Justia U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Petitioners filed a joint petition for review of an order of the Surface Transportation Board (Board), which found, among other things, that a railroad company's practice of charging petitioners interest on certain unpaid charges at a rate of 1-2% per month was not an unreasonable practice under 49 U.S.C. 10702(2). The Board filed a motion to dismiss the petition, arguing that 28 U.S.C. 1336(b) vested a federal district court with jurisdiction to review the Board's determination of the interest-rate issue to the extent one of the petitioners (Railroad Salvage) raised it. The court agreed and dismissed the petition to the extent that it asked the court to review the Board's resolution of the interest-rate issue with respect to Railroad Salvage. The court held that, although its jurisdiction to review the Board's determination of the interest-rate issue as to the other petitioner (Wiedeman) was not in dispute, its resolution of the issue could moot the referring district court's resolution of the issue with respect to Railroad Salvage. To ensure that the district court was allowed a meaningful review of the issue, the court held the petition in abeyance to the extent Wiedeman sought review of the Board's determination of the interest-rate issue.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainment ("BLET") filed a claim with the Union Pacific Railroad Company ("UP") seeking reinstatement and backpay for a member of the BLET when UP terminated him while he was working under a governing collective-bargaining agreement between the UP and the United Transportation Union ("UTU"). At issue was whether the National Railroad Adjustment Board ("NRAB") properly dismissed the claim. The court affirmed the dismissal and held that the NRAB did not ignore the Article C-17 contract provision in the agreement while interpreting the contract; that the NRAB's interpretation of Article C-17 did not violate 45 U.S.C. 153 First (j); the NRAB acted well within its power by invoking a "claim-processsing" rule; the NRAB was well within its authority in construing the agreement as enunciating the "usual manner" in this workplace; once the NRAB determined that the agreement was controlling, the other agreements and bargaining history became largely irrelevant; and the district court did not abuse its discretion where discovery would not have justified setting aside the NRAB's interpretation of the agreement, nor would it have uncovered a due process violation by the NRAB.