Leon Beers v. Southern Pacific Transportation Company

The plaintiff-appellant Leon Beers (hereinafter “Beers”) was employed by defendant-appellee Southern Pacific Transportation Company (hereinafter “Southern Pacific”) in various capacities since 1963. From November 1979 to the time of this dispute, Beers was an engineer for Southern Pacific and a local chairman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE). As local chairman, Beers was responsible for processing the various grievances with Southern Pacific filed by the local members of BLE. The local chairman also represents a local member at any investigatory hearing which must be held before Southern Pacific could discipline an engineer. As a locomotive engineer, Beers’ position was covered by a collective bargaining agreement between Southern Pacific and BLE governed by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.

On October 30,1980, Beers was representing a fellow engineer under charge at an investigatory hearing. Prior to the hearing, Beers had a confrontation with defendant W.J. Gould, a supervisory employee of Southern Pacific. Heated words were exchanged and Beers engaged in name-calling. Thereafter, Beers twice refused to apologize when asked to do so. A charge…