GLADYS KESSLER, District Judge.
Plaintiff National Railroad Passenger Corporation, best known as Amtrak ("Plaintiff" or "Amtrak"), brought this action to vacate an arbitration award under the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151
After a labor dispute between Amtrak and Defendant, the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 189 Labor Committee ("Defendant" or "the FOP") involving one of the FOP's members, on March 24, 2014, an Arbitrator issued a Decision and Award in favor of the FOP.
On July 10, 2015, and August 14, 2015, the Parties filed Cross-Motions for Summary Judgment.
On November 25, 2015, the FOP filed a Motion for Reconsideration ("Def.'s Mot.") [Dkt. No. 32], contending that the "Court's November 2, 2015 Memorandum Opinion [Dkt. No. 31] contains a number of legal errors which, if not corrected, will result in a manifest injustice to not only the FOP, but to any federal labor union subject to the investigatory powers of their respective inspectors general." Def.'s Mot. at 1. On December 8, 2015, Amtrak filed its Opposition ("Pl.'s Opp'n") [Dkt. No. 33], and on December 14, 2015, the FOP filed its Reply ("Def.'s Reply") [Dkt. No. 34].
Upon consideration of the FOP's Motion for Reconsideration, Amtrak's Opposition, the FOP's Reply, and the entire record herein, and for the reasons stated below, the Court finds the FOP's Motion to be without merit, and accordingly, the Motion shall be
The Court assumes familiarity with its previous Memorandum Opinion in this case and therefore summarizes only the most relevant facts.
On April 9, 2013, pursuant to the grievance procedure set forth in the Collective Bargaining Agreement ("CBA") between Amtrak and the' FOP, a former employee of the Amtrak Police Department ("APD") appealed her termination to an Arbitrator.
On March 24, 2014, the Arbitrator issued her Decision, holding that Amtrak did not have just cause to discharge the former officer because Amtrak's Office of Inspector General ("OIG") failed to abide by certain procedural requirements contained in Rule 50 of the Amtrak-FOP CBA during an investigatory interview of the APD officer.
Although Rule 50 does not specifically mention the OIG, the Arbitrator reasoned that its terms applied to OIG investigations because Amtrak agreed to the CBA containing Rule 50, and the OIG is part of Amtrak's workforce.
As a remedy for the officer's wrongful termination, the Arbitrator ordered Amtrak to reinstate the officer to her prior position with her previous level of seniority, back pay, and retroactive payment of benefits. Arbitrator's Decision at 22 [Dkt. No. 22-1].
The Arbitrator did not reach any other issues raised by the Parties and rested her Decision and Award entirely upon the OIG's failure to comply with Rule 50. Id. ("[Amtrak] did not have just cause to discharge Grievant Sarah Bryant because the procedural safeguards guaranteed to employees by Rule 50 were not afforded her during the . . . Amtrak OIG interrogation.").
Upon review of the Arbitrator's Decision, the Court held that application of Rule 50 to the OIG is contrary to the explicit, well-defined, and dominant public policy of Inspector General independence. Mem. Op. at 14 (citing the Inspector General Act, 5 U.S.C. App. 3 § 8G(d) (1)). The Court noted that
Mem. Op. at 14.
A motion for reconsideration under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) is "discretionary and need not be granted unless the district court finds that there is an intervening change in controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or to prevent manifest injustice."
The FOP contends that the Court's Memorandum Opinion in this case contains a number of legal errors that require correction. According to the FOP, these errors include the Court's failure 1) to address the FOP's argument that sources of law beyond the CBA limited the OIG's investigative powers in the same manner as Rule 50, 2) to balance the policy goals of the Railway Labor Act and the Inspector General Act, and 3) to prevent Amtrak from outsourcing internal investigations to its OIG instead of conducting them through the APD's Office of Internal Affairs ("OIA"). The Court finds none of the FOP's contentions to be compelling.
In its Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment, Defendant relied on Quality Standards of Investigations ("QSis"), which are issued by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency ("CIGIE"), to show that the CBA did nothing more than reassert limitations that were already binding on the OIG. Def.'s Cross-Mot. for Summ. J. at 27 ("Given that Amtrak's OIG incontrovertibly follows the standards set forth in the Council's QSI [sic], it is as disingenuous as it is hypocritical for Amtrak to suggest that its OIG is somehow immune from the strictures of Rule 50[.]").
