Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 19, 1991                   TAG: 9103190508
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

COURT LIMITS SUITS FILED BY MEMBERS AGAINST UNIONS

The justices unanimously threw out a lawsuit against the Air Line Pilots Association stemming from a disputed settlement of a Continental Air Lines pilots strike.

Writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia said the language of the disputed law "shows beyond question that attorney's fees and expert fees are distinct items of expense."

Writing for the court in the airline pilots' case, Justice John Paul Stevens said there is a "wide range of reasonableness within which unions may act without breaching their fair representation duty."

Even a bad strike settlement is not necessarily an unfair one to union members, he said.

"A settlement is not irrational simply because it turns out in retrospect to have been a bad settlement," Stevens said.

He said the decision of the pilots union to settle in the long run may have been a wiser course than a costly, protracted suit against Continental.

"In labor disputes as in other kinds of litigation, even a bad settlement may be more advantageous in the long run than a good lawsuit," he said.

The ruling is a victory for the Bush administration, which joined the pilots association in urging the court to limit judges' power to second-guess labor settlements.

The Justice Department had said that if the pilots union lost it would mean judges would be interjecting themselves into disputes better left to unions, management and federal mediators to resolve.

The case stemmed from a strike against financially troubled Continental that began in October 1983 and ended two years later. In the interim, more than 1,600 pilots either stayed on the job or were hired to replace the strikers - who numbered about 1,000.

The pilots association agreed to a settlement that gave striking pilots a chance to return to work on terms considerably less favorable than pilots who flew for Continental during the strike.

The striking pilots were allowed to bid for some vacant pilot jobs, but only on condition the company could assign them to any home base and to any plane. Pilots who worked during the strike retained their right to choose their home base and the type of plane they wished to fly.

Striking pilots sued in federal court, accusing the union of violating the Federal Railway Labor Act that governs employment for railroads and airlines.

The strikers said the pilots association agreed to a settlement that was irrational, arbitrary and less favorable than if the pilots simply had returned to work.

A federal judge threw out the suit. But it was reinstated in 1989 by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.