## Facts

- The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball and the World Umpires Association (WUA) were parties to a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) governing Major League umpires.
- The CBA established two dispute-resolution tracks: (1) Article 10 for “discipline or termination,” described as the “sole and exclusive” remedy and not subject to Article 23 arbitration or any other forum; and (2) Article 23 for grievances concerning interpretation or application of the CBA and MLB rules/policies, culminating in arbitration.
- Article 10 listed a “warning issued to an umpire” as an example of discipline and provided that certain disciplinary decisions were final and binding, with no recourse to Article 23.
- In May 2002, MLB’s Vice President of Umpiring sent umpire John Hirschbeck a letter criticizing his conduct, asserting rules violations, and warning that future violations would have serious repercussions.
- The Commissioner treated the letter as a disciplinary warning.
- The WUA filed an Article 23 grievance challenging the letter, asserting it raised arbitrable issues about interpretation and application of the CBA, the Official Playing Rules, and MLB policies.
- The Commissioner sued seeking a declaration that the grievance was not arbitrable and an injunction barring arbitration; the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether the warning letter to Hirschbeck constituted “discipline” governed exclusively by Article 10, making the dispute non-arbitrable.
2. Whether the WUA could characterize the challenge to the warning letter as an Article 23 grievance about interpretation/application of rules and policies to compel arbitration despite Article 10’s carve-out.

## Decision

- The court granted summary judgment for the Commissioner’s Office.
- The court declared the WUA’s grievance non-arbitrable under the CBA.
- The court issued a permanent injunction preventing the WUA from proceeding to arbitration on the grievance.
- The court held the warning letter was “discipline” within the meaning of Article 10 and therefore excluded from Article 23 arbitration.

## Legal Principles

- When a CBA provides a specific disciplinary procedure as the “sole and exclusive” means to challenge discipline and expressly excludes such matters from the grievance/arbitration process, courts will enforce that exclusion.
- A written warning that admonishes an employee for alleged rule violations and threatens consequences for future misconduct may constitute “discipline” where the CBA identifies warnings as disciplinary measures.
- A party may not avoid a bargained-for arbitration exclusion by relabeling a challenge to disciplinary action as a dispute over interpretation or application of rules when the asserted interpretive dispute is inseparable from the disciplinary decision.
- Disputes over rules or policy interpretation may remain arbitrable under a general grievance clause when they are not embedded in, and do not function as, a challenge to a disciplinary decision covered by an exclusive disciplinary article.

## Conclusion

The court enforced the CBA’s separation between general grievances and discipline matters, holding that a warning letter qualifying as “discipline” fell within the exclusive Article 10 procedure and could not be arbitrated under Article 23, even if framed as a rule-interpretation dispute.


Office of the Comm’r of Baseball v. World Umpires Ass’n, 242 F. Supp. 2d 380 (S.D.N.Y. 2003)