Swan,
I have read the B&W blog numerous times. It reads almost as bad as a Seham logic train of thought. As a matter of fact it slams Seham for not brining up the east ALPA MEC lawsuit. The funny thing is it quotes judge Wake's assessment of usapa ( "usapa has at various stages misstated law, facts, and procedural history, with frequent recousre to the contradiction or confusion.....produced by a medley of judicial phrases severed from their enviroment") but is just a guilty of doing the same thing. Wilder has a dog in the fight, he advised the east MEC prior to usapa's election, and told them usapa would be unable to change the Nic. Why did he change his mind? In short the guy is a schmuck, he agrees that Wake ruled correctly that usapa was bound as the successor union to ALPA, then turns and argues that usapa does not have to pay any attention to the agreements he just said they were bound to.
The West has not shrugged off the 9th's decision. We understand the points being made by Wilder, inaccurate as they may be. We do not take the advice of Vasin, we take the advice of Polsinelli Shugart. We are not going to re-litigate the same case, argue the same facts and hear Sully's embarassing testimony a second time. If this ever becomes "unquestionably ripe" (which I doubt it ever will because the company is not going to get itself sued for usapa's benefit), we point to Addington, say hey judge, we already litigated this, and we already have a verdict. Starting to understand the 9ths "pain of an unquestionably ripe DFR" quote yet? Maybe Wilder or the longshoreman can chime in on collateral estoppel.
