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Applying the Historical Test to New Claims

Case: Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers, Local No. 391 v. Terry (1990, US) [pp.
550-561]

Parties: Plaintiff - Chauffeurs, etc. (union) Petitioners


Defendant - Terry (union members) Respondents

Facts: McLean Trucking and union members, were parties to a collective


bargaining agreement which governed employment at McLean. The Ps here were union
members employed as truck drivers at McLean. McLean started lay-offs and union
members filed a grievance with the union alleging that McLean breached the
collective bargaining agreement. This happened a couple of times, and the union
finally decided that McLean had acted legitimately, and P's 3rd grievance was not
referred to a grievance committee; instead, the union ruled that the relevant
issues had already been decided. The union member then brought a suit against
McLean and the union, alleging that McLean had breached the collective bargaining
agreement, and that the union had breached its duty of fair representation. Ps
sought a permanent injunction for McLean to restore their seniority & cease their
illegal activity, and for compensatory damages for lost wages and health
benefits. McLean filed for bankruptcy, and all claims against them was voluntarily
dismissed. Ps sought a jury trial, but union moved to strike the demand for a jury
trial, on the grounds that there was no right to a jury trial in a duty of fair
representation suit. Court denied motion to strike, holding Ps right to a jury
trial. Union appeals.

Issue: Does Pl have a right to a jury trial?

Reasoning:
• Justice Marshall:
○ the right to a jury trial provided by the 7th Amendment encompasses more
than the common law forms of action recognized in 1791, but rather any lawsuit in
which parties’ legal rights were to be determined, as opposed to suits which only
involve equitable rights and remedies.
○ He proposed a two-part test:
§ Compare the statutory action created by Congress to the 18th century
actions brought in the courts of England prior to the merger of the courts of law
and equity (here it fails)
□ D's argues that since actions to enforce collective bargaining
agreements were unknown in England 18th century, P's action for a jury trial was
basically an attempt to vacate an arbitration award, which historically was
considered an action in equity.
® Marshall rejects this because there had been no
arbitration with regards to the union’s duty of fair representation.
□ D argues that the suit was comparable to an action for breach
of fiduciary duty, which was an equitable action, and P countered that is was more
similar to an action against an attorney for malpractice, which was an action at
law.
® Marshall concedes that the analogy to a trust action was
more convincing, but reasoned that the right to a jury trial depended more on the
nature of the issues to be tried. Although there was a fiduciary duty issue
between the plaintiffs and the union, there was also an underlying breach of
contract—that of the collective bargaining agreement between McLean and the
plaintiffs.
§ Examine the remedy sought by the plaintiff to determine whether it
was legal or equitable in nature.
□ The only remaining remedy the plaintiffs sought against the
union was compensatory damages, which are the traditional legal remedy. While
restitutionary remedies such as back pay and benefits may be characterized as
equitable when sought from an employer, the damages here were sought from the
Union. Thus, Marshall held that the plaintiffs were requesting a legal remedy, and
have a right to a jury.

• Justice Brennan concurred, but desired to simplify the test for determining a
plaintiff’s Seventh Amendment rights.
○ Specifically, he felt that it was unnecessary to examine the nature of the
action itself, but rather to simply examine the type of relief requested by the
plaintiff. If the plaintiff requested a legal remedy (such as monetary damages),
Brennan would simply assume that the right to a jury trial existed.
○ Brennan went on to criticize the Court’s historical analysis of
traditional equitable and legal causes of action. Many of the statutory rights
created by Congress are not analogous to anything which existed in the courts of
18th-century England, and judges lack the historical training to analyze such
matters consistently. Different justices and historians have come to different
conclusions as to what is analogous to a “legal” or “equitable” action. He
concluded that the right to a jury trial was too important for the Court to allow
for such an uncertainty.

• Dissent: Justice Kennedy:


○ (looks at Marshall's 1st test) argues that the analogy to an equitable
trust action should have been dispositive in this case. He further argued that the
relationship between the union and its workers was more similar to the
relationship between a trustee and a beneficiary than an attorney and his client,
because a union had a duty of fair representation to all of its workers and did
not normally be compelled to act as an agent by one beneficiary. He also stated
that the relief sought by the plaintiffs was equitable in nature, because it
sought to make the plaintiffs whole, and that the majority unnecessarily separated
out the legal and equitable issues in this case.
○ Justice Kennedy defended the historical comparison of the cause of action
to the “suits at common law” available in 1791. He felt that to expand the right
beyond what was available to plaintiffs at the time of the ratification of the
Bill of Rights was nothing more than rewriting the Constitution, stating “[w]e
cannot preserve a right existing in 1791 unless we look to history to identify
it”. 494 U.S. at 593.

Rule: An action for compensatory damages for an alleged breach of the duty of fair
representation is legal in nature, unless it seeks injunctive or restitutionary
relief.

Class Notes
• Terry says his transfer violated collective bargaining agreement, and sues union
for failing to pursue that grievance.
• Demands trial by jury for action against union.
• The statute that union breached does not require jury trial, so he only this
right according to 7th amendment.
○ 1st: look at the claim - is action more similar to attorney malpractice
(legal), or an action for breach of trust (equitable)?
§ This claim could not have been brought in 1791, b/c the claim would
have been illegal then
○ 2nd: look at remedy sought
§ The fact that it is money is not dispositive, rather, the money that
they are getting is the wages and benefits they would have rec'd from employer had
union properly represented them. This is like attorney malpractice - what you
would have gotten from D if attorney did work properly
§ Preference to jury trial

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