Case ID: f-appx_55/html/0644-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

C.K. HOUCHINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, and Michael F. Brady; Jeffery S. Dawson; Edward Allen French; J.W. Fulp; John A. Gray; Jarrell Dale Halsey; Garland A. Harris; George T. Harmon; Freddy Howell; James C. Hurt; Roger L. Martin; Howard J. Morrison; George Pack, Jr.; Thomas Perdue, Sr.; Rufus Spencer, Jr.; Robert Wilkes, Plaintiffs, v. NORFOLK & WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY, a statutory corporation, Defendant-Appellee, v. UNITED TRANSPORTATION UNION, Third Party Defendant.
    No. 02-2194.
    United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
    Submitted Jan. 27, 2003.
    Decided Feb. 6, 2003.
    C.K. Houchins, Appellant Pro Se. Scott Kevin Sheets, Huddleston, Bolen, Beatty, Porter & Copen, Huntington, West Virginia; Jeffrey Stephen Berlin, Mark E. Martin, Krista Leigh Edwards, Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., for Appellee.
    Before WILLIAMS and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.
    Affirmed by unpublished PER CURIAM opinion.
   OPINION

PER CURIAM.

Charles K. Houchins appeals the district court’s order granting the Appellee’s motion to dismiss on the ground that Houch-ins’ claim is time barred. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

This civil action was originally filed in December 2001 by seventeen current or former employees of Norfolk & Western Railway (“NWR”) in West Virginia state court. These Plaintiffs alleged that NWR discriminated against them because of their age by ranking them at the bottom of the conductor seniority list in April 1992, in violation of the West Virginia Human Rights Act, W. Va.Code §§ 5-11-1, et seq. (“WVHRA”). NWR removed the case to the district court, claiming that the Plaintiffs’ claim arose under the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. §§ 151, et seq. (“RLA”). NWR filed a motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ claim, contending it is preempted by the RLA, or in the alternative, is untimely under the WVHRA. The district court granted NWR’s motion to dismiss on the reasoning that the Plaintiffs’ WVHRA claim was untimely under West Virginia law and found it unnecessary to discuss the preemption issue. Fairly construed, the argument made by Houchins on appeal is that the district court should not have reached his state claim because the action was improvidently removed to federal court.

A district court may dismiss a state law claim “whose lack of merit is apparent” without deciding whether the case arose under federal law for purposes of removal jurisdiction, see Childers v. Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. Co., 881 F.2d 1259, 1262 (4th Cir.1989). We find it is apparent that Houchins’ claim under WHVRA lacks merit. See McCourt v. Oneida Coal Co., 188 W.Va. 647, 425 S.E.2d 602 (W.Va.1992) (applying two-year limitation period under W. Va.Code § 55-2-12 to actions under the WVHRA). Thus, the district court properly granted NWR’s motion to dismiss. See Childers, 881 F.2d at 1262.

Accordingly, we affirm. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED.