," covering arbitration. Further facts appear in the opinion. Transferred by Wheeler, J.
McLane, Davis, Carleton Graf (Mr. Stanley M. Brown orally), for the plaintiff.
Jacob M. Shulins (by brief and orally), for the defendants.
The court has jurisdiction to determine whether the dispute is arbitrable. Matter of Belding Hemingway Company, 295 N.Y. 541; International Association of Machinists a. v. Cutler-Hammer, Inc., 74 N.E. (2d.) 464. See also, Burleigh v. Ford, 59 N.H. 536, 539. Furthermore the plaintiff's legal remedy is clearly inadequate and the demurrer was properly overruled. It was faced with a choice of refusing to arbitrate and thereby perhaps breaking the contract which would have freed the defendants from their no-strike obligation, or by participating in arbitration it might have been held to have waived its claim that the disputes were not arbitrable (Restatement, Contracts, s. 445, s. 550, comment a.) and thereby have been bound by the award according to the provisions of the contract. See Straw v. Truesdale, 59 N.H. 109. Therefore there was no error in the issuance of an injunction staying interlocutory proceedings until the parties' rights could be finally determined. See American Motorists Ins. Co. v. Rush, 88 N.H. 383, 384; American Motorists Ins. Co. v. Garage, 86 N.H. 362, 364.
The answer to the remaining question before us depends on whether vacation pay should be considered as wages which are admittedly a subject for arbitration under article VI of the collective bargaining agreement. It is fundamental in this jurisdiction that the interpretation of a written contract is for this court (Pettee v. Chapter, 86 N.H. 419; Irwin v. Blain, 95 N.H. 20, and cases cited) and that the test to determine the sense of words is to inquire what they meant to those who used them. State v. Downes, 79 N.H. 505, 506; Cordopatis v. Bakalopoulos, 79 N.H. 77, 78; Lord v. Meader, 73 N.H. 185, 187, 188; Kendall v. Green, 67 N.H. 557, 562. Applying this test we have no hesitation in saying under the agreement before us that vacation pay is included in the term wages and therefore arbitrable. We believe that ordinary men in the position of these individual defendants would have thought of vacation pay as part of their pay or wages and no reason appears why the same meaning should not have been equally plain to their employer. There can be little doubt that workers generally consider the money which comes to them as a result of their labors, whether it be regular pay, overtime or vacation pay as a part of their wages and courts have recognized this fact. In re Wil-Low Cafeterias, 111 Fed. (2d) 429; In re Public Ledger, Inc., 161 Fed. (2d) 762.
The plaintiff's argument that wages are more subject to change and controversy than vacation pay and hence more properly a matter for arbitration does not impress us as entitled to great weight. Vacation pay also varies under the contract here in accordance with earnings and obviously is apt to become controversial as in the present instance. Nor is it controlling that vacation pay is under a separate article from that devoted to wages and that the word "pay" rather than wages, is used. The agreement must be viewed as a whole and "The language used by the parties is not to be construed by arbitrary definitions of the words employed. The question always is: what did the terms employed mean to the parties using them?" Lord v. Meader, supra, 187, 188. We hold therefore that the dispute is one for arbitration and the order is
Injunction dissolved; bill dismissed.
All concurred.