According to the FOP, "in demanding that Amtrak's OIG honor the due-process protections guaranteed under Rule 50, the FOP is not imposing any further restrictions upon Amtrak OIG's independence than those which Congress has already imposed via the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008." Def.'s Reply at 13 (section heading written in all caps in original).
The FOP contends that "[t]he Court erred by ignoring altogether the FOP's argument concerning the statutory restrictions that Congress — not Amtrak or the FOP — placed on Amtrak's inspector general when Congress created the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency[.]" Def.'s Mot. at 1. According to the FOP, "the Court failed to make even a passing reference to the CIGIE or the [QSis] the CIGIE promulgates — standards by which Amtrak's [OIG] was statutorily bound to abide as a member of CIGIE[.J" Def.'s Mot. at 2.
The FOP continues, "The Court was and is obligated to address in at least
Defendant's argument, however, ignores the Court's discussion on page 20 of its Memorandum Opinion, where the Court stated:
Mem. Op. at 20 (emphasis added in the Memorandum Opinion).
The FOP's contention that the Arbitrator correctly enforced Rule 50 of the CBA because it imposed no additional restrictions on the OIG is not convincing because it relies on an inquiry into which negotiated procedures interfere with OIG authorities and which do not. Our Court of Appeals had stated squarely that such an inquiry conflicts with the OIG Act.
It is true that the Court does not discuss the intricacies of the QSis or the CIGIE or any other pre-existing `restrictions on the OIG's authority. No discussion is necessary — indeed, such an inquiry would conflict with
The FOP next claims that "[t]he Court also failed to perform any analysis whatsoever of the interplay between the statutory independence afforded to inspectors general under the Inspector General Act [] and the equal if not superior — statutory importance of free and uninhibited labor relations promoted by the Railway Labor Act ("RLA")." Def.'s Mot. at 2. "Because Rule 50 of the parties' collective negotiations agreement imposes no further restrictions upon the independence of Amtrak's inspector general to conduct investigations than those restrictions set forth by the CIGIE in the QSI, this Court erroneously concluded that the public policy goals of the [IG Act] trump the [RLA's] longstanding aim of promoting and ensuring labor stability through collective negotiations."
To a large extent, this argument merely restates the last, and so the Court again refers the FOP to our Court of Appeals' holding in
True, the labor-relations statute at issue in
For these reasons, the Court concludes, as it did in its Memorandum Opinion, that the principle of Inspector General independence underlying the IG Act prevails over the collective bargaining rights established by the federal labor relations statutes. Consequently, the FOP's second ground for reconsideration is without merit.
The FOP's final argument is that "the Court failed [] to appreciate the consequences of its decision to vacate [the] Arbitrator['s] March 24, 2014 [Decision] and Award — namely, the tacit endorsement of Amtrak's calculated effort to make a complete end-run around the due process protections that unmistakably govern APO [Office of Internal Affairs ("OIA")] investigations and to instead rely solely upon the poisoned fruits of Amtrak OIG investigations in meting out discipline to its employees." Def.'s Mot. at 9. The FOP fears that the Court's decision will lead to "a systemic practice of outsourcing all future APD OIA investigations to Amtrak's inspector general — or, at the very least, those select investigations for which Amtrak has a vested, tactical interest in shirking its contractual obligation to afford due-process protections prior to their commencement."
The FOP's final argument is that it is a violation of the IG Act itself for Amtrak to use the findings from an OIG investigation ("poisoned fruit") to "met[e] out discipline to its employees[.]" Def.'s Mot. at 9. This is a new argument which the FOP failed to raise in its Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment. The FOP points to language from its initial briefs indicating its fear that Amtrak would outsource internal investigations to its OIG.
Finally, to the extent that the FOP is simply voicing its policy concerns about the practical effects of the IG Act on agency operations, it must direct those concerns to Congress. This Court cannot provide the remedy that the FOP seeks.
For the foregoing reasons, the FOP's Motion for Reconsideration [Dkt. No. 32] shall be