Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3 v. Newmont Mining Corp.

Newmont Mining Corporation appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3 in the Union’s action to compel arbitration. Newmont and the Union were parties to a collective bar gaining agreement. Newmont terminated the employment of Samuel Taylor, an employee represented by the Union, for allegedly falsifying a tool request form. Newmont declined to arbitrate the termination, on the ground that the parties’ collective bargaining agreement expired prior to Taylor’s discharge. The district court found that the parties were bound by the expired agreement’s arbitration provision because the “key or critical facts” involved -in the dispute took place prior to the agreement’s expiration.

We affirm, but by a somewhat different analysis than that adopted by the district court. We conclude that the parties contracted to arbitrate the significant question of whether Taylor falsified the tool request form, an incident that, if it occurred, took place before the collective bargaining agreement expired. We therefore hold that the parties’ dispute arises under the expired agreement and that the matter must be submitted to arbitration.

I.…