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WHITE, J., dissenting in part

cordingly, I would hold that jurisdiction under § 1983 was properly invoked in these cases under Thiboutot.

VI

I would vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the cases for further proceedings. This litigation does not involve the exercise of congressional power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment as the Court of Appeals held, but is an exercise of the spending power. What an appropriate remedy might be where state officials fail to observe the limits of their power under the United States Constitution or fail to perform an ongoing statutory duty imposed by a federal statute enacted under the commerce power or the Fourteenth Amendment is not necessarily the measure of a federal court's authority where it is found that a State has failed to perform its obligations undertaken pursuant to a statute enacted under the spending power. The State's duties in the latter situation do not arise until and unless the State chooses to receive federal funds. Furthermore, the State may terminate such statutory obligations, except those already accrued, by withdrawing from the program and terminating its receipt of federal funds. It is settled that administrative oversight and termination of federal funding in the event of a State's failure to perform its statutory duties is not the sole remedy in Spending Clause cases. "It is . . . peculiarly part of the duty of this tribunal, no less in the welfare field than in other areas of the law, to resolve disputes as to whether federal funds allocated to the States are being expended in consonance with the conditions that Congress has attached to their use." Rosado v. Wyman, supra, at 422-423. It is equally clear, however, that the courts in such cases must take account of the State's privilege to withdraw and terminate its duties under the federal law. Although the court may enjoin the enforcement of a discrete state statutory provision or regulation or may order state officials prospectively to perform their duties incident to the

WHITE, J., dissenting in part

451 U.S.

receipt of federal funds, the prospective force of such injunctions cannot survive the State's decision to terminate its participation in the program. Furthermore, there are cases in which there is no identifiable statutory provision whose enforcement can be prohibited. Rosado v. Wyman was such a case, and there, after finding that the State was not complying with the provisions of the Social Security Act, we remanded the case to the District Court to "afford [the State] an opportunity to revise its program in accordance with [federal requirements]" as we had construed them to be, but to retain jurisdiction "to review. . . any revised program adopted by the State, or, should [the State] choose not to submit a revamped program by the determined date, issue its order restraining the further use of federal monies

397 U. S.,

at 421-422. See Lau v. Nichols, 414 U. S. 563 (1974).

It is my view that the Court of Appeals should have adopted the Rosado approach in these cases. It found the State to be in noncompliance with the federal statute in major respects and proceeded to impose a far-reaching remedy, approving the appointment of a Special Master to decide which of the Pennhurst inmates should remain and which should be moved to community-based facilities. More properly, the court should have announced what it thought was necessary to comply with the Act and then permitted an appropriate period for the State to decide whether it preferred to give up federal funds and go its own route. If it did not, it should propose a plan for achieving compliance, in which event, if it satisfied the court, a decree incorporating the plan could be entered and if the plan was unsatisfactory, the further use of federal funds could be enjoined. In any event, however, the court should not have assumed the task of managing Pennhurst or deciding in the first instance which patients should remain and which should be removed. As we recently recognized in Parham v. J. R., 442 U. S. 584 (1979): "The mode and procedure of medical diagnostic procedures is not the business of judges. What is best for a

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WHITE, J., dissenting in part

child is an individual medical decision that must be left to the judgment of physicians in each case. We do no more than emphasize that the decision should represent an independent judgment of what the child requires and that all sources of information that are traditionally relied on by physicians and behavioral specialists should be consulted." Id., at 607-608. Cf. Addington v. Texas, 441 U. S. 418, 429 (1979) (commitment depends "on the meaning of the facts which must be interpreted by expert psychiatrists and psychologists"). In enacting § 6010, Congress eschewed creating any specific guidelines on the proper level of institutionalization, leaving the question to the States to determine in the first instance. A court-appointed Special Master is inconsistent with this approach.

Accordingly, I would vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the cases for further proceedings.

UNITED PARCEL SERVICE, INC. v. MITCHELL ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

No. 80-169. Argued February 24, 1981-Decided April 20, 1981 After respondent employee had been discharged by petitioner employer for alleged dishonest acts, respondent requested his union to file a grievance contesting the discharge. The collective-bargaining agreement provided a grievance and arbitration procedure for the resolution of covered disputes. Respondent was represented by the union at an arbitration hearing which resulted in a decision upholding the discharge. Seventeen months later, respondent filed suit in Federal District Court against the union and petitioner under § 301 (a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, alleging that the union had breached its duty of fair representation and that petitioner discharged him not for the stated reasons, which it knew to be false, but to replace full-time employees with part-time employees. The court granted summary judgment for the defendants on the ground that the action was barred by New York's 90-day statute of limitations for actions to vacate arbitration awards. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the District Court should have applied New York's 6-year limitations period for breach-of-contract actions.

Held: Given the choices present here, and the undesirability of the results of the grievance and arbitral process being suspended in limbo for long periods, the District Court properly chose the 90-day period for the bringing of an action to vacate an arbitration award. Cf. Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554. Pp. 60-64.

(a) The timeliness of a § 301 suit is to be determined, as a mafter of federal law, by reference to the appropriate state statute of limitations, and the determination of which limitations period is the most appropriate depends upon the nature of the federal claim and the federal policies involved. Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U. S. 696. Pp. 60–61.

(b) Although not styled as one to vacate the arbitration award, respondent's suit, if successful, would have that direct effect. He raised the same claim that was raised before the arbitrators-that he was discharged in violation of the collective-bargaining agreement. He sought the same relief-reinstatement with full backpay. While his underlying claim against his employer was based on the collective

bargaining agreement, the indispensable predicate for the § 301 (a) action was not a showing under traditional contract law that the discharge was a breach of the agreement, but instead that the union breached its duty of fair representation. Since the arbitrators' conclusion was, under the collective-bargaining agreement, "binding on all parties," respondent was required to show that the union's duty to represent him fairly at the arbitration had been breached before he was entitled to reach the merits of his contract claim. Thus, the suit is more analogous to an action to vacate an arbitration award than to a straight contract action. Pp. 61–62.

(c) An employee's unfair representation claim against his union, even though his employer may ultimately be called upon to respond in damages if he is successful, is more a creature of "labor law" as it has developed since the enactment of § 301 than it is of general contract law. And one of the leading federal policies in this area is the relatively rapid disposition of labor disputes. The system of industrial self-government, with its heavy emphasis on grievance, arbitration, and the "law of the shop," could easily become unworkable if a decision which has given "meaning and content" to the terms of an agreement, and even affected subsequent modifications of the agreement, could suddenly be called into question as much as six years later. Pp. 63–64. 624 F. 2d 394, reversed.

REHNQUIST, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C. J., and BRENNAN, WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, and POWELL, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 64. STEWART, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 65. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 71.

Bernard G. Segal argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was James D. Crawford. Albert S. Parsonnet filed a brief for Local 177, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, respondent under this Court's Rule 19.6, in support of petitioner.

David Jaroslawicz argued the cause for respondent Mitchell. With him on the brief was Ira Leitel.*

*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by J. Albert Woll, Laurence Gold, Michael H. Gottesman, and Robert M. Weinberg for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations;