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IV.

Dorsey filed this action in April 1996, more than nine months after his transfer from flight training supervisor to assistant chief pilot. UPS argues that the statute of limitations has run on Dorsey's claim that his transfer was discriminatory and in retaliation for his attempt to organize the pilots. Although the Railway Labor Act does not provide a statute of limitations, UPS asserts that the statute of limitations is six months, borrowing the six month statute of limitations from the National Labor Relations Act. Our court has not specified that this statute of limitations applies to such claims under the Railway Labor Act. But whatever the statute of limitations may be, it did not run in this case. Dorsey did not discover, and could not have discovered, the extent of his injury until he was discharged. His pay was not reduced when he was transferred, and his fate with the company was unclear during the period after he was transferred. The transfer was only the first step of the plan of UPS to deliver the coup de gras to his career in the company. The statute of limitations, whatever it may be, did not start running until the company finally discharged him for his organizing activities. So long as the company was willing to pay him his old salary, and ask him for only a minimal amount of work, while at least on the surface allowing him to continue organizing, his injury was not apparent. Dorsey does not seek compensation or any other remedy for his retaliatory transfer but only for his discharge. The retaliatory transfer was only the first step along the road to discharge. Whatever may be the length of the statute of limitations for the Railway Labor Act, it is not a bar to this action which was filed only a few days after Dorsey was fired and discovered the real extent of his injury.

Accordingly, the summary judgment in favor of the defendant on the issue of liability under the Railway Labor Act is reversed and the case is remanded to the district court with instructions to grant the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability and to submit the question of damages suffered by the plaintiff to trial by jury in accordance with plaintiff's prayer for relief in his complaint. The court does not reach any arguments by plaintiff for an award of punitive damages or any other measure of damages for these are questions which should be decided in the first instance by the district court. Footnotes


* The Honorable Ann Aldrich, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.