Opinion ID: 2139392
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Railway Labor Act

Text: In order to avoid interruptions of interstate commerce, Congress first enacted the Railway Labor Act in 1913. RLA, Pub.L. No. 63-6, 38 Stat. 103 (1913) (codified as amended at 45 U.S.C. §§ 151-63 (1982)). The Act seeks to avoid disruptions in railway transportation by providing a process for the resolution of labor disputes. See Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway Co. v. Burley, 325 U.S. 711, 722-23, 65 S.Ct. 1282, 1289, 89 L.Ed. 1886 (1945). As amended, the RLA recognizes the right of railway employees to join a labor organization that can act as the employees' representative in the formation of a collective-bargaining agreement. The law also provides a procedure to settle grievances that arise under an existing collective-bargaining agreement. Congress did not expressly preempt the railway labor field in enacting the Railway Labor Act. Thus, the question with which we are confronted is whether Congress implicitly preempted all state action in the area. The RLA is, no doubt, comprehensive in its regulation of the process leading up to the formation of a collective-bargaining agreement between a railroad and its employees. The designation of a labor organization to represent railway employees is detailed. 45 U.S.C. § 152 (1982). A mediation board to settle disputes concerning the process for a new collective-bargaining agreement is established. 45 U.S.C. §§ 154-56 (1982). A board of arbitration is also formed to settle collective-bargaining disputes not resolved by the mediation board. 45 U.S.C. §§ 157-59 (1982). Thus, the resolution of such major disputes appears to be an exclusive federal concern. [4] Congress could not have intended that the states supplement this area by promulgating additional procedures pertaining to the formation of a new collective-bargaining agreement. See Slocum v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Co., 339 U.S. 239, 70 S.Ct. 577, 94 L.Ed. 795 (1950). In addition to providing a procedure whereby disputes concerning the process for a new collective-bargaining agreement are resolved, Congress included in the RLA a method of resolving so-called minor disputes  disagreements over the interpretation or application of existing collective-bargaining agreements. [5] The Act establishes an adjustment board to resolve such disputes and allows the railroad and its employees to form their own dispute-resolution process. 45 U.S.C. § 153 (1982). In Andrews v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., 406 U.S. 320, 92 S.Ct. 1562, 32 L.Ed.2d 95 (1972), the United States Supreme Court held that the procedures for the resolution of minor disputes are mandatory and a railway employee cannot ignore the remedies of the Act by commencing an action in state court to resolve such disputes. The Court overruled its decision in Moore v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 312 U.S. 630, 61 S.Ct. 754, 85 L.Ed. 1089 (1941), in which it was held that the right of a railway employee to sue the railroad for wrongful discharge was not dependent on an exhaustion of the RLA's administrative remedies. The Andrews Court fell short of holding that the RLA preempts all state remedies for a minor dispute. It noted, however: The term exhaustion of administrative remedies in its broader sense may be an entirely appropriate description of the obligation of both the employee and carrier under the Railway Labor Act to resort to dispute settlement procedures provided by that Act. It is clear, however, that in at least some situations the Act makes the federal administrative remedy exclusive, rather than merely requiring exhaustion of remedies in one forum before resorting to another. A party who has litigated an issue before the Adjustment Board on the merits may not relitigate that issue in an independent judicial proceeding. He is limited to the judicial review of the Board's proceedings that the Act itself provides. In such a case the proceedings afforded by 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (i), will be the only remedy available to the aggrieved party. 406 U.S. at 325, 92 S.Ct. at 1565 (citations omitted). Andrews would preclude a state-law claim that is, in essence, a minor dispute under the RLA. Thus, if Pikop and Gulati were suing Burlington Northern for wrongful discharge, their claims would be preempted by the exclusive procedure of the Act because a discharge from employment is a matter within the parameters of a collective-bargaining agreement and therefore a minor dispute under the RLA. See Andrews, 406 U.S. at 324, 92 S.Ct. at 1565; Union Pacific Railroad Co. v. Price, 360 U.S. 601, 617, 79 S.Ct. 1351, 1359, 3 L.Ed.2d 1460 (1959). See also, Jackson v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 717 F.2d 1045 (7th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1007, 104 S.Ct. 1000, 79 L.Ed.2d 233 (1984) (railway employee's claim of retaliatory discharge preempted by RLA); Choate v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., 715 F.2d 369 (7th Cir.1983) (railway employee's claim that railroad wrongfully discharged him and failed to reinstate him is a minor dispute under the RLA