Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05026/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05026-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 9, 2012 Decided June 21, 2013 

No. 11-7142 

GEORGE EMORY, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

v. 

UNITED AIR LINES, INC., A CORPORATION AND WHOLLY 

OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF UAL CORPORATION AND AIR LINE 

PILOTS ASSOCIATION, 

APPELLEES

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

INTERVENOR

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:08-cv-02227) 

No. 12-5026 

GRANT O. ADAMS, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

TROY G. AVERA, ET AL., 

APPELLEES

v. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 1 of 34
2 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ET AL., 

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:10-cv-01646) 

John S. Lopatto III argued the cause and filed the briefs 

for appellants in Case No. 11-7142. 

Granville C. Warner argued the cause for appellee Air 

Line Pilots Association International in Case No. 11-7142. 

Gary S. Kaplan argued the cause for appellee United Air 

Lines, Inc. in Case No. 11-7142. With them on the brief were 

Marta Wagner and Eric Jansen. Jonathan A. Cohen entered 

an appearance. 

Jonathan Turley argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellants in Case No. 12-5026. 

Edward Himmelfarb, Attorney, U.S. Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for appellees in Case No. 12-5026. 

With him on the brief were Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant 

Attorney General, Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and 

Michael Jay Singer, Attorney. 

Before: ROGERS and BROWN, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

 Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge BROWN. 

 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 2 of 34
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 BROWN, Circuit Judge: With the enactment of the Fair 

Treatment for Experienced Pilots Act of 2007 (“FTEPA” or 

“Act”), Pub. L. No. 110-135, 121 Stat. 1450, Congress 

repealed the Federal Aviation Administration’s (“FAA”) 

long-contested “Age 60 Rule” and extended the maximum 

age for piloting commercial flights by five years to 65. 

FTEPA marked a significant victory for opponents of the old 

regime, but not everyone was satisfied. Under the Act’s 

nonretroactivity provision, 49 U.S.C. § 44729(e)(1), pilots 

who had turned 60 prior to FTEPA’s enactment date and did 

not qualify for either one of two narrowly drawn statutory 

exceptions would be denied the benefits of the Age 65 Rule 

and, as was often the case, terminated. 

Denied these extra years of employment as commercial 

pilots, the aggrieved over-60 pilots sued. Plaintiffs in Adams 

v. United States, 796 F. Supp. 2d 67 (D.D.C. 2011), 

challenged the constitutionally of the nonretroactivity and 

protection-for-compliance provisions as well as FAA’s 

implementation of them.1

 By contrast, plaintiffs in Emory v. 

United Air Lines, Inc., 821 F. Supp. 2d 200 (D.D.C. 2011), 

supplemented their constitutional objections with a number of 

state and federal claims against their employer, United Air 

Lines (“United”), and their union, Air Line Pilots Association 

(“ALPA”), for advancing allegedly discriminatory 

interpretations of the nonretroactivity provision they knew — 

or should have known — to be incorrect. The District Courts 

 1

 A previous panel of this Court dismissed Adams’s original 

suit, a petition for review of an FAA order denying pilots 

exemptions from the Age 60 Rule, as moot under the then-recently 

enacted FTEPA. See Adams v. FAA, 550 F.3d 1174, 1176 (D.C. 

Cir. 2008) (“The Act, which expressly abrogates the Age 60 Rule, 

moots the petitions for review of the orders denying exemption 

from the Age 60 Rule.”). 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 3 of 34
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in both cases found in favor of the defendants, see Adams, 

796 F. Supp. 2d at 80; Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 243, and the 

present appeals followed.2

 

 Believing as we do that FTEPA passes constitutional 

muster and should be interpreted as the Emory defendants 

have done, we affirm the District Courts’ judgments as to all 

claims not dismissed as moot. 

I. BACKGROUND

First implemented in 1959, FAA’s so-called Age 60 Rule 

barred any person 60 years of age or older from serving as a 

pilot in flights conducted under Part 121 of the Federal 

Aviation Regulations. See 14 C.F.R. § 121.383(c) (2007).3

Although the Rule survived nearly a half-century’s worth of 

challenges in federal courts, see, e.g., Prof’l Pilots Fed’n v. 

FAA, 118 F.3d 758 (D.C. Cir. 1997), institutional support for 

the age 60 ceiling dwindled. In 2006, the International Civil 

Aviation Organization (“ICAO”) revised the maximum age 

 2

 “Although this court did not formally consolidate the 

separate appeals[,] . . . they were argued on the same day before the 

same panel, and we find it convenient to dispose of both appeals 

with a single opinion.” Hunt v. United States, 636 F.2d 580, 583 n.5 

(D.C. Cir. 1980). 

3

 “Part 121 governs the operations of most commercial 

airlines.” See Jones v. ALPA, 642 F.3d 1100, 1102 (D.C. Cir. 

2011); see also 14 C.F.R. § 121.1. The Age 60 Rule did not extend 

to certain non-commercial flights, including “Part 91” flights, often 

called “non-revenue or company flights,” Emory Appellants’ Br. 7, 

and applied only to captains and first officers, not certain other 

crew members such as flight engineers. See TWA v. Thurston, 469 

U.S. 111, 115 n.3 (1985). 

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from 60 to 65 for certain pilots in international operations. 

FAA responded by establishing the Age 60 Aviation 

Rulemaking Committee (“ARC”) to make recommendations 

regarding the adoption of the ICAO standard, but the 

“polarized” Commission, with its 17 members “representing 

pilot unions, airlines, the aeromedical community, and the 

FAA,” AGE 60 AVIATION RULEMAKING COMMITTEE, REPORT 

TO THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION 1, 31 (Nov. 29, 

2006), agreed on just one thing: “Any change to the Age 60 

Rule should be prospective.” Id. at 31. 

 Undeterred by the false start, FAA soldiered on. In 

January 2007, the agency announced it would amend the Age 

60 Rule. Congress, however, preempted this rulemaking with 

the passage of FTEPA in December 2007. Among other 

changes, FTEPA abrogated the Age 60 Rule as of the Act’s 

December 13, 2007, enactment date and replaced it with a 

new ceiling colloquially referred to as the “Age 65 Rule.” 49 

U.S.C. § 44729(d). Crucially, Congress gave the Age 65 Rule 

entirely prospective effect with just two exceptions. As 

codified in the Act’s “Nonretroactivity” provision, id.

§ 44729(e)(1), an over-60 pilot that served as a “required 

flight deck crew member” (“RFDCM”) on December 13, 

2007, id. § 44729(e)(1)(A), or was subsequently hired as a 

new pilot without seniority, id. § 44729(e)(1)(B), could return 

to piloting Part 121 flights until age 65. 

A safe harbor provision entitled “Protection for 

compliance” prevents any “action taken in conformance with 

this section . . . or taken prior to the date of enactment of this 

section in conformance with [the Age 60 Rule]” from 

“serv[ing] as a basis for liability or relief in a proceeding, 

brought under any employment law or regulation, before any 

court or agency of the United States or of any State or 

locality.” Id. § 44729(e)(2). 

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II. ADAMS V. UNITED STATES

A. OVERVIEW

The approximately 200 Adams plaintiffs can be split into 

two classes: (1) pilots who turned 60 and were retired under 

the Age 60 Rule some months or years before the December 

13, 2007, enactment date,4

 and (2) pilots who turned 60 

between December 1 and 12, 2007, but remained in the air 

carrier’s employ until December 31.5 Together they bring a 

veritable litany of constitutional and Administrative 

Procedure Act (“APA”) claims against FTEPA’s 

nonretroactivity and protection-for-compliance provisions as 

well as FAA’s purportedly arbitrary and unlawful 

implementation of the two. See Adams Compl. ¶¶ 310–98. 

Although initially justiciable, the passage of time has called 

into question our ability to provide effective relief in this suit 

against the government. We turn to that threshold issue now. 

B. MOOTNESS

An old axiom reminds us that time and tide wait for no 

 4

 Curiously, the complaint also names pilots who were over 65 

on December 13, 2007, Adams Compl. ¶ 17, as well as those who 

had not yet turned 60, Adams Compl. ¶¶ 52, 62. Whatever the 

explanation, we think it clear that these pilots are without standing 

to challenge a nonretroactivity provision that caused them no 

injury. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 

(1992). 

5

 This latter class includes George V. Emory and Lorenzo M. 

Sein, plaintiffs in the companion case. Adams Compl. ¶¶ 70, 188;

Emory Compl. ¶¶ 12(d); 12(f). 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 6 of 34
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man. Or pilot, we add. 

The window on the nonretroactivity provision closed 

December 13, 2012, the five-year anniversary of the Act’s 

enactment. On that date, every pilot for whom the prohibition 

against retroactivity (and the exemptions thereto) would have 

applied — pilots aged 60 to 64 the day FTEPA took effect — 

would have turned 65.6

 We can now say with mathematical 

certainty that all members of this temporally circumscribed 

class are disqualified under the Age 65 Rule from ever 

piloting Part 121 flights.7

 Restated, as of December 13, 2012, 

no pilot will ever be kept from — or allowed to return to — 

piloting Part 121 flights by operation of § 44729(e)(1). 

The government’s supplementary filing, submitted 

shortly after the five-year anniversary, urged us to dismiss the 

Adams appeal as moot. See Adams v. United States, No. 12-

5026, Doc. No. 1410861 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 18, 2012) 

(“Mootness Memo”). The government attacks Adams’s 

complaint for failing to allege any cognizable relief, 

explaining the case is moot “because the plaintiffs seek only 

equitable relief. Despite their scattered references to damages 

in their brief, damages are, of course, unavailable under the 

 6

 Those who had not yet turned 60 as of December 13, 2007, 

would have aged seamlessly into FTEPA’s Age 65 regime; those 

65 and older would have already aged out. So viewed, this targeted 

provision might be best understood as a stopgap measure designed 

to aid in the transition from the Age 60 to the Age 65 Rule. 

7

 Plaintiffs have not challenged the constitutionality of 

Congress’s decision to use 65 as the maximum flying age. See 

Adams Reply Br. 16 (“[T]he statutory provision being challenged is 

the seniority-stripping provision of the FTEPA, not the adjustment 

of the maximum flying age to 65.”). 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 7 of 34
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APA, and there is no waiver of sovereign immunity to support 

an award of damages upon a declaration that a statute is 

unconstitutional.” Id. at 3–4. Plaintiffs respond with nearly a 

dozen rapid-fire arguments in the hope that one sticks, see 

Adams v. United States, No. 12-5026, Doc. No. 1413923 

(D.C. Cir. Jan. 7, 2013), and the government’s reply 

effectively doubles down on earlier arguments, see Adams v. 

United States, No. 12-5026, Doc. No. 1415502 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 

16, 2013). We think the government only partially correct. 

* * * 

“A case becomes moot only when it is impossible for a 

court to grant any effectual relief whatever to the prevailing 

party.” Knox v. Serv. Employees Int’l Union, Local 1000, 132 

S. Ct. 2277, 2287 (2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

“As long as the parties have a concrete interest, however 

small, in the outcome of the litigation, the case is not moot.”

Id. (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). 

Although the government has made a strong conceptual 

case for mootness on Adams’s facts, we cannot say resolution 

of this jurisdictional issue is so cut-and-dried. Absent from the 

government’s analysis is a discussion of Emory, the 

companion case with two overlapping plaintiffs. See supra

n.5. The Emory plaintiffs did appeal the District Court’s 

dismissal of their constitutional challenges to FTEPA, see

Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d. at 219–24, but rather than brief the 

issues in full, chose instead to incorporate by reference 

Adams’s arguments on these issues, see Emory Appellants’ 

Br. 5 n.1; Emory Appellants’ Br. 57. As a direct consequence 

of this litigation strategy, certain constitutional claims appear 

in both Adams and Emory. This substantive overlap proves 

quite important for mootness purposes. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 8 of 34
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In Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 523 

U.S. 83 (1998), the Supreme Court acknowledged a narrow 

set of circumstances in which a court could “decid[e] the 

cause of action before resolving Article III jurisdiction.” Id. at 

98. Specifically, where “the merits question [is] decided in a 

companion case, with the consequence that the jurisdictional 

question could have no effect on the outcome,” courts are free 

to “decline[] to decide th[e] jurisdictional question.” Id. 

(internal citation omitted). We believe Adams and Emory fall 

comfortably within Steel Co.’s parameters. Consequently, 

where Emory (1) advances an analogous constitutional claim 

and (2) that claim is not moot on Emory’s distinct facts, we 

are free to bypass the threshold mootness inquiry in Adams 

and reach the merits. 

We think the Steel Co. exception applies to Adams’s 

equal protection, due process, and bill of attainder claims, all 

of which appear in the Emory complaint. Compare Adams 

Compl. ¶¶ 352–79, 389–98, with Emory Compl. ¶¶ 94-96. 

The only lingering question is whether the claims are moot in 

Emory. That is, whether Emory plaintiffs have a concrete 

interest in their resolution. We believe they do — an 

unsurprising proposition when one considers how Emory, 

unlike Adams, named private parties as defendants. Cf.

Mootness Memo at 4 (highlighting the sovereign immunity 

issues in Adams where “no former, current, or potential aircarrier employer is a defendant”). To declare the protectionfor-compliance provision unconstitutional would effectively 

deprive United and ALPA of FTEPA’s safe harbor. See, e.g.,

Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 218, 243; Emory Appellees’ Br. 

30–31.8

 Obviously Emory stands to benefit from the 

 8

 Since it would be difficult to determine whether the 

protection-for-compliance is unconstitutional without first 

determining the scope of “compliance,” we believe plaintiffs’ 

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elimination of the defendants’ affirmative defense. For this 

reason, then, we are free to reach the merits of Adams’s 

parallel claims. 

We cannot do the same with Adams’s takings claim, 

however, because there is no analogous challenge in Emory. 

To be sure, the Emory plaintiffs did purport to “incorporate 

the . . . Taking . . . arguments . . . made by appellants in 

[Adams],” Emory Appellants’ Br. 57, but their complaint 

simply failed to make a distinct Fifth Amendment takings 

claim.9

 Deprived of their Emory crutch, plaintiffs’ takings 

claim will only survive if there exists independent grounds to 

defeat mootness. Unfortunately for Adams, we see none. Not 

even monetary damages are available to plaintiffs here.10 

Adams’s remaining challenges to FAA’s interpretation of 

FTEPA — the other claims for which there are no analogues 

in Emory — meet the same fate. These claims are expressly 

 

claims as to the correct interpretation of § 44729(e)(1) are likewise 

ripe for review. 

9

 The District Court’s silence on the takings issue bears this 

point out. Compare Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 208, with Adams, 

796 F. Supp. 2d at 73 (“Plaintiffs allege that these provisions 

violate . . . the Takings Clause”). 

10 While it is true that FED. R. CIV. P. 54(c) allows a court to 

grant relief not specifically sought, we cannot save Adams’s claim 

by reading the complaint’s boilerplate prayer for “such other relief 

as [the Court] may deem just and proper,” Adams App’x 114, as a 

request for monetary damages. See Hedgepeth v. WMATA, 386 F.3d 

1148, 1152 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (Roberts, J.); Dellums v. NRC, 863 

F.2d 968, 975 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 1988). Even if we could, the Court 

lacks jurisdiction to hear such a claim. See 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(2); 

id. § 1491(a)(1). 

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predicated on the APA, which waives sovereign immunity 

only for “[a]n action . . . seeking relief other than money 

damages.” 5 U.S.C. § 702; see also Albrecht v. Comm. on 

Emp. Benefits of Fed. Reserve Emp. Benefits Sys., 357 F.3d 

62, 68 (D.C. Cir. 2004); Kidwell, 56 F.3d 279, 283–84 (D.C. 

Cir. 1995).11 Having given due consideration to what remains 

of Adams’s scatter-shot arguments and found them wanting, 

we hold on the unique facts of this case that Adams’s claims 

against FAA are likewise moot. 

C. ANALYSIS

In Adams as in Emory we review the District Court’s 

grant of a motion to dismiss de novo, “accepting the factual 

allegations made in the complaint as true and giving plaintiffs 

the benefit of all inferences that can reasonably be drawn 

from their allegations.” Wagener v. SBC Pension Benefit 

Plan-Non Bargained Program, 407 F.3d 395, 401 (D.C. Cir. 

2005). 

1. Fifth Amendment Equal Protection 

 11 The complaint challenges FAA’s actions as “unlawful and 

subject to be set aside under” 5 U.S.C. § 706, see Adams Compl. ¶¶ 

325, 335, 340, 346, 351, while the prayer for relief specifically 

seeks “damages and reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in 

maintaining this action pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(B),” Adams

App’x 114 (emphasis added). The damages sought are not the sort 

of “specific relief” allowed under the APA, see Bowen v. 

Massachusetts, 487 U.S. 879, 892–94 (1988), and it is established 

in this Circuit that where “the underlying controversy is moot,” a 

“request for attorneys’ fees [will not] preserve[] the merits of that 

controversy for our consideration.” Monzillo v. Biller, 735 F.2d 

1456, 1459 (D.C. Cir. 1984). 

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Because age is not a suspect or protected class, it is 

entitled only to rational basis review. See, e.g., Kimel v. Fl. 

Bd. of Regents, 528 U.S. 62, 83 (2000); Mass. Bd. of Ret. v. 

Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 314 (1976) (per curiam) (employing 

the “relatively relaxed” rational basis standard to age-based 

classifications while noting that such legislative action “is 

presumed to be valid”).12 Under rational basis review, a 

legislative classification “must be upheld against equal 

protection challenge if there is any reasonably conceivable 

state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the 

classification.” FCC v. Beach Commc’ns, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 

313 (1993) (emphases added). The burden of disproving the 

rationality of the law falls squarely on plaintiffs. See Hettinga 

v. United States, 677 F.3d 471, 478–79 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (per 

curiam). That burden has not been met here. 

The government defends the Act’s nonretroactivity by 

asserting a rational relationship to Congress’s “concern for 

workplace harmony, which is a legitimate legislative concern 

under federal labor law.” Adams Appellees’ Br. 23. We think 

this suffices under the rational basis standard. 

Air carriers hired new pilots in anticipation of the Age 60 

Rule remaining in effect. Had Congress given FTEPA full 

retroactive effect, carriers might have reintroduced a 

significant number of over-60 pilots back into the Part 121 

 12 We decline Adams’s invitation to apply a more stringent 

form of review to age classification on the basis of two dissimilar 

cases, City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432 

(1985), and Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996). Not only do 

these cases predate Kimel by 15 and 4 years, respectively, but the 

Court in Cleburne made clear that it has “declined . . . to extend 

heightened review to differential treatment based on age.” 473 U.S. 

at 441.

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workforce with full seniority. Given the hierarchical nature of 

airline employment, the influx of senior pilots would have 

“bumped” less senior pilots and potentially caused some of 

the most junior to be fired. See Avera v. ALPA, 436 Fed. 

App’x 969, 975 (11th Cir. 2011); Jones v. ALPA, 713 F. 

Supp. 2d 29, 35 (D.D.C. 2010). Congress, it follows, did not 

act unreasonably or irrationally in tailoring the retroactive 

effect of its legislation to minimize the potential disruption to 

labor relations in the airline industry. See, e.g., Alaska 

Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 680 (1987) (highlighting 

the “the heavily regulated nature of the [airline] industry”). 

Two additional considerations underscore the reasonableness 

of the legislature’s actions. 

Speaking in favor of the Act, Representative Petri warned 

that the United States is “facing a pilot shortage in the near 

future” with an estimated “1 billion passengers flying 

annually” by 2015. 153 Cong. Rec. H15252-02, 2007 WL 

4325399 (daily ed. Dec. 11, 2007). To the extent Congress 

thought it necessary to plan for such eventualities, it was 

eminently rational to choose the path in which fewer junior 

pilots — those who will be around to meet the rising demand 

— would be denied experience flying large jets. More 

fundamentally, accepting that Congress was free to heed the 

advice of the ARC and draft the law prospectively, see E. 

Enters. v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498, 547–48 (1998) (Kennedy, J., 

concurring in the judgment and dissenting in part) 

(“[P]rospective economic legislation carries with it the 

presumption of constitutionality . . . .”), it would be an odd 

thing indeed to hold the legislature has acted irrationally in 

attempting to strike a less draconian balance by providing 

some measure of protection to over-60 pilots. In short, we 

think the District Court properly dismissed the equal 

protection challenge. 

 

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2. Fifth Amendment Due Process 

“The Constitution does not require all public acts to be 

done in town meeting or an assembly of the whole. General 

statutes within the state power are passed that affect the 

person or property of individuals, sometimes to the point of 

ruin, without giving him a chance to be heard.” Bi-Metallic 

Inv. Co. v. State Bd. of Equalization, 239 U.S. 441, 445 

(1915). Over a half century ago, at the outset of the Age 60 

litigation, the Second Circuit in ALPA v. Quesada, 276 F.2d 

892 (2d Cir 1960), applied this longstanding principle to hold 

that there could be no procedural due process violation in 

FAA’s promulgation of the Age 60 Rule. What was true of 

the original rule then is no less true of FTEPA’s 

nonretroactivity provision today: it was “the very antithesis of 

adjudication; it was the formulation of a general rule to be 

applied to individual pilots at a subsequent time.” Id. at 896. 

Thus, even assuming plaintiffs have a cognizable property 

interest, we agree with the District Courts that the procedural 

due process objections are meritless. See Adams, 796 F. Supp. 

2d at 75; Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 221–22; Jones, 713 F. 

Supp. 2d at 36–37. 

For the reasons discussed in the equal protection 

discussion, supra Section II.C.1., the substantive due process 

challenges likewise fail. See Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining 

Co., 428 U.S. 1, 15 (1976) (“It is by now well established that 

legislative Acts adjusting the burdens and benefits of 

economic life come to the Court with a presumption of 

constitutionality, and that the burden is on one complaining of 

a due process violation to establish that the legislature has 

acted in an arbitrary and irrational way.”); see also Am. Fed’n 

of Gov’t Emps., AFL-CIO v. United States, 330 F.3d 513, 523 

(D.C. Cir. 2003); Jones, 713 F. Supp. 2d at 37 n.7. This 

“doctrine normally imposes only very slight burdens on the 

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government to justify its actions” and those burdens have 

been met. George Washington Univ. v. Dist. of Columbia, 318 

F.3d 203, 206 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 

3. Bill of Attainder 

A law is an impermissible bill of attainder “if it (1) 

applies with specificity, and (2) imposes punishment.” 

Foretich v. United States, 351 F.3d 1198, 1217 (D.C. Cir. 

2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). The court below 

never addressed the specificity requirement, choosing instead 

to resolve the matter on the second prong. See Adams, 796 F. 

Supp. 2d at 77. We follow suit. 

To determine whether a statute imposes punishment, we 

ask: 

(1) whether the challenged statute falls within the 

historical meaning of legislative punishment; (2) 

whether the statute, “viewed in terms of the type and 

severity of burdens imposed, reasonably can be said to 

further nonpunitive legislative purposes”; and (3) 

whether the legislative record “evinces a congressional 

intent to punish.” 

Foretich, 351 F.3d at 1218 (quoting Selective Serv. Sys. v. 

Minn. Pub. Interest Research Grp., 468 U.S. 841, 852 

(1984)). Although the second factor tends to be “the most 

important,” each could serve as an “independent — though 

not necessarily decisive — indicator of punitiveness.” Id. at 

1218. Let us consider the three in turn. 

First, we find no merit to Adams’s initial effort to classify 

FTEPA as a barrier to employment, “a classic historical form 

of punishment.” Adams Appellants’ Br. 50. Although correct 

on the history, see Selective Serv. Sys., 468 U.S. at 852 (Bill 

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of Attainder Clause “has expanded to include legislative bars 

to participation by individuals or groups in specific 

employments or professions”), Adams overstates his case. 

FTEPA is readily distinguishable from the paradigmatic 

“barrier” cases as they have been described by the Supreme 

Court.13 The Act did not prevent pilots between the ages of 60 

and 65 from seeking and obtaining employment in Part 121 

operations; it provided them with an opportunity to return as 

pilots on Part 121 flights, albeit without seniority.14 Nor did 

FTEPA prevent over-60 pilots from accepting employment 

with international carriers or looking elsewhere for similar 

 13 In a string cite, the Supreme Court in Selective Service 

Systems identified those cases as follows: 

See, e.g., United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437 (1965), in 

which Communist Party members were barred from offices 

in labor unions; United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 

(1946), in which the law in question cut off salaries to three 

named Government employees; Cummings v. Missouri, 4 

Wall. 277 (1867), in which a priest was disqualified from 

practicing as a clergyman; and Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 

333 (1867), in which lawyers were barred from the practice 

of law. 

468 U.S. at 852 n. 9. 

14 Likely cognizant of this shortfall in his argument, Adams 

presses the point that FTEPA “effectively bars senior pilots from 

employment.” Adams Appellants’ Br. 50 (emphasis added). It is 

“no surprise,” Adams argues, “that only roughly one percent of the 

affected pilots have been re-hired and others have had to move to 

third-world countries to find employment.” Id. at 51. But even if 

just one percent were rehired under § 44729(e)(1)(B) to pilot Part 

121 flights, that is one percent more than would have otherwise 

been allowed to do so under the old Age 60 Rule. 

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work. At bottom, there were more piloting opportunities 

available for over-60 pilots on December 14, 2007, the day 

after FTEPA went into effect, than December 12, 2007, the 

day before. If Congress intended the legislation to serve as a 

barrier to employment, it failed miserably by doing the very 

opposite: increasing and extending employment opportunities. 

This notion of FTEPA as benefit-conferring — the 

government’s leitmotif on appeal — goes a long way to 

resolve the second, functional factor as well. Under this 

prong, courts “must consider whether the law under 

challenge, viewed in terms of the type and severity of burdens 

imposed, reasonably can be said to further nonpunitive 

legislative purposes.” Foretich, 351 F.3d at 1220 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Although over-60 pilots would 

have doubtless preferred fully retroactive legislation, there is 

no reason to believe they were entitled to it. From this 

perspective, we are hard pressed to conclude on these facts 

that FTEPA somehow imposes an impermissible “burden,” 

never mind fails to advance a legitimate legislative purpose.15

As to the third and final prong, we ask whether the 

legislative record “evinces a congressional intent to punish.” 

Nixon v. Adm’r of Gen. Servs., 433 U.S. 425, 478 (1977). 

Rejecting Adams’s arguments to the contrary, the court below 

concluded “there is simply no indication in the ‘legislative 

record’ of an intent to punish.” Adams, 796 F. Supp. 2d at 78. 

We concur. Not only is it unreasonable in light of the above 

discussion to say that Congress operated with animus because 

it conferred only a partial benefit to over-60 pilots, but the 

 15 We reserve for a future case the question of whether a law 

fashioned as benefit-conferring could ever be deemed an 

unconstitutional bill of attainder under the Supreme Court’s 

functional test. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 17 of 34
18 

legislative record fails to reveal any malicious intent. To the 

contrary, speakers such as Representative Oberstar, sponsor 

of FTEPA, celebrated senior pilots and even moved to 

expedite the legislation so fewer pilots approaching 60 would 

find themselves on the opposite side of the retroactivity line. 

See 153 Cong. Rec. H15252-02. Such effusive praise, of 

course, could only be expected in the debates for the Fair 

Treatment for Experienced Pilots Act.

Finding no impropriety under any of the three factors, we 

reject the bill of attainder claim.16 

III. EMORY V. UNITED AIR LINES, INC. 

A. OVERVIEW

The eight Emory plaintiffs are former pilots for defendant 

United Air Lines who turned 60 between December 1 and 

December 11, 2007, just days before FTEPA’s December 13 

enactment. Although United removed plaintiffs from their 

Part 121 flying duties pursuant to the then-operational Age 60 

Rule, it was defendant United’s custom and practice to allow 

outgoing pilots to remain employed until the last day of their 

birth month. Emory Compl. ¶ 20. From their birthdays to their 

 16 Emory’s appellate briefing departs from the complaint to 

bring a second, “distinct” bill of attainder challenge criticizing the 

District Court’s application of § 44729(e)(1)(A) insofar as it 

allegedly benefits flight engineers at plaintiffs’ expense. Emory 

Appellants’ Br. 5 n.1; see also Emory Appellants’ Br. 56–57 (“This 

[pro-flight engineer] holding by the District Court applying FTEPA 

amounts to quintessential violation of the Bill of Attainder 

prohibition.”). We read this as a narrowing gloss, a suggestion that 

the statute was even more discriminatory than previously thought. It 

does not, however, change the analysis. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 18 of 34
19 

“involuntar[y] terminat[ion]” on December 31, it follows, 

plaintiffs were certified pilots with “unchanged seniority 

numbers” in United’s employ. Emory Compl. ¶ 19(c). 

Pointing to these curious circumstances, plaintiffs believe 

themselves entitled to the benefits of the Age 65 Rule that 

governed the final weeks of their employment. In their view, 

they satisfied § 44729(e)(1)(A), the first exemption to 

FTEPA’s nonretroactivity provision, because it requires only 

that the exempted pilot be “in the employment of” an air 

carrier, which they claim they were. Emory Compl. ¶ 21(c). 

To the extent United and ALPA advocated a contrary 

interpretation, plaintiffs contend, they did so discriminatorily 

in violation of a host of state and federal laws. We turn to the 

interpretive question first. 

B. ANALYSIS

1. Interpretive Merits 

FTEPA admits of two exceptions to the general 

prohibition on retroactive application: 

 

(e) (1) Nonretroactivity. No person who has attained 

60 years of age before the date of enactment of this 

section may serve as a pilot for an air carrier engaged 

in covered operations unless — 

(A)Such person is in the employment of that air 

carrier in such operations on such date of 

enactment as a required flight deck crew 

member; or 

(B) Such person is newly hired by an air carrier 

as a pilot on or after such date of enactment 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 19 of 34
20 

without credit for prior seniority or prior 

longevity for benefits . . . . 

49 U.S.C. § 44729 (e)(1)(A)–(B). 

The Emory plaintiffs interpret the “in such operations” 

language in § 44729(e)(1)(A) to modify the term “carrier,” 

not “person.” This is significant. If the carrier — and only the 

carrier — need be engaged in Part 121 operations on the 

enactment date for the exemption to attach, presumably any

over-60 individual then in the carrier’s employ as “required 

flight deck crew members” (“RFDCM”) would qualify. If one 

accepts, as plaintiffs do, that RFDCM includes “pilots,”17 it 

follows that over-60 pilots who were consigned to non-Part 

121 flights or were removed from active flight status by 

operation of the Age 60 Rule (but remained in the carrier’s 

employ) will also qualify as exempt. But if it were otherwise 

— if the person invoking the exemption had to actively serve 

in Part 121 operations on the enactment date — the universe 

of possible RFDCM shrinks dramatically. The phrase would 

include only those persons serving secondary roles in Part 121 

operations, such as check airmen18 and flight engineers, since 

the Age 60 Rule would have barred all Part 121 piloting work. 

Plaintiffs’ interpretive argument is certainly not without 

merit. Under the “grammatical ‘rule of the last antecedent,’ 

. . . a limiting clause or phrase . . . should ordinarily be read as 

 17 See Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 215. For present purposes, we 

agree with plaintiffs that a purely facial reading of the statutory 

phrase would bear this reading. Pity the passengers on a plane with 

an “optional” pilot. 

18 Check airmen are also known as “second officers.” Emory, 

821 F. Supp. 2d at 210. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 20 of 34
21 

modifying only the noun or phrase that it immediately 

follows.” Barnhart v. Thomas, 540 U.S. 20, 26 (2003). As 

applied here, the rule suggests “in such operations” should 

modify “that air carrier,” the language that immediately 

precedes it — not “Such person,” which begins the sentence. 

This is a plausible but in no way dispositive interpretation. 

“[T]he last antecedent rule,” we recently observed, “ ‘is not an 

absolute and can assuredly be overcome by other indicia of 

meaning.’ ” Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Emps., AFL-CIO, Local 3669 

v. Shinseki, 709 F.3d 29, 33 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (quoting 

Barnhart, 540 U.S. at 26). We find such indicia present here. 

Emory’s interpretation fails to account for the prefatory 

language in § 44729(e)(1) that bars over-60 persons from 

serving as pilots “for an air carrier engaged in covered 

operations” unless they qualify for either one of the two 

exemptions.19 Logically, we think, one must read 

§ 44729(e)(1)(A)’s use of “that air carrier” as a reference 

back to § 44729(e)(1)’s “air carrier engaged in covered 

operation” language. So understood, it would be redundant to 

do as plaintiffs urge and apply “in such operations” to the 

already qualified “that air carrier” as opposed to “Such 

persons.” The former generates needless surplusage and the 

latter does not. See Freeman v. Quicken Loans, Inc., 132 S. 

Ct. 2034, 2043 (2012) (“[T]he canon against surplusage . . . 

 19 Whether § 44729(e)(1)’s broad language prohibiting 

nonexempt, over-60 persons from serving as a “pilot for an air 

carrier engaged in covered operations” barred pilots from piloting 

all flights (including Part 91 and Part 135 flights) or just Part 121 

flights for an employer “engaged in covered operations” is a 

question we need not reach. The Emory plaintiffs would not qualify 

as a RFDCM under either approach and there was no suggestion 

that plaintiffs sought — and were wrongfully denied — the 

opportunity to pilot non-Part 121 flights. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 21 of 34
22 

favors that interpretation which avoids surplusage”). That 

§ 44729(e)(1)(B) speaks unqualifiedly of “an air carrier” only 

buttresses this view. Having defined the term in 

§ 44729(e)(1), it was unnecessary for the drafters to do so 

with specificity in either exception.20 

For these reasons, we reject Emory’s interpretation and 

hold that the “in such operations” language of 

§ 44729(e)(1)(A) modifies “Such person.” The implications 

of such a holding are clear. Because over-60 persons were 

barred from piloting Part 121 flights under the Age 60 Rule, 

only those over-60 persons serving as RFDCM in a 

secondary, non-piloting capacity on December 13, 2007, 

would have qualified for the exemption.21 Since “[t]he 

plaintiff pilots in this case were not, and could not have been, 

employed as pilots after their respective birthdates” and “had 

not been reassigned to another ‘required flight deck crew 

 20 We think this holding consistent with FAA’s initial efforts to 

define the nonretroactivity exemptions. In recognizing that the 

over-60 pilot must have “conduct[ed] part 121 operations for the 

carrier” on the enactment date to be eligible for an exemption under 

§ 44729(e)(1)(A), FAA effectively read the Act’s “in such 

operations” language to qualify “Some person,” not “that air 

carrier.” See Two Legal Interpretations Regarding the Age 65 Law 

Effective 12/13/2007, FAA Information for Operators 07023 (Dec. 

20, 2007). 

21 We have elsewhere in this opinion spoken of check airmen 

and flight engineers as possible RFDCM, but we do not take a 

formal position as to the scope of a phrase FTEPA does not define. 

See Mann v. ALPA, 2012 WL 1447891, at *4 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 26, 

2012). 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 22 of 34
23 

member’ position,” the § 44729 (e)(1)(A) exemption plainly 

“does not apply.” Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 216.22

 

* * * 

On appeal, Emory proffers a handful of confused 

arguments in an effort to undercut this interpretation of 

§ 44729(e)(1)(A). We are not persuaded. 

Emory first suggests the District Court erred when it 

interpreted the Age 60 Rule to mean plaintiffs “were removed 

from pilot status and were no longer permitted to serve as 

pilots” upon turning 60. Emory Appellants’ Br. 21 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). We fail to see the point. The only 

question here is whether plaintiffs were engaged in Part 121 

operations as RFDCM on the enactment date and the Age 60 

Rule made absolutely clear that plaintiffs could not pilot Part 

121 flights. Emory has even conceded as much. See Emory

Reply 8 (“[The Age 60 Rule] merely bars them while [sic] 

from flying in Part 121 operations.”). 

Confusing as it may be, Emory next argues we should 

adopt the competing fiction that pilots turning 60 before the 

enactment date were permitted to fly in Part 121 operations 

because FTEPA repealed the Age 60 Rule in terms so strong 

we cannot retroactively assume the Age 60 Rule governed 

before the enactment date. The argument relies entirely on 

FTEPA’s sunset provision, which declared that the Age 60 

Rule “shall cease to be effective” on December 13. 49 U.S.C. 

§ 44729(d). But as is clear from both plain language and a 

 22 Emory does not appear to challenge the District Court’s 

conclusion that § 44729(e)(1)(B), the “new hire” exception, “has no 

applicability to the plaintiffs in this case.” See Emory, 821 F. Supp. 

2d at 217. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 23 of 34
24 

good dose of commonsense, this argument overreaches. Much 

as an end presumes a start, a rule that “cease[s]” having effect 

must have previously been “in” effect. It would be absurd to 

suggest we have somehow contravened § 44729(d) in 

recognizing that the Age 60 Rule governed prior to December 

13, 2007. 

Emory also maintains that because the concept of 

“RFDCM did not exist as law before December 13, 2007, . . . 

no Court could determine before FTEPA was enacted if the 

Emory plaintiffs; [flight engineers]; or check airmen were 

within the RFDCM.” Emory Appellants’ Br. 23. We think this 

argument fundamentally flawed. Suffice it to say, courts act 

well within their authority when they interpret — and then 

apply — ambiguous statutory language to historical facts. It 

would be patently absurd to say that Congress can never use 

terms not previously in existence. Cf. Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. 

Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 841 (1984) 

(“[T]he amended Clean Air Act does not explicitly define 

what Congress envisioned as a stationary source, to which the 

permit program . . . should apply.” (internal quotation marks 

omitted)). 

Finally, Emory renews an estoppel-by-merger argument 

that rests entirely on 

the fact that the former Continental Chief Pilot, who is 

now the United Chief Pilot and Senior Vice-president for 

Flight Operations following the [Continental-United] 

merger, took the position while at Continental that check 

airmen who reached age 60 before . . . the December 13, 

2007, enactment of the FTEPA could continue flying as 

check airmen until age 65 with full seniority . . . under 

exception (A) . . . because they were [RFDCM]. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 24 of 34
25 

Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 216 n.10 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). We agree with the District Court, however, that 

even if one assumes Continental’s prior activities would bind 

United, lobbying FAA to exempt over-60 check airmen but 

not these uniquely situated over-60 pilots is not the sort of 

“inconsistent positions that warrant application of the doctrine 

of judicial estoppel.” Id. United’s interpretation — and our 

holding — is entirely consistent with the position that check 

airmen may constitute RFDCM while plaintiffs do not. 

2. Employment Claims 

i. ADEA (United, ALPA) 

 Counts One and Two of the Emory complaint charge 

United and ALPA, respectively, with violation of the Age 

Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. 

§ 621 et seq. According to the first Count, United knowingly 

or recklessly advanced an “unlawful interpretation of the Age 

65 Act . . . when the plaintiffs clearly met the exception.” 

Emory App’x 115.23 According to the second, ALPA 

discriminated against older pilots in failing to “refer or 

sponsor” them “for employment and continued employment” 

and “colluding with employer United[] to discriminate against 

these plaintiff union members because of age.” Id. at 116. The 

harm in both Counts is “interpretative.” Plaintiffs believe 

defendants discriminated against this discrete class of older 

pilots by advancing a harmful, artificially narrow 

interpretation they knew or had reason to know was false. 

 23 We use the typed page numbers when citing the Emory

appendix. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 25 of 34
26 

The District Court’s thoroughgoing opinion ably 

navigated both the threshold exhaustion issues as well as the 

merits of the ADEA claims, see Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 

225–33, but the matter can be resolved on appeal without 

great fuss. Assuming arguendo plaintiffs have exhausted their 

administrative remedies for these particular claims, Counts 

One and Two fail for the obvious reason that there has been 

no interpretive harm — United and ALPA did not err in their 

reading of the relevant statutory and regulatory language. 

Because their interpretations thus constitute actions “taken in 

conformance” with the Age 60 and 65 Rules, it follows from 

the latter’s protection-for-compliance provision that they 

“may not serve as a basis for liability or relief in a proceeding, 

brought under any employment law or regulation, before any 

court or agency of the United States or of any State or 

locality.” 49 U.S.C. § 44729(e)(2). In so holding, we read the 

safe harbor to apply to employers and unions alike. See Avera, 

436 Fed. App’x at 978–79.24 

We take the Counts out of order to consider a related but 

distinct harm next. 

 24 We think the reasoning of the District Court sound: 

The statutory text of the provision is not limited to employers, 

as the plaintiff suggests; it instead states in broad terms, and 

without qualification as to the parties to which it applies, that 

“[a]n action taken in conformance with this section . . . may 

not serve as a basis for liability.” 49 U.S.C. § 44729(e)(2) 

(emphasis added). It would, moreover, be totally irrational to 

find that United is protected from suit when acting in 

compliance with the FTEPA, while finding that the ALPA can 

be sued for permitting United to take such action. 

Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 218.

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 26 of 34
27 

ii. Wrongful Discharge (United) 

Count Four, a wrongful discharge claim, shifts the locus 

of injury from United’s interpretation of the Age 65 Rule to 

bar plaintiffs from returning to Part 121 service to the 

carrier’s decision to involuntarily retire — i.e., terminate — 

plaintiffs. The distinction is significant. While the statutory 

language compels the former interpretation, neither the Age 

60 nor the Age 65 Rule mandate that carriers terminate pilots 

who have reached the maximum flying age. Carriers remain 

free to reassign those pilots to non-Part 121 flights, offer them 

employment as flight deck crew members, or move them into 

management positions, though they are by no means obligated 

to do so.25 As an entirely practical matter, however, age 

ceilings tend to generate a surfeit of pilots forced to compete 

for a limited number of non-Part 121 positions, and one way 

carriers have responded to this asymmetry is to phase out 

older pilots through involuntary termination. See Emory

Compl. ¶ 19(b) (“These circumstances often led to 

involuntary termination or discharge of the pilot from the 

employer carrier.”). But is this unlawful? Emory certainly 

 25 We think the Supreme Court’s decision in TWA sheds some 

light on the issue. The Court there dealt with a collectivebargaining agreement in which pilots disqualified from flying for 

reasons other than age would “automatically . . . displace less 

senior flight engineers” while pilots disqualified under the Age 60 

Rule had to “bid” for flight engineer positions and retire if there 

were no vacancies prior their 60th birthday. TWA, 469 U.S. at 120. 

The Supreme Court split the baby in concluding that while the 

ADEA did “not” require TWA “to grant transfer privileges to 

disqualified captains,” id., TWA had done so and could not now 

enforce the policy “in a discriminatory fashion, even if [it was] free 

. . . not to provide the benefit at all,” id. at 121. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 27 of 34
28 

believes it is. In claiming United “wrongfully discharged each 

plaintiff pilot” in violation of the ADEA, Emory App’x 118, 

Emory has effectively mounted a facial challenge to the 

legality of United’s involuntary retirement program.26 

The District Court concluded United’s involuntary 

termination of pilots turning 60 years old was not a violation 

of the ADEA. Mandatory retirement may constitute prima 

facie age discrimination, the lower court reasoned, but 

compliance with the Age 60 Rule constitutes a bona fide 

occupational qualification (“BFOQ”), an affirmative defense 

under the ADEA. See Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 230–32. 

Although the District Court is not alone in this view, there is 

no consensus among the court of appeals. Compare Coupé v. 

Fed. Express Corp., 121 F.3d 1022, 1023 (6th Cir. 1997), 

with EEOC v. Boeing Co., 843 F.2d 1213, 1216–20 (9th Cir. 

1988). This Circuit, for one, has already declined to “reach 

the question whether the Age 60 Rule constitutes a bona fide 

occupational qualification within the meaning of § 623(f)(1) 

 26 Some brief clarification is in order. Despite Emory formally 

raising this claim in Count Four of his complaint, both the District 

Court and Emory’s appellate briefing treat it as a Count One issue, 

i.e., as an extension of the “interpretive” ADEA claim. See, e.g., 

Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 225. We think distinguishing on the 

basis of the actual harms alleged is more faithful to the complaint. 

For similar reasons, we charitably read the Emory plaintiffs’ 

footnoted concession that they “will not present arguments on the 

merits of the wrongful discharge allegations in Court 4 [sic],” 

Emory Appellants’ Br. 54 n.24, as a formal waiver of Count Four’s 

“FTEPA” and “Public Policy” based unlawful discharge claims, but 

not the ADEA-based claim. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 28 of 34
29 

of that Act.” Prof’l Pilots Fed’n, 118 F.3d at 763. Believing 

the question not properly before us, we do the same today.27

Plaintiffs in the proceeding below disputed United’s 

claim that their mandatory retirement program is a BFOQ 

under Carswell v. ALPA, 540 F. Supp. 2d 107 (D.D.C. 2008), 

see Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 230–31, but they have not 

renewed those challenges on appeal. Indeed, Emory’s moving 

brief offers no reason to doubt the District Court’s finding in 

United’s favor. The only mention of BFOQ comes in the 

reply brief and this cursory, paragraph-long discussion offers 

but one argument: “With the demise of the Age 60 Rule, no 

BFOQ defense could be mounted against the Emory 

December pilots for the few days they were under the Age 60 

Rule and still in the employment of United.” Emory Reply 

27–28. We accordingly find that the Emory plaintiffs waived 

their BFOQ arguments on appeal, having raised them for the 

first time in their reply brief. See, e.g., Am. Wildlands v. 

Kempthorne, 530 F.3d 991, 1001 (D.C. Cir. 2008). 

iii. Breach of the Duty of Fair Representation (ALPA) 

Stepping back, Count Three of the Emory complaint 

contends ALPA violated its “duty to each [union] member to 

provide . . . fair, lawful, and non-discriminatory 

representation” by knowingly and willfully “scuttl[ing] 

plaintiff pilots’ immensely valuable employment rights on the 

basis of age and entirely for the advancement of younger pilot 

union members.” Emory App’x 117. That duty originates not 

 27 We likewise reserve judgment on the question whether 

mandatory retirement programs are so intimately bound with the 

Age 60 and Age 65 Rules that the former could be said as “in 

compliance” with the latter, thus triggering § 44729(e)(2), the 

protection-for-compliance provision. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 29 of 34
30 

within the plain language of the Railway Labor Act,28 which 

contains no such provision, but through “a series of cases 

involving alleged racial discrimination by unions” in which 

“the Supreme Court recognized that the Railway Labor Act 

imposes a duty on the union to . . . serve the interests of all 

members without hostility or discrimination toward any, to 

exercise its discretion with complete good faith and honesty, 

and to avoid arbitrary conduct.” May v. Shuttle, Inc., 129 F.3d 

165, 177 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks omitted); 

see also Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co., 323 U.S. 

192, 199 (1944). As might be expected given the duty’s 

origins as judicially constructed doctrine, the Railway Labor 

Act is also without a specific statute of limitation. It was only 

by borrowing the “six-month statute of limitations applicable 

to claims for breach of the duty of fair representation under 

Section 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act,” Emory, 

821 F. Supp. 2d at 233, that the District Court could strike 

plaintiffs’ claim — filed almost one year after termination — 

as time barred.29 We think this the right approach. 

Where a statute is without an appropriate statute of 

limitations, “we do not ordinarily assume that Congress 

intended that there be no time limit on actions at all; rather, 

our task is to ‘borrow’ the most suitable statute or other rule 

of timeliness from some other source.” DelCostello v. Int’l 

 28 “In 1936, Congress extended the Railway Labor Act to 

cover the then small-but-growing air transportation industry.” Int’l 

Ass’n of Machinists, AFL-CIO v. Cent. Airlines, Inc., 372 U.S. 682, 

685 (1963). 

29 The “claim accrued, and the statute of limitations began to 

run, by the beginning of January 2008 at the latest.” Emory, 821 F. 

Supp. 2d at 233. By this point, plaintiffs either knew or should have 

known both ALPA and United’s interpretive positions. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 30 of 34
31 

Bhd. of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 158 (1983). Although the 

Supreme Court has “generally concluded that Congress 

intended that the courts apply the most closely analogous 

statute of limitations under state law,” id., it has 

acknowledged that “state statutes of limitations can be 

unsatisfactory vehicles for the enforcement of federal law. In 

those instances, it may be inappropriate to conclude that 

Congress would choose to adopt state rules at odds with the 

purpose or operation of federal substantive law.” Id. at 161. 

Such was the case in DelCostello, where the Court applied 

§ 10(b), the National Labor Relations Act’s six-month 

limitation period, 29 U.S.C. § 160(b), to a hybrid breach of 

contract/fair representation claim brought under the Labor 

Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185 et seq. In the 

Court’s view, it was simply unnecessary to resort to state law 

where “a federal statute of limitations actually designed to 

accommodate a balance of interests very similar to that at 

stake” was readily available. DelCostello, 462 U.S. at 169. 

In the wake of DelCostello, a majority of the circuits 

extended § 10(b)’s six-month statute of limitations period to 

the Railway Labor Act context, see, e.g., Smallakoff v. ALPA, 

825 F.2d 1544, 1545–46 (11th Cir. 1987) (collecting cases);

Triplett v. Bhd. of Ry., Airline & S.S. Clerks, Freight 

Handlers, Express & Station Emps., Local Lodge No. 308, 

801 F.2d 700, 702 n.2 (4th Cir. 1986) (same), and the 

Supreme Court hinted it might do the same, see West v. 

Conrail, 481 U.S. 35, 38 n.2 (1987). This Court has twice 

applied § 10(b) to Railway Labor Act-based claims without 

specific limitation provisions. See May, 129 F.3d at 177 

(breach of duty of fair representation); Atlas Air, Inc. v. 

ALPA, 232 F.3d 218, 222 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (discriminatory 

anti-union policies). Try as plaintiffs might to distinguish the 

present case as one in which there was “no time pressure to 

gather evidence of member discord because there is no 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 31 of 34
32 

internal remedy,” Emory Appellants’ Br. 52, we see no reason 

to depart from prior practice. Plaintiffs have failed to cite a 

single case in which the availability vel non of an “internal 

remedy” was said to alter the limitations calculus. Whether 

employees have (or have complied with) internal remedies is 

fundamentally an exhaustion issue; it might toll the 

limitations clock, see Stevens v. Nw. Ind. Dist. Council, 

United Bhd. of Carpenters, 20 F.3d 720, 729 (7th Cir. 1994), 

but it need not change the limitations clock. In sum, we hold 

that § 10(b)’s six-month limitation period applies to the duty 

of fair representation claims brought under the RLA. 

Emory resorts to tolling arguments in an effort to turn 

back the clock and save the claim, but the arguments are 

fundamentally misguided and easily dismissed. 

Emory first contends “ALPA is estopped from asserting, 

and [has] waived a six-month bar” because of a grievance the 

union filed “attack[ing]” Continental Airline’s pre-merger 

interpretation of the Act. Emory Appellants’ Br. 53. There are 

multiple problems with this line of argument. To wit, there is 

simply no merit to Emory’s suggestion that Continental — 

and thus United — had interpreted FTEPA in plaintiffs’ 

“favor[].” Emory Appellants’ Br. 54. As explained in Brooks 

v. ALPA, 630 F. Supp. 2d 52 (D.D.C. 2009), Continental read 

FTEPA to “treat[] flight instructors and check airmen” as 

RFDCM. Id. at 54. Of course, the Emory plaintiffs are neither 

flight instructors nor check airmen and there is nothing 

necessarily inconsistent about reading “RFDCM” to include 

these two positions but not the Emory plaintiffs. 

Emory also alleges futility “under these facts,” noting 

how “ALPA repeatedly rebuffed these December pilots [sic] 

request for help during the transition to the Age 65 limit.” 

Emory Appellants’ Br. 54. “In this highly charged setting,” 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 32 of 34
33 

Emory reasons, “it would have been legally futile for the 

Emory December pilots to present a DFR claim or file a 

Federal court lawsuit within a dubious six-month limit.” Id. 

We think plaintiffs conflate “futile” and “difficult.” By their 

own admission, there were no internal remedies to exhaust. 

See id. at 52. It would not have been legally futile to bring suit 

after their involuntary termination, just difficult. To put 

matters pointedly, an empty claim of “futility” will not save 

plaintiffs who chose to sit on their claims. 

Count Three against ALPA is thus time barred. 

iv. Fraudulent Misrepresentations (United, ALPA) 

Fraudulent misrepresentation in the District of Columbia 

requires, inter alia, proof of a “false representation.” Chedick 

v. Nash, 151 F.3d 1077, 1081 (D.C. Cir. 1998). Having 

thoroughly rejected the complaint’s working presumption that 

United and ALPA erred in their interpretation of FTEPA, see

Emory Compl. ¶¶ 81–83; Emory, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 242, 

Count Five’s fraudulent misrepresentation claim is entirely 

without basis.30

v. Constitutional Challenges 

 We dismiss Emory’s incorporated constitutional claims 

for the reasons discussed supra in Section II.C. 

 30 Believing federal law preempted the common law fraud and 

misrepresentation claim against ALPA but not United, see Emory, 

821 F. Supp. 2d at 240–42, the District Court reached the merits 

only with regard to United. Because the matter is easily resolved on 

the interpretive merits and our holding applies equally to ALPA, we 

think it unnecessary to reach either the preemption issue or the 

District Court’s alternative grounds for rejecting Count Five. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 33 of 34
34 

IV. CONCLUSION

The pilots in Emory and Adams are sympathetic 

plaintiffs, but there is only so far this flawed litigation can go. 

For the foregoing reasons, the judgments of the District 

Courts as they pertain to claims not dismissed as moot are 

therefore 

Affirmed. 

USCA Case #12-5026 Document #1442504 Filed: 06/21/2013 Page 34 of 34