Unite Here Local 1 v. Magnificent Mile Hotel Management, LLC

── Unite Here Local 1 v. Magnificent Mile Hotel Management, LLC ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Date: June 05, 2026 Category: General In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-1265 UNITE HERE LOCAL 1, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MAGNIFICENT MILE HOTEL MANAGEMENT, LLC, doing busi- ness as Chicago Hotel Collection, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:24-cv-00707 — April M. Perry, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED SEPTEMBER 22, 2025 — DECIDED JUNE 5, 2026 ____________________ Before EASTERBROOK, ROVNER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. A hotel fired one of its em- ployees after he displayed a knife in the workplace and an- other employee felt threatened. The fired worker’s union filed a grievance, but the hotel refused to arbitrate. District Judge Kendall ordered the hotel to proceed using an arbitrator cho- sen from a list; that arbitrator then found that displaying the knife justified a suspension without pay but did not supply 2 No. 25-1265 just cause for discharge. He ordered the employee reinstated, with back pay less ten days’ wages. The hotel refused to com- ply, and, in response to a motion to confirm, District Judge Perry (to whom the case had been transferred) ordered it to do so. This proceeding was within the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction under the holding of Jules v. Andre Balazs Proper- ties, 146 S. Ct. 1209 (2026). According to the collective bargaining agreement, an arbi- trator will be chosen randomly from a list of nine persons named in the agreement. One of the union’s representatives typed all nine names into the web site www.random.org; it designated Peter Meyers. The hotel refused to proceed, how- ever, contending that Meyers should be disqualified because he was already arbitrating another dispute between the union and the hotel. When the union asked a federal court to compel arbitration, the hotel asked the judge to pick an arbitrator un- der 9 U.S.C. §5, observing that, despite the agreement’s lan- guage, the union and the employer usually chose arbitrators by mutual agreement or by striking names from the list until only one was left. Section 5 provides: If in the agreement provision be made for a method of naming or appointing an arbitrator or arbitrators or an umpire, such method shall be followed; but if no method be provided therein, or if a method be provided and any party thereto shall fail to avail him- self of such method, or if for any other reason there shall be a lapse in the naming of an arbitrator or arbitrators or umpire, or in filling a vacancy, then upon the application of either party to the contro- versy the court shall designate and appoint an arbitrator or arbi- trators or umpire, as the case may require, who shall act under the said agreement with the same force and effect as if he or they had been specifically named therein; and unless otherwise provided in the agreement the arbitration shall be by a single arbitrator. No. 25-1265 3 Judge Kendall thought the dispute covered by the first clause of the first sentence: if the agreement provides a method for selecting an arbitrator, that method must be used. She did not perceive any “lapse” that would justify the judicial selection of an arbitrator. The fact that union and employer often devi- ated from the random-selection method does not change that method or make it inadequate. (The agreement itself says that union and employer may mutually choose an arbitrator with- out going through random selection.) The agreement specifies a method of selection; it does not say