Opinion ID: 391158
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: enforceability of the hrl

Text: 16 We consider first plaintiffs' claims that federal law forbade enforcement of the HRL. For the reasons below, we conclude that the HRL was not preempted by ERISA, or Title VII, or the RLA.
17 We turn first to the question of the validity of the HRL under § 514(a) of ERISA. Although at first glance our summary affirmance in the Pervel case, discussed above, would seem to require us to find the HRL invalid, equally summary action from another quarter compels a different result. 18 After the decision below was rendered, the United States Supreme Court dismissed, for want of a substantial federal question, appeals from decisions of two state courts, each holding that ERISA § 514(a) does not preempt state laws similar to the HRL. Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. v. Minnesota, 444 U.S. 1041, 100 S.Ct. 725, 62 L.Ed.2d 726 (1980), dismissing appeal from 289 N.W.2d 396 (Minn.1979) (hereinafter Minnesota ); Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Commissioner of Labor & Industry, 445 U.S. 921, 100 S.Ct. 1304, 63 L.Ed.2d 754 (1980), dismissing appeal from 608 P.2d 1047 (Mont.1979) (hereinafter Mountain States ). The Commissioner here contends that Minnesota and Mountain States require us to hold that ERISA does not preempt the HRL, despite our contrary holding, relied on below, with respect to a comparable Connecticut statute in Pervel, supra. We agree. 19 It is well-established that Supreme Court summary affirmances and dismissals for want of a substantial federal question are judgments on the merits that bind lower courts with respect to the precise issues presented (to the Supreme Court) and necessarily decided by it in disposing of the appeal. Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 176, 97 S.Ct. 2238, 2240, 53 L.Ed.2d 199 (1977) (per curiam). See also Illinois State Board of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 182-83, 99 S.Ct. 983, 989-90, 59 L.Ed.2d 230 (1979); Washington v. Confederated Bands & Tribes of the Yakima Indian Nation, 439 U.S. 463, 477-78 n.20, 99 S.Ct. 740, 749-50 n.20, 58 L.Ed.2d 740 (1979); Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 95 S.Ct. 2281, 45 L.Ed.2d 223 (1975). In attempting to apply the rule resulting from such a summary decision, however, lower courts must undertake a careful analysis of the precise reach and content of the Supreme Court's action. Mandel v. Bradley, supra, 432 U.S. at 176, 97 S.Ct. at 2240 (quoting Hicks v. Miranda, supra, 422 U.S. at 345 n.14, 95 S.Ct. at 2289 n.14). Such summary dispositions affirm only the judgment of the court below and do not necessarily adopt its reasoning. Illinois State Board of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, supra; Mandel v. Bradley, supra. Thus, a court seeking to apply such a precedent must carefully examine the appellant's jurisdictional statement in order to determine which questions the Supreme Court necessarily decided. Washington v. Yakima Indian Nation, supra; Mandel v. Bradley, supra; Hicks v. Miranda, supra. Applying this analysis to the dismissal in the Minnesota case, we conclude that it compels a holding that ERISA does not preempt the HRL. 20 In Minnesota, an employee who had been denied benefits for pregnancy-related disability sued her employer under a state law that explicitly required employers to treat pregnancy the same as other disabling conditions for purposes of disability benefits plans. The state court held that the employer's disability program violated state law, and further held that ERISA § 514(a) did not preempt the state statute. 289 N.W.2d 396. 10 In its jurisdictional statement on appeal to the Supreme Court, the employer framed the question presented as whether ERISA preempts Minnesota's effort, by means of its fair employment practice statute, to dictate the contents of (the employer's) national employee benefit plan. The jurisdictional statement as a whole presented arguments, substantially similar to those presented by the plaintiffs here, to the effect that § 514(a) preempted the Minnesota law. 21 We can see no sound reason to decline to follow Minnesota here. The state statute at issue in that case is virtually identical to the HRL. 11 Moreover, the ERISA preemption issue was squarely presented to the Supreme Court in the appeal papers, and the appeal was plainly within the Supreme Court's obligatory appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1257(2) (1976). We can discern no possible basis for the Minnesota dismissal other than a holding that ERISA does not preempt a state law requiring that disability benefits plans treat pregnancy the same as other disabling conditions. Therefore, Minnesota requires us to uphold the HRL against the ERISA challenge mounted here. 22 The plaintiffs' arguments for a contrary course are unpersuasive. For the most part, plaintiffs reiterate the Supreme Court's cautionary remarks about the danger of reading summary decisions too broadly, citing, e. g., Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, supra, 440 U.S. at 183, 99 S.Ct. at 990. While we have recognized this danger in our own decisions, see, e. g., New York Telephone Co. v. New York State Dep't of Labor, 566 F.2d 388, 391 n.2 (2d Cir. 1977), aff'd, 440 U.S. 519, 99 S.Ct. 1328, 59 L.Ed.2d 553 (1979); In re Letourneau, 559 F.2d 892, 893 n.4 (2d Cir. 1977), our analysis has satisfied us that the issue presented in the instant case is virtually identical to that decided in Minnesota. Moreover, while it is true, as plaintiffs note, that summary actions carry less precedential weight in the Supreme Court than do decisions rendered with opinion after argument, see, e. g., Washington v. Yakima Indian Nation, supra, 439 U.S. at 476-77 n.20, 99 S.Ct. at 749-50 n.20; Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 670-71, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 1359-60, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974), it is also true that the privilege of disregarding even summary Supreme Court holdings rests with that court alone, and not with us. Doe v. Hodgson, 500 F.2d 1206, 1207-08 (2d Cir. 1974). 23 Plaintiffs also argue that the timing of the Minnesota dismissal weakens its precedential force. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in Minnesota exactly one week after it had denied certiorari in both Pervel, supra, in which we summarily struck down under ERISA a Connecticut pregnancy benefits law, and Bucyrus-Erie Co. v. Department of Industry, Labor & Human Relations, 599 F.2d 205 (7th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1031, 100 S.Ct. 701, 62 L.Ed.2d 667 (1980), in which the Seventh Circuit, taking the opposite view, rejected an ERISA-based challenge to a similar Wisconsin statute. Because the Court let stand these divergent circuit court rulings at a time when it could easily have remanded them for further consideration in light of the forthcoming affirmance in Minnesota, plaintiffs conclude that the Justices did not intend to create a unified body of precedent on the ERISA preemption issue, Brief on Appeal at 14, and that Pervel therefore retains its vitality in this Circuit, Minnesota notwithstanding. 24 We reject this contention. Like the plaintiffs, we find the sequence of events described above rather mystifying. Nonetheless, it remains the law that dismissals of appeals are binding precedents, while denials of certiorari have no precedential force. Compare Hicks v. Miranda, supra, with Maryland v. Baltimore Radio Show, Inc., 338 U.S. 912, 70 S.Ct. 252, 94 L.Ed. 562 (1950) (opinion of Frankfurter, J., with respect to denial of certiorari). See generally R. Stern & E. Gressman, Supreme Court Practice §§ 4.31, 5.7 (5th ed. 1978); Linzer, The Meaning of Certiorari Denials, 79 Colum.L.Rev. 1227 (1979). Although courts have sometimes disregarded the latter rule on the ground that special circumstances surrounding a particular denial of certiorari revealed the Justices' view of the merits, see Linzer, supra, at 1277-91, we see no reason for such an undertaking here, where the denials have tended more to obscure than to illuminate the Court's position. 25 Accordingly, we hold that the HRL was not preempted by ERISA.
26 We turn next to the airlines' contention that Title VII 12 preempted the HRL during the periods at issue here. Title VII forbids employers to discriminate against their employees because of ... sex. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), (2). Generally speaking, the statute prohibits not only those employment practices designed to discriminate on proscribed grounds, but also those facially neutral practices that have the effect of discriminating on such grounds. 13 See generally Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971). Plaintiffs argue that by compelling employers to provide disability benefits for their pregnant employees, all of whom are necessarily female, the HRL mandated discrimination against male employees because of ... (their) sex, in violation of Title VII. If the HRL mandated discrimination that was unlawful under Title VII during the relevant time period, then, of course, it was invalid under the Supremacy Clause. 14 We hold, however, that the HRL was entirely lawful under Title VII. 15 27 In contending that the HRL contravened Title VII, the airlines rely primarily on General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, supra, in which the Supreme Court held that the exclusion of pregnancy from coverage under a disability plan did not discriminate against women in violation of Title VII. In reaching this conclusion, the Court observed that the package of fringe benefits provided under the employer's plan was facially nondiscriminatory in the sense that '(t)here is no risk from which men are protected and women are not.'  429 U.S. at 138, 97 S.Ct. at 409, quoting Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U.S. 484, 496-97, 94 S.Ct. 2485, 2491-92, 41 L.Ed.2d 256 (1974) (see note 4 supra). In addition, the Court noted that the plan did not have a discriminatory effect upon women: 28 As there is no proof that the package (of insurance benefits) is in fact worth more to men than to women, it is impossible to find any gender-based discriminatory effect in this scheme simply because women disabled as a result of pregnancy do not receive benefits; that is to say, gender-based discrimination does not result simply because an employer's disability-benefits plan is less than all-inclusive.... (P)regnancy-related disabilities constitute an additional risk, unique to women, and the failure to compensate them for this risk does not destroy the presumed parity of the benefits, accruing to men and women alike, which results from the facially evenhanded inclusion of risks. 29 429 U.S. at 138-39, 97 S.Ct. at 409-10 (emphasis in original). 30 From the quoted language, the airlines derive their two principal arguments. First, they argue that the pre-1979 inclusion of pregnancy as a covered condition under their disability plans would have been unlawful under Title VII because it would have destroyed the plans' facially evenhanded inclusion of risks. Second, they contend that the provision of pregnancy benefits would render the package of benefits under a plan more valuable to women than to men, so that the plan would have the unlawful effect of discriminating against men in their compensation because of their sex. 31 The airlines' first argument is easily disposed of. That Gilbert held the exclusion of pregnancy benefits to be nondiscriminatory does not compel the conclusion that the inclusion of such benefits is necessarily discriminatory. The Gilbert Court itself, quoting Geduldig v. Aiello, supra, 417 U.S. at 496-97 n.20, 94 S.Ct. at 2491-92 n.20, explicitly observed that classifications based on pregnancy are not facially discriminatory: 32 Absent a showing that distinctions involving pregnancy are mere pretexts designed to effect an invidious discrimination against the members of one sex or the other, lawmakers are constitutionally free to include or exclude pregnancy from the coverage of legislation such as this on any reasonable basis, just as with respect to any other physical condition. 33 The lack of identity between the excluded disability and gender as such under this insurance program becomes clear upon the most cursory analysis. The program divides potential recipients into two groups pregnant women and non- pregnant persons. While the first group is exclusively female, the second includes members of both sexes. 34 429 U.S. at 134-35, 97 S.Ct. at 407-08. Therefore, the inclusion of pregnancy benefits is no more discriminatory per se than was their exclusion. 35 To evaluate plaintiffs' second argument, that a disability plan complying with the HRL has a discriminatory effect upon men, we must review the allegations of the complaint. The airlines alleged, and we must therefore accept as true for these purposes, that the disability benefits provided their male and female employees during the relevant period were fairly equivalent in value in terms of dollar benefits paid per salary dollar, and that their employees were covered equally under the (disability) plans, regardless of sex, for all disabilities unrelated to pregnancy. They alleged further that the provision of pregnancy benefits pursuant to the HRL would have increased the value of the disability package to women without providing a corresponding increase to men. Therefore, plaintiffs conclude, the New York statutes had the unlawful effect of mandating discrimination against men on the basis of their sex. 36 This argument is unfounded. Although we must accept plaintiffs' factual allegations as true, we need not assume the truth of conclusions of law or unwarranted factual inferences that they have pleaded. See generally 2A Moore's Federal Practice P 12.08, at 2266-69 (2d ed. 1980). The airlines' characterization of the value of disability benefits to their employees falls into the latter category. The value of a disability plan as an item of compensation for an individual worker is not the amount of benefits payable to that worker in the event of disability. Rather, it is the worker's pro rata share of the total cost of providing disability coverage, which in turn equals the sum of the plan's total payout and expenses. 16 Plaintiffs have not alleged that the HRL would require male employees to pay greater individual pro rata shares of the total cost of coverage. The increase in total cost occasioned by the inclusion of pregnancy benefits, and the corresponding increase in the plan's value as an item of compensation, is uniformly spread among all employees. Because this increase is uniform for all, it can hardly be said to have a discriminatory effect upon men. Cf. City of Los Angeles Dep't of Water & Power v. Manhart, supra. 37 Similarly, we reject the airlines' contention that a plan complying with the HRL has a discriminatory effect upon men because they will never receive the pregnancy benefits for which they have paid. Large numbers of women will be equally empty-handed. Under the HRL, all workers bear the cost of payments to the comparatively few who become disabled through pregnancy. The cost of these benefits does not depend upon the number of women in the employer's labor force, but upon the number of women who become pregnant. The latter variable is not a function solely of their sex, as the airlines would have it, but as well of age and marital status. 17 In short, the HRL did not require employers to discriminate against men on the basis of their sex and was therefore not unlawful under Title VII.
38 Finally, we consider the airlines' contention that the HRL was preempted by the RLA. 18 The RLA governs the collective bargaining agreements between the airlines and their employees pursuant to which the disability plans at issue here were established. Plaintiffs argue that by mandating pregnancy coverage not otherwise available under its collective bargaining agreements, the HRL unlawfully alters the terms of those agreements and impermissibly interferes with the collective bargaining processes established by the RLA. We disagree. 19 39 In San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 79 S.Ct. 773, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959), the Supreme Court set forth the basic framework of analysis for questions of federal labor law preemption. First, (w)hen it is clear or may fairly be assumed that the activities which a State purports to regulate are either protected or proscribed by federal law, then due regard for the federal enactment requires that state jurisdiction must yield. Id. at 244, 79 S.Ct. at 779. Second, even if a state law touches upon conduct arguably governed by the federal scheme, the state may nevertheless regulate that conduct if it is a merely peripheral concern of the federal law, or if it involves interests so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility that, in the absence of compelling congressional direction, (the court) could not infer that Congress had deprived the States of the power to act. Id. at 243-44, 79 S.Ct. at 778-79 (footnote omitted). Courts must carefully examine both the state interest in regulating the conduct at issue and the potential for interference with the federal regime. Farmer v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters, Local 25, 430 U.S. 290, 297, 300-01, 97 S.Ct. 1056, 1061, 1063-64, 51 L.Ed.2d 338 (1977). Ultimately, however, the question is one of congressional intent. Garmon, supra, 359 U.S. at 239-40, 79 S.Ct. at 776-77. 40 At the outset, the airlines raise a contention that would divert us from this task of statutory analysis. Relying upon Railway Employees' Dep't v. Hanson, 351 U.S. 225, 76 S.Ct. 714, 100 L.Ed. 1112 (1956), and California v. Taylor, 353 U.S. 553, 77 S.Ct. 1037, 1 L.Ed.2d 1034 (1957), they argue that the terms of their collective bargaining agreements, by themselves, override the HRL. Quoting Hanson, plaintiffs assert: 41 A union agreement made pursuant to the Railway Labor Act has ... the imprimatur of the federal law upon it and, by force of the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution, could not be made illegal nor vitiated by any provision of the laws of a State. 42 351 U.S. at 232, 76 S.Ct. at 718. See also Taylor, supra, 353 U.S. at 561, 77 S.Ct. at 1042 (RLA collective bargaining agreement would take precedence over conflicting provisions of state law). Because the airlines' collective bargaining agreements were negotiated pursuant to the RLA, they contend that the agreements themselves supersede state law, so that New York was powerless to require the insertion, through the HRL, of terms concerning disability benefits that the parties themselves had omitted. 43 Hanson and Taylor do not stand for so sweeping a proposition. Hanson involved the application of a state right to work law, which forbade agreements requiring employees to join a union, to a collective bargaining agreement that contained an express union shop clause requiring union membership. The RLA expressly permitted unions to negotiate such union shop agreements (n) otwithstanding any ... statute or law ... of any State. 45 U.S.C. § 152 (Eleventh). The essential point was that the state law conflicted with the terms of the RLA itself, not merely with an agreement negotiated under the RLA. Taylor involved an attempt by state authorities to subject employees of a state-owned railroad to the state civil service law, which forbade collective bargaining, despite the fact that the employees were then covered by a collective bargaining agreement negotiated with the state pursuant to the RLA. The Court held that the RLA applied to the state as employer, and that its conflicting civil service laws were therefore preempted. 353 U.S. at 561-68, 77 S.Ct. at 1042-46. As the Taylor Court's discussion of Hanson makes plain, the existing collective bargaining agreement would take precedence over the state civil service laws because those laws were invalid, as applied to the railroad, under the RLA itself. Id. at 560-61, 77 S.Ct. at 1041-42. We must therefore determine the validity of the New York statute by ascertaining the intent of Congress, not merely by perusing the airlines' agreements with their workers. 44 Nothing in the RLA clearly addresses the permissibility of state regulation such as the HRL. Among other things, the RLA places upon employers a duty to bargain, empowers employees to organize and select representatives, establishes administrative bodies for the resolution of disputes, and prescribes certain rules concerning union security agreements, dues check-offs, and the like. 45 U.S.C. §§ 152, 153, 154. With very few exceptions, it permits parties to collective bargaining to adopt whatever terms are mutually satisfactory. We must therefore scrutinize the New York statutes in terms of their potential for interfering with the federal scheme and the strength of the state interests they reflect. See, e. g., Garmon, supra; Farmer, supra. 45 The RLA protects and vigorously promotes the collective bargaining process. See, e. g., Taylor, supra, 353 U.S. at 559, 77 S.Ct. at 1040, and cases cited. Thus, the airlines' most telling argument against the HRL is that it impermissibly curbs the parties' freedom to bargain over fringe benefits, a concededly valuable item of compensation. As the airlines note, (t)he inclusion or noninclusion of a substantial economic benefit in a collectively bargained compensation package goes to the heart of the bargaining process. (Brief on Appeal at 38). Moreover, it is generally true that state laws designed to alter the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, see Lodge 76, Int'l Ass'n of Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm'n, 427 U.S. 132, 153, 96 S.Ct. 2548, 2559, 49 L.Ed.2d 396 (1976), or to adjust the economic relations of parties to collective bargaining, see Local 24, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U.S. 283, 297, 79 S.Ct. 297, 305, 3 L.Ed.2d 312 (1959), are inconsistent with federal policies protecting the bargaining process. At first glance, therefore, the HRL does seem to intrude impermissibly upon an area that Congress has reserved for private negotiation. 46 Nonetheless, closer inspection of the complex of state and federal interests at stake persuades us that the HRL is fully valid under the RLA. First, it is consistent with prevailing federal policies concerning employment relations. The RLA, like other federal labor statutes, does not address the problem of employment discrimination. Colorado Anti-Discrimination Comm'n v. Continental Air Lines, Inc., 372 U.S. 714, 83 S.Ct. 1022, 10 L.Ed.2d 84 (1963). See also Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974) (Title VII remedies operate independently of arbitration process established under collective bargaining agreement). Thus the fact that state antidiscrimination laws have some effect on collective bargaining under the RLA does not automatically invalidate them. We must look to other federal laws that govern employment discrimination in order to gauge their harmony with the overall federal scheme. Cf. Malone v. White Motor Corp., 435 U.S. 497, 504-05, 98 S.Ct. 1185, 1189-90, 55 L.Ed.2d 443 (1978) (federal pension legislation provides far more reliable guide to legislative intent than does the National Labor Relations Act in determining validity of state statute affecting pension plan established by collective bargaining). Title VII, the principal federal employment discrimination law, indicates that the HRL is and was in accordance with the federal scheme. Although the practices prohibited by the state statute were not prohibited by Title VII prior to its amendment in 1978, see General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, supra, Title VII permits the states to adopt antidiscrimination measures more stringent than its own, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-7, and vigorous enforcement of state fair employment laws by state agencies is an integral part of the federal scheme, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(b), (c), (d), (e). The HRL is precisely the sort of state law that Congress had in mind. It provides protections beyond the federal minimum and establishes orderly administrative procedures for enforcing those protections. Thus, far from offending the principal federal regime in point, the HRL actually promoted it. 47 Furthermore, the statute reflects strong state interests and policies. As Title VII itself recognizes, the states have an abiding interest in eradicating employment discrimination. Title VII permits the states to act not only against forms of discrimination that have afflicted the nation as a whole, but also against those that are peculiarly local in character or peculiarly harmful in their local effects. New York has decided that the denial of certain minimum benefits for workers disabled by pregnancy contravenes its own policy of sheltering women from the economic dislocations otherwise attendant upon childbirth. Brooklyn Union Gas Co., supra; Union Free School District No. 6 v. New York State Human Rights Appeal Board, 35 N.Y.2d 371, 362 N.Y.S.2d 139, 320 N.E.2d 859 (1974). Nothing in that choice offends the RLA. 48 Accordingly, we hold that the HRL was not preempted by the RLA.