Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-06101/USCOURTS-ca10-89-06101-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Beatrice Foods Co.
Appellee
William R. Johnson
Appellant

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

WILLIAM R. JOHNSON, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

BEATRICE FOODS CO., 

Defendant-Appellee. 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

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) 

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FILED 

United States Co~rt ~ Appeal& T~l'l h (~H'('1!1t. 

DEC 1 0 1990 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 89-6101 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA 

(D.C. No. CIV-86-2823-T) 

Clell I. Cunningham, III (Janice M. Dansby with him on the briefs) 

of Miller, Dollarhide, Dawson & Shaw, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 

attorney for plaintiff-appellant. 

Debra G. Houde (K. Nicholas Wilson on the brief) of Fellers, 

Snider, Blankenship, Bailey & Tippens, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 

and C.R. Gangemi , Jr. of Winston & Strawn (David B. Love of 

Winston & Strawn, Chicago, Illinois, attorneys for defendantappellee. 

Before BALDOCK, BARRETT and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

BARRETT, Senior Circuit Judge . 

Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 1 
William R. Johnson ("Johnson") appeals from the district 

court's entry of summary judgment in favor of his former employer 

Beatrice Foods ( "Beatrice") on his claim of intentional infliction 

of emotional distress. 1 Jurisdiction is based on diversity of 

citizenship, 28 u.s.c. § 1332. 

Johnson contends that the district court erred in finding 

that: (1) the portions of his claim relating to wrongful 

suspension and discipline by Beatrice were pre-empted by § 301 of 

the Labor-Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 u.s.c. § 185(a); and 

( 2) his allegations, even if true, did not allege facts 

sufficiently outrageous to sustain a cause of action under 

Oklahoma state law · for intentional infliction of emotional 

distress. Because we hold that Johnson's claim in its entirety 

was pre-empted by § 301, we affirm the district court's dismissal. 

I. 

Johnson was employed by Meadow Gold, a division of Beatrice, 

as a route salesperson from July, 1979, until his resignation in 

September, 1985. During his employment, he was responsible for 

delivering Meadow Gold products to customers in the Oklahoma City 

area. Johnson was a member of the Teamsters Union, and was union 

steward for the Oklahoma City facility between 1984 and 1985. 

The terms of Johnson's employment were governed by a 

collecti ve bargaining agreement ("CBA") negotiated between the 

Teamsters and Beatrice. The CBA allowed Beatrice to terminate an 

1 The tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress is 

also known as the tort of outrage in the State of Oklahoma. See 

Eddy v. Brown, 715 P.2d 74, 75 n.l (Okla. 1986). 

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Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 2 
employee only upon "just cause;" required Beatrice to give a 

warning notice before discharging an employee except for certain 

specified infractions; permitted Beatrice to suspend an employee 

for "serious violations of the [CBA];" prohibited discrimination 

against any employee because of union membership or activities; 

and set forth a designated grievance and arbitration procedure so 

that employees could grieve any discharge, suspension, or general 

dispute. 

During the two years that he was union steward, Johnson 

allegedly was harassed by Ri chard Gleichman, the Oklahoma City 

facility manager. According to Johnson, Gleichman hated him and 

wanted to get rid of him. Paul Plumlee, the Teamsters' Oklahoma 

City representative, received more telephone calls per capita 

growing out of problems between Gleichman and Johnson than he ever 

received from the other plants he represented. 

On February 29, 1984, Johnson went to a physician for 

treatment of stress. He was experiencing memory lapses, crying 

spells, severe headaches and chest pains. The physician told 

Johnson to stay away from work for a month. That day, Johnson 

told Joe Robbins, one of Meadow Gold's supervisors, that he would 

be on sick leave for two to four weeks. Johnson returned to work 

on April 16, 1984, pursuant to a release from his physician that 

he was "medically able to drive a truck." (R., Vol. IV, Tab J at 

p. 6). He remained with Meadow Gold and Beatrice until September, 

1985, at which time he resigned and took another job that paid 

less. According to Johnson, he would have resigned even if he had 

not had another position because of the pressure a t Meadow Gold. 

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Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 3 
During the two-year period that he was union steward, Johnson 

filed numerous grievances in accordance with the CBA to challenge 

many of Gleichman's actions against him: 

1. A grievance filed February 29, 1984, regarding a 

two-day suspension for getting his route out of sequence 

was settled by paying Johnson two days' pay; 

2. Two grievances filed March 30, 1984, regarding 

Gleichman discharging Johnson for taking sick leave were 

settled by reinstating Johnson and paying him lost wages 

and sick pay; 

3. A grievance filed May 4, 1984, regarding three days 

of work which Johnson lost before he was permitted to 

return to work after his sick leave was dropped as part 

of the settlement described in paragraph 2, supra; 

4. A grievance filed May 4, 1984, regarding the 

reassignment of Johnson's route to another driver during 

the period of Johnson's sick leave was withdrawn by 

Johnson when Gleichman added more stops to the route, 

making the route more difficult to complete. Gleichman 

removed the extra stops from the route after Johnson 

withdrew his grievance; 

5. Two grievances filed May 4 and June 27, 1984, 

regarding discrimination and harrassment of Johnson were 

settled by Beatrice agreeing not to engage in any such 

discrimination or harassment in the future. The 

settlement of this grievance came in September, 1984, 

and also served as settlement of a discrimination suit 

that Johnson filed in September with the National Labor 

Relations Board; and 

6. Two grievances filed April 16, 1985, regarding a 

one-day suspension which Johnson received and the 

r eassignment of a customer on Johnson's route to an 

independent distributor apparently were never resolved. 

Johnson voluntarily. chose not to challenge any of Gleichman's 

other actions through the grievance procedure. According to 

Plumlee, the problems between Gleichman and Johnson were not 

arbitrable, and remained unresolved even after Beatrice agreed not 

to engage in future harassment or discrimination. 

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Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 4 
Prior to the instant action, Johnson filed suit against 

Beatrice in federal court under § 301 of the LMRA, claiming that 

Beatrice discriminated 

union steward position. 

constituted a breach 

against and ha.rassed him because of his 

Johnson alleged that Beatrice's conduct 

of the CBA. Johnson then filed a proposed 

amended complaint stating that Beatrice's conduct created a second 

cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress. 

In April, 1987, the district court granted Beatrice's motion 

to dismiss the complaint. The court found that Johnson had failed 

to state a cause of action against Beatrice under § 301 because he 

did not allege that the Teamsters had breached its duty of fair 

representation to Johnson. The court reasoned that Johnson;s 

claim that the Teamsters were unable to secure adequate recompense 

for his damages was insufficient to constitute a breach of that 

duty. The court then determined that it had no pendent 

jurisdiction over the state claim of intentional infliction of 

emotional distress, and accordingly dismissed the entire 

complaint. 

In December, 1986, before the dismissal of his suit in 

federal court, Johnson filed the instant action against Beatrice 

in the Oklahoma County state district court. He alleged a single 

theory of recovery for intentional infliction of emotional 

distress under Oklahoma common law. Specifically, he claimed that 

"Dick Glei chman, Plaintiff's supervisor, instituted a campaign of 

intentional discrimination and harassment with the express 

purposes of inflicting emotional distress upon Plaintiff." (R., 

Vol. I, Tab Gat p.l). Beatrice removed the action to federal 

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Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 5 
district court, citing diversity as the basis for jurisdiction. 

Beatrice then moved for summary judgment. 

In its response to Beatrice's motion, Johnson alleged 28 

specific incidents involving Gleichman between 1984 and 1985 which 

he contended constituted intentional infliction of emotional 

distress. These incidents are summarized as follows: 

1. Gleichman yelled at and verbally abused Johnson on 

an almost daily basis. He usually pounded the desk, 

beat the walls and stomped the floor while yelling; 

2. Gleichman frequently called Johnson names in the 

presence of co-workers; 

3. Gleichman had Johnson followed around by at least 

two co-workers. He told one of the co-workers to ignore 

theft by two other drivers and to devote his time 

exclusively to getting rid of Johnson; 

4. Gleichman encouraged another co-worker of Johnson in 

early 1984 to shun Johnson; 

5. Gleichman publicly ridiculed Johnson on February 14, 

1984, by placing Johnson's name on a mannequin and 

claiming that Johnson had the most bad product on his 

route even though Johnson had been on vacation. He then 

laughed and joked with Johnson's co-workers about the 

incident; 

6. Gleichman planted bad product on Johnson's route on 

February 22, 1984, and then yelled and screamed at 

Johnson about the bad product. He placed a written 

warning in Johnson's personnel file over the incident; 

7. Gleichman frequently rearranged Johnson's stops and 

changed his starting time to make it more difficult for 

Johnson to run his route. When Johnson got his route 

out of sequence under these conditions on February 24, 

1984, Gleichman fired him, and then changed the firing 

to a two-day suspension; 

8. Gleichman unjustly fired Johnson on March 6, 1984, 

for taking sick leave because of emotional distress; 

9. Gleichrnan often threatened in March, 1984 to shut 

down the Oklahoma City plant if Johnson got his job 

back; 

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Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 6 
10. Gleichman delighted in 

was leaving him in August, 

funny that Johnson would 

because of the divorce; 

the fact that Johnson's wife 

1984. He thought it was 

endure financial hardship 

11 . Gleichman persuaded Mrs. Johnson, while the divorce 

was pending, to testify against her husband in his 

lawsuit against Beatrice. Then he bragged about it; 

12. Gleichman suspended Johnson in April, 1985 for 

leaving bad product with a restaurant when he knew that 

the product was left by a substitute driver. The 

substitute driver was given only a verbal warning; and 

13. Gleichman made it impossible for 

properly service a customer's account, and 

at Johnson when Beatrice lost the account. 

Johnson to 

then yelled 

In February, 1989, the district court entered summary 

judgment against Johnson. Initially, the court found that the 

portions of Johnson's claim relating to wrongful suspension and 

discipline by Beatrice were pre-empted by § 301 of the LMRA. The 

court reasoned that, under Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, 

Inc., 486 u.s. 399 (1988), state law claims are pre-empted by § 

301 when the application of state law requires the interpretation 

of a CBA. Specifically, the court found that "[dJiscipline is a 

subject addressed by the [CBA], and [this court] could not 

determine whether [Beatrice's] conduct was outrageous, without 

determining whether the suspension or discipline was allowed under 

the [CBA]." (R., Vol. I, Tab 82 at p. 2.) The court also found 

that Johnson's allegations, even if not pre-empted, did not allege 

facts sufficiently outrageous to sustain a cause of action under 

Oklahoma state law for intentional infliction of emotional 

distress. 

This timely appeal followed. 

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Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 7 
II. 

"We will affirm a grant of summary judgment if it is clear 

that there are no genuine issues of material fact and the defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Willner v. 

Budig, 848 F.2d 1032, 1033-34 (lOth Cir. 1988). We will first 

consider whether the district court was correct in finding that § 

301 of the LMRA pre-empted Johnson's claim. 

Section 301 states: "Suits for violation of contracts 

between an employer and a labor organization representing 

employees in an industry affecting commerce . or between any 

such labor organizations, may be brought in any district court of 

the United States having jurisdiction of the parties, without 

respect to the amount in controversy or without regard to the 

citizenship of the parties." 29 U.S. C. § 185 (a). In 1957, the 

Supreme Court held that § 301 gave federal courts jurisdiction 

over controversies involving CBA's. Textile Workers v. Lincoln 

Mills of Alabama, 353 u.s. 448, 451 (1957). While the Court has 

given the states concurrent jurisdiction over § 301 claims, 

Charles Dowd Box Co. v. Courtney, 368 U.S. 502 (1962) 1 it has 

expressly held that federal, and not state, law must be used in 

adjudicating these claims. Teamsters v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U.S. 

95 (1962). Indeed, "in enacting§ 301 Congress intended doctrines 

of federal labor law uniformly to prevail over inconsistent local 

rules." Id. at 104. (For history of pre-emptive scope of§ 301, 

see Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 u.s. 202, 208-10 (1985)). 

In 1985, the Supreme Court determined that 

effect of § 301 must extend beyond suits 

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the pre-emptive 

alleging contract 

Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 8 
violations. Allis-Chalmers, 471 u.s. at 210. In Allis-Chalmers, 

an employee sued his employer under a state tort remedy for bad 

faith handling of an insurance claim. Under state law, this tort 

claim· required that the duty of the insurer in handling claims be 

"'ascertained from a consideration of the contract itself.'" Id. 

at 216 (quoting Hilker v. Western Automobile Ins. Co., 204 Wis. 1, 

16, 235 N.W. 413, 415 (1931)). In his complaint, the employee 

claimed his employer intentionally, contemptuously, and repeatedly 

failed to make disability payments under the negotiated disability 

plan. Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 206. He alleged that as a 

result of these bad-faith actions he incurred debts, emotional 

distress, physical impairment, and pain and suffering. Id. 

In determining that · the state tort claim was pre-empted by 

§ 301, the Court set forth this basic principle: 

The interests in interpretive uniformity and 

predictability that require that labor-contract disputes 

be resolved by reference to federal law also require 

that the meaning given a contract phrase or term be 

subject to uniform federal interpretation. Thus, 

questions relating to what the parties to a labor 

agreement agreed, and what legal consequences were 

intended to flow from breaches of that agreement, must 

be resolved by reference to uniform federal law, whether 

such questions arise in the context of a suit for breach 

of contract or in a suit alleging liability in tort. 

Any other result would elevate form over substance and 

allow parties to evade the requirements of § 301 by 

relabeling their contract claims as claims for tortious 

bre ach of contract. 

Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 211. The Court determined it must 

focus on whether the tort "confers nonnegotiable state-law rights 

independent of any right established by contract, or, 

instead, whether evaluation of the tort claim is inextricably 

intertwined with consideration of the terms of the labor 

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Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 9 
contract." Id. at 213. The Court concluded that § 301 pre-empts 

any state law claims that are "substantially dependent upon 

analysis of the terms of an agreement made between the parties in 

a labor contract 11 Id. at 220. Since under state law 

"[t]he parties' agreement as to the manner in which a benefit 

claim would be handled {would] necessarily [have been] relevant to 

any allegation that the claim was handled in a dilatory manner," 

Id. at 218, the Court ruled the claim was pre-empted by § 301. 

In making its holding, the Court noted that the CBA may very 

well contain not only explicit but implied rights: "The 

assumption that the labor contract creates no implied rights is 

not one that state law may make. Rather, it is a question of 

federal contract interpretation " I d. at 215. The 

explai ned: 

Since nearly any alleged willful breach of contract 

can be restated as a tort claim for breach of a goodfaith obligation under a contract, the arbitrator's role 

in every case could be bypassed easily if § 301 is not 

understood to pre-empt such claims. Claims involving 

vacation or overtime pay, work assignment, unfair 

discharge in short, the whole range of disputes 

traditionally resolved through arbitration could be 

brought in the first instance in state court by a 

complaint in tort rather than in contract. A rule that 

permitted an individual to sidestep available grievance 

procedures would cause arbitration to lose most of its 

effectiveness as well as eviscerate a central 

tenet of federal labor-contract law under § 301 that it 

is the arbitrator, not the court, who has the 

responsibility to interpret the labor contract in the 

first instance. (Emphasis supplied). 

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Court 

Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 10 
2 Id. at 219-20. Indeed, this circuit has noted that "[p]laintiffs 

. often [attempt] to avoid federal jurisdiction under § 301 by 

framing their complaints in terms of such diverse state law 

theories as wrongful discharge, intentional infliction of 

emotional distress, conspiracy, and misrepresentation" and that 

such attempts will not succeed. United Assoc. of Journeymen and 

Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry v. Bechtel 

Power Corp., 834 F.2d 884, 887-88 (lOth Cir. 1987), cert. denied, 

486 u.s. 1055 (1988) (emphasis supplied). 

In our view, the holdings in Allis-Chalmers and Bechtel Power 

are consistent with the "Steelworkers Trilogy" articulated in 

United Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp. 363 U.S. 593 

(1960), United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 

u.s. 574 (1960) and United Steelworkers v. American Mfg. Co., 363 

u.s. 564 (1960). In those cases, the Supreme Court stated a broad 

policy favoring arbitration under a collective bargaining 

agreement. The Court held that, interpretive of a collective 

bargaining agreement, (1) if the contract contains an arbitration 

clause, the dispute, whether or not it involves the interpretation 

2 The Supreme Court has found the Allis-Chalmers test to preempt two other state tort actions: Electrical Workers v. Hechler, 

481 U.S. 851 (1987) and United Steelworkers v. Rawson, 110 s. Ct. 

1904 (1990). In Hechler, the Court held that an individual 

employee's state law tort suit against her union for breach of the 

union's duty of care to provide the employee with a safe workplace 

must be pre-empted by § 301, since the nature and scope of the 

duty of care arose not from the common law but from the CBA. In 

Rawson, the Court held that a state law wrongful death suit 

brought by the survivors of deceased minors for breach of the 

union's duty of care to inspect the safety of mines must be preempted by § 301 because the state court had held that the 

provisions of the CBA, and not the state law, determined the 

nature and scope of the union's duty to inspect. 

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Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 11 
of the contract, is subject to arbitration in the absence of 

specific language to the contrary, (2) if it is unclear whether a 

company has agreed to arbitrate a specific issue, doubts must be 

resolved in favor of arbitration, and (3) the arbitrator is not 

confined solely to the language of the contract, but may apply the 

common law of the shop. 

We hold that Johnson's claim for intentional infliction of 

emotional distress closely parallels the bad faith claim in AllisChalmers, and is thus pre-empted by § 301. Each of Johnson's allegations directly relates to either explicit or implied rights 

derived from the CBA, just as the bad faith tort claim in AllisChalmers did. Johnson's complaint pertains to the manner in which 

discipline was carried out, just as the employee in Allis-Chalmers 

complained about the manner in which his insurance claim was 

handled. Furthermore, Johnson could have used the CBA grievance 

procedure for any of the allegations in his complaint since all 

the allegations involved either a suspension, discharge or workrelated dispute. 3 

Moreover, Oklahoma has held that a claim for intentional 

infliction of emotional distress "should not be considered in a 

sterile setting, detached from the milieu in which it took place." 

Eddy v. Brown, 715 P.2d 74, 77 (Okla. 1986) (footnote omitted). 

We interpret the Oklahoma law to mean that all aspects of 

3 Johnson's only claim of outrageous behavior that arguably was 

not work-related was that Gleichman "delighted in the fact that 

Johnson's wife was leaving him." Johnson does not allege, nor 

will we hold, that this allegation in and of itself is sufficient 

to sustain a cause of action for intentional infliction of 

emotional distress under Oklahoma law. 

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Johnson's employment, including the terms of the CBA, must be 

considered when evaluating whether Beatrice's conduct was 

outrageous. We therefore agree with the district court that it 

cannot be determined whether Beatrice's conduct was outrageous 

without determining whether the conduct was allowed under the CBA. 

Indeed, "(a]ctions that the [CBA] permits might be deemed reasonable in virtue of the fact that the CBA permits them." Miller v. 

AT & T Network Systems, 850 F.2d 543, 550 (9th Cir. 1988). We 

disagree with the district court only to the extent that it limits 

its pre-emption to suspensions or disciplinary actions; since the 

CBA also allows "disputes" to be grieved, we would hold that all 

of Johnson's allegations are pre~empted. 

Johnson urges us to find under Lingle, supra, that_his action 

is not pre-empted. Lingle is the only case in which the Supreme 

Court has applied the Allis-Chalmers reasoning and found that a 

state tort claim was not pre-empted by § 301. In that case, an 

employee notified her employer that she had been injured in the 

course of her employment and requested compensation for her 

medical expenses pursuant to the Illinois Worker's Compensation 

Act. Her employer discharged her on the ground that she had filed 

a false worker's compensation claim, while the employee maintained 

she was discharged for exercising her worker's compensation 

rights. The union representing the employee filed a grievance 

pursuant to the CBA which protected employees from discharge 

except for "just cause. 11 The employee then filed suit for 

retaliatory discharge under the Illinois Act, which specifically 

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Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 13 
permits recovery of compensatory and punitive damages to employees 

who are discharged for filing worker's compensation claims. 

We hold Lingle to be inapposite here. The Illinois Worker's 

Compensation Act creates an independent state cause of action 

because it creates an independent method of review. The facts 

alleged by the employee in Lingle fit specifically into the Act's 

prohibition of firing an employee for exercising rights under the 

Act. Such a statute is not pre-empted by § 301 even though the 

CBA grievance procedure would review the same facts under a more 

general claim of unjust discharge. 4 Lingle, 486 u.s. at 408. In 

contrast, Oklahoma's tort for intentional infliction of emotional 

distress does not create an independent method of measuring when 

an employer's work-related conduct is outrageous. 

Johnson also urges us to apply the reasoning of Farmer v. 

United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, 430 u.s. 290 (1977). 

In that case, the Supreme Court considered pre-emption of state 

tort claims under the National Labor Relations Act. However, 

Allis-Chalmers and Lingle, not Farmer, control § 301 pre-emption 

and we decline to hold otherwise. 

We note that other circuits have reached varying results when 

applying the Allis-Chalmers and Lingle holdings to state tort 

4 Our interpretation of Lingle today is consistent with our 

holding in Marshall v. TRW, Inc., Reda Pump Division, 900 F.2d 

1517 (lOth Cir. 1990). In Marshall, an employee filed suit for 

retaliatory discharge under a statute similar to the statute in 

Lingle. As in Lingle, the employee claimed that he was fired for 

filing a worker's compensation claim, an action specifically 

prohibited by the statute. The employer claimed that it fired the 

employee for violating the CBA. Relying on Lingle, we held that § 

301 did not pre-empt this statutory claim because there was no 

need to interpret the CBA when evaluating the employer's motive 

for discharging the employee. 

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claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Compare 

Brown v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 901 F.2d 1250, 1256 (5th 

Cir. 1990) (emotional distress claim pre-empted because claim 

actually based on whether employer could discharge employee under 

terms of contract); Harris v. Alumax Mill Products. Inc., 897 F.2d 

400, 403 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 59 U.S.L.W. 3246 (1990) 

(emotional distress claim arising out of application of attendance 

policy pre-empted because "determination of both the scope of 

Alumax's control over the attendance policy and any consequences 

flowing from a violation of the policy are dependent upon an 

analysis of the [CBAJ"); Douglas v. American Information 

Technologies Corp., 877 F.2d 565, 573 (7th Cir. 1989) (emotional 

distress claim pre-empted where employee complains that employer 

unfairly applied terms and conditions of CBA); Johnson v. Anheuser 

Busch.Inc., 876 F.2d 620, 624 (8th Cir. 1989) (claim pre-empted 

where claim arises out of employee's discharge and investigation 

leading up to discharge because determination of merits requires 

review of whether discharge was warranted under CBA), with Hanks 

v. General Motors Corp., 906 F . 2d 341 (8th Cir. 1990) (emotional 

distress claim based on employee's re-assignment to work with 

supervisor accused of molesting employee's daughter is not preempted because claim does not depend on interpretation of CBA 

terms); Krashna v. Oliver Realty, Inc., 895 F.2d 111, 114 (3d Cir. 

1990) (emotional distress claim based on harassment and discharge 

is "clearly outside the scope of the [CBA] and§ 301"); O'Shea v. 

Detroit News, 887 F.2d 683, 687 (6th Cir. 1989) (claim based on 

employee's assignment to work undesirable night shift not pre-

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Appellate Case: 89-6101 Document: 01019655379 Date Filed: 12/10/1990 Page: 15 
empted because CBA is irrelevant. Employer could have tortiously 

caused employee emotional distress without violating the 

contract); Keehr v. Consolidated Freightways of Delaware, Inc., 

825 F.2d 133, 138 n.6 (7th Cir. 1987) (emotional distress claim 

based on supervisor's baiting of employee in order to provoke 

employee into throwing a punch and giving supervisor reason to 

discharge employee is not pre-empted because claim "revolved 

around conduct by employer that is not even arguably 

sanctioned by the labor contract."). While we recognize these 

conflicting results, we interpret Allis-Chalmers and Lingle as 

necessitating pre-emption in this case. 

We recognize that, by limiting Johnson to the CBA, we 

eliminate some of the choices he would have had otherw~se. Under 

an arbitrable claim subject to a collective bargaining agreement, 

the common remedies are reinstatement and back pay, whereas an 

award of punitive damages is sometimes permitted as a state law 

tort remedy. State court proceedings are usually heard by juries, 

who may be less sympathetic to an employer than an arbitrator. 

But if we allow Johnson to bring his contract-sounding complaint 

in tort and "sidestep available grievance procedures," AllisChalmers, supra, so that he can take advantage of these options, 

we controvert congressional intent to have "doctrines of federal 

labor law uniformly to prevail over inconsistent local rules." 

Lucas Flour, supra. 

Because we hold that Johnson's claim is pre-empted by § 301, 

we need not consider whether his allegations were sufficient to 

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maintain a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress 

under Oklahoma law. 

We AFFIRM. 

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