561 U.S. 287, 302-03 (2010)
Petitioner Granite Rock Company is a concrete and building materials company that has operated in California since 1900 and employs approximately 800 employees under labor contracts with several unions, including respondent International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 287.1
Granite Rock and Local were parties to a 1999 collective-bargaining agreement that expired in April 2004.2 After negotiations reached an impasse, Local members initiated a strike on June 9, 2004, in support of their contract demands.3
The strike continued until July 2, 2004, when the parties reached agreement on the terms of a new collective-bargaining agreement containing a no-strike clause and an arbitration clause.4 At the end of that negotiating session, Local's business representative approached Granite Rock about executing a separate back-to-work agreement that would hold union members harmless for damages incurred during the June 2004 strike, but no such agreement was executed and Local voted to ratify the new agreement on July 2 without it.5
Respondent IBT, which had advised Local throughout the negotiations and supported the June strike, opposed Local's decision to return to work without a hold-harmless agreement and instructed Local's members not to honor their agreement to return to work on July 5.6 On July 6, 2004, Local's representative demanded a hold-harmless agreement, but Granite Rock refused and informed Local that continued strike activity would violate the new agreement's no-strike clause.7 IBT and Local responded by announcing a companywide strike involving numerous facilities and hundreds of workers, including members of other IBT locals.8
IBT provided pay and benefits to members who refused to return to work, directed Local's negotiations, supported Local with a $1.2 million loan, and represented that it had unilateral authority to end the work stoppage in exchange for a hold-harmless agreement.9 On July 9, 2004, Granite Rock sued IBT and Local in the District Court, invoking federal jurisdiction under LMRA § 301(a), seeking strike-related damages for breach of contract, and requesting an injunction against the ongoing strike on the ground that the hold-harmless dispute was an arbitrable grievance.10
The unions conceded § 301(a) jurisdiction but asserted that the new agreement was never validly ratified on July 2.11 After a Local member testified that the new agreement had been put to a ratification vote on July 2 and unanimously approved, Granite Rock moved for a new trial.12 On August 22, while that motion was pending, Local conducted a second successful ratification vote, and on September 13 the unions called off the strike.13 The District Court granted Granite Rock a new trial on its damages claims, denied Local's motion to send the ratification-date dispute to arbitration, and submitted the question to a jury, which unanimously found that Local ratified the agreement on July 2, 2004.14
The District Court entered the verdict and ordered arbitration on Granite Rock's breach-of-contract claims.15 Granite Rock amended its complaint to add federal tortious-interference claims against IBT, which the District Court dismissed on the ground that § 301(a) supports a federal cause of action only for breach of contract.16 The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the tortious-interference claims but reversed the arbitration order, holding that the ratification-date dispute was a matter for an arbitrator to resolve under the agreement's arbitration clause.17 The Supreme Court granted certiorari.18
Whether the parties' dispute over the collective-bargaining agreement's ratification date was a matter for the District Court, not an arbitrator, to resolve?19
A court may order arbitration of a particular dispute only when satisfied that the parties agreed to arbitrate that dispute.20 Whether parties have agreed to arbitrate a particular dispute is typically an issue for judicial determination, as is a dispute over an arbitration contract's formation.21 Courts adhere to the same framework in labor cases invoking the federal policy favoring arbitration of labor disputes.22 They apply the presumption of arbitrability only where a validly formed and enforceable arbitration agreement is ambiguous about whether it covers the dispute at hand.23 They order arbitration only where the presumption is not rebutted.24 The presumption should be applied only where it reflects a judicial conclusion that arbitration of a particular dispute is what the parties intended because their express agreement to arbitrate was validly formed, is legally enforceable, and is best construed to encompass the dispute.25
Yes. The parties' dispute over whether the CBA was ratified on July 2 or August 22 calls into question the formation of the arbitration clause itself.26 The clause covers only disputes arising under the CBA and presupposes the CBA's existence.27 The District Court therefore properly resolved the ratification-date question through a jury trial rather than sending it to an arbitrator.28 The Ninth Circuit erred when it applied the presumption of arbitrability to the ratification-date dispute without first confirming that a validly formed arbitration agreement existed at the time of the July strike.
Local's theory that the ratification-date dispute relates to the no-strike claim fails if the CBA was not formed until August 22 because no agreement would then exist for the July dispute to arise under. The ratification-date dispute also falls outside the scope of the arbitration clause's arising under language.29 A question concerning the CBA's very existence cannot fairly be said to arise under the CBA.30 The clause's remaining provisions limit arbitration to disagreements addressed in the CBA and subject to mandatory mediation.31
The parties' dispute over the CBA's ratification date was a matter for the District Court, not an arbitrator, to resolve.32
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justice Stevens
Justice Sotomayor joined Part III of the opinion but dissented from the conclusion that the arbitration provision does not cover the parties' dispute over whether Local breached the CBA's no-strike clause.33 She reasoned that the parties executed a CBA in December 2004 that was expressly made retroactively effective from May 1, 2004.34 Because the CBA was retroactive, the ratification-date defense is not a formation dispute requiring judicial resolution but instead goes to the merits of whether the no-strike clause applies to the July work stoppage.
The dispute is therefore a matter for the arbitrator under the broad arbitration clause covering all disputes arising under the agreement.35 She would have affirmed the Ninth Circuit on this alternative ground.36
Whether the Ninth Circuit erred in declining to recognize a new federal common-law cause of action under LMRA § 301(a) for the international union's alleged tortious interference with the collective-bargaining agreement?37
Section 301(a) authorizes federal courts to fashion a body of federal common law for the enforcement of collective bargaining agreements.38 That authority is confined to a common law of contracts rather than a source of independent tort rights.39 Creating a new federal common-law tort cause of action would require a host of policy choices that could upset the carefully calibrated balance federal statutes strike between employer and union relations.40 It is premature to recognize such a cause of action when other potential avenues for relief, such as NLRB proceedings, have not been fully tested and have already produced favorable judgments for the employer.41
No. The Ninth Circuit did not err in declining to recognize a new federal common-law tort claim under § 301(a) for IBT's alleged tortious interference with the CBA.42 Granite Rock has not exhausted alternative avenues such as NLRB unfair labor practice proceedings, which already produced a favorable order against both Local and IBT with retroactive effect given to the July 2 CBA.43 The record also suggests that agency or alter ego claims against IBT may be viable, and state-law remedies were not litigated below.44 Recognizing a new tort claim would require policy choices best left to Congress given the calibrated balance in federal labor statutes.45
The Ninth Circuit did not err in declining to recognize a new federal common-law cause of action under LMRA § 301(a) for the international union's alleged tortious interference with the collective-bargaining agreement.46