Opinion ID: 205625
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Merits and Choice of Employment Law

Text: Because United's motion was an attack on the merits of Rabé's claims rather than the district court's jurisdiction to hear her case, the court should have treated it as a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). See Miller v. Herman, 600 F.3d 726, 732-33 (7th Cir. 2010). Before the district court, the parties spent most of their energy disputing whether Rabé spent enough time working in and traveling to the United States at relevant times to qualify as a person working in the United States for purposes of Title VII and the ADEA. United emphasized that Rabé had not worked flights to or from the United States for five years before her termination. Rabé emphasized that over the entire course of her employment with United, most of the flights she worked were to or from the United States. The choice of the relevant time period is debatable. We do not disagree with the district court's conclusion that Rabé did not spend sufficient time working in the United States or traveling to and from the United States in the last several years before her termination to qualify as being employed in the United States for purposes of Title VII and the ADEA. We express no view as to whether the fact that she worked on aircraft registered in the United States might be sufficient to apply United States employment law. We conclude, however, that the district court should have denied United's motion to dismiss on the basis of Rabé's individual employment contract, which was attached to her complaint. The contract specifies that the terms and conditions of Rabé's employment would be governed exclusively by applicable United States law. United concedes that the district court was free to apply the substantive law of Title VII, the ADEA, [and] the IHRA. United insists, nevertheless, that Rabé cannot prevail because those statutes are not applicable to her, precisely because she is a non-citizen who worked outside the United States. The argument proves far too much. United demanded that the employment relationship be governed exclusively by United States law. Under United's theory, Rabé would not be protected by the employment discrimination laws of any country. We understand the impulse to make an explicit choice of law in a contract when the parties' international relationship could result in prolonged and expensive arguments about choice of law in the event of a dispute. That is as true for employment contracts as it is for sophisticated business-to-business contracts. But we see no reason to interpret a contractual choice-of-law provision as effectively excluding the employee from the protection of public laws and policies as fundamental as those embodied in employment discrimination laws. [2] Instead, we view this case as more comparable to our decision in Peters v. Gilead Sciences, Inc., 533 F.3d 594 (7th Cir.2008). In Peters, we concluded that an employer could be held to a promise to extend to its employee the protection of an employment discrimination law (there, the Family and Medical Leave Act) even if the employee was not actually covered by the Act because of a statutory exception. Id. at 598-601. We left open the question whether the promise in that case would be enforceable under contract law or the doctrine of promissory estoppel. Id. For our purposes in this case, however, the key point of the Peters decision is that an employer may agree by contract to extend statutory legal protections to an employee who might not be covered by the statute itself. In this case, the international character of the parties' employment relationship could pose serious complications and uncertainties. Litigating the relevant employment location for employees who work in international transportation can be complicated and expensive, as shown by this case and others. See, e.g., Mithani v. Lehman Bros., Inc., 2002 WL 14359, at  (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 2002) (Title VII did not apply to non-citizen who applied for position in London office of U.S. employer); Hu v. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, 76 F.Supp.2d 476, 477-78 (S.D.N.Y.1999) (dismissing age discrimination suit brought by non-citizen after employer rejected his applications to work in the firm's Beijing and Hong Kong offices); Gantchar v. United Airlines, Inc., 1995 WL 137053, at  (N.D.Ill. Mar. 28, 1995) (holding that non-citizen members of flight crews based in foreign country who spent only one-fifth of time working in United States territory were not covered by Title VII). United chose to address these complications and uncertainties with a contract that required the employee to agree to be governed by United States law. Rabé agreed to the term, as reflected not only by her signature but also by the required handwritten note saying that she accepted the choice of United States law and the choice of forum. The most reasonable interpretation of this employment agreement is that United agreed to application of the substance of United States law notwithstanding provisions that would otherwise point against its coverage because of Rabé's status as an alien and the changing locations of her work. Rabé has stated claims for relief sufficient to withstand United's motion to dismiss. [3] As we explained above, the district court had subject matter jurisdiction under its federal question jurisdiction because plaintiff has asserted a colorable claim for coverage directly under the terms of the federal statutes, and on remand the court will have supplemental jurisdiction over the implicit state law claims for breach of contract and/or promissory estoppel. (We recognize that Rabé's complaints have not articulated breach of contract and promissory estoppel theories. A complaint need not identify legal theories, and specifying an incorrect theory is not a fatal error. E.g., Williams v. Seniff, 342 F.3d 774, 792 (7th Cir.2003), following Bartholet v. Reishauer A.G. (Zürich), 953 F.2d 1073, 1078 (7th Cir.1992).) Even without an attempt to assert a claim directly under the federal statutes, the district court would still have diversity jurisdiction in this particular case. Rabé herself identified diversity of citizenship as the basis for jurisdiction when she completed the civil cover sheet for her original complaint. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(2) (diversity jurisdiction available when amount in controversy exceeds $75,000 and case is between citizen of a state and a citizen of a foreign state). Under our reasoning, we should clarify, if an employment discrimination claim in a similar future case is based solely on the contract's agreement to be bound by United States law, subject matter jurisdiction would need to be based on diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, and not federal question or civil rights jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343.