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GREENHOUSE HOLDINGS, LLC,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES DISTRICT COUNCIL 91,
Defendant-Appellant.
   No. 21-6164
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky at Owensboro.
No. 4:21-cv-00029—Joseph H. McKinley, Jr., District Judge.
Argued: July 26, 2022
Decided and Filed: August 8, 2022
Before: GILMAN, GRIFFIN, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.


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OPINION
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THAPAR, Circuit Judge. Arbitrators have broad authority. The question here is whether that authority allows the arbitrator to bind a non-signatory (someone who hasn’t signed an underlying arbitration agreement) to an arbitration award. He could if there’s clear and unmistakable evidence that the non-signatory agreed to arbitrate that question. But the district court didn’t resolve this fact-intensive threshold issue. So we vacate and remand.



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OPERATING ENGINEERS’ LOCAL 324 FRINGE BENEFIT FUNDS; TRUSTEES OF THE OPERATING ENGINEERS’ LOCAL 324 FRINGE BENEFIT FUNDS,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
RIETH-RILEY CONSTRUCTION CO., INC.,
Defendant-Appellee.
   No. 21-1229
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.
No. 2:20-cv-10323—David M. Lawson, District Judge.
Argued: December 8, 2021
Decided and Filed: August 8, 2022
Before: CLAY, DONALD, and NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judges.


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OPINION
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NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judge. When an employer refuses to pay into its employees’ benefit funds, two federal statutes step in and offer relief. The first statute, ERISA, requires employers to contribute to employee benefit funds in line with the terms of a contract. When an employer breaches those terms, ERISA offers the jilted fund a federal vehicle for its breach-of-contract claim. And that claim comes within the “exclusive jurisdiction” of a federal district court. The second statute, the NLRA, gives employers a statutory duty to continue their contributions even after a contract expires. When an employer breaches that duty, the NLRA provides an unfair-labor-practice claim. And that claim comes within the exclusive purview of an administrative body, the NLRB.

Here, a group of employee benefit funds sued Rieth-Riley Construction Company for late contributions under ERISA. They brought their contract claim in a federal district court. Rieth-Riley responded with a factual attack on the district court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. It argued that the presence of a live contract is a jurisdictional prerequisite to the Funds’ ERISA suit and that no contract existed. This meant that the Funds’ claim belonged in the NLRB.

The district court sided with Rieth-Riley. Finding no contract bound the parties, it dismissed the suit on jurisdiction grounds. But the presence of a live contract goes to the merits of the Funds’ ERISA action, not the district court’s jurisdiction to hear it. So we reverse.



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AKNO 1010 MARKET STREET ST. LOUIS MISSOURI LLC,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
NAHID POURTAGHI,
Defendant-Appellee.
   No. 21-2959
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.
No. 2:18-cv-13498—Terrence George Berg, District Judge.
Decided and Filed: August 8, 2022
Before: GILMAN, GRIFFIN, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.


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OPINION
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Federal courts have subject-matter jurisdiction in certain cases where there is complete diversity of citizenship. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). Here, the parties and the district court spent years in discovery and dispositive motion practice without properly establishing the parties’ citizenship. Because we are not convinced that the parties are diverse, we vacate the district court’s judgment and remand for consideration of subject-matter jurisdiction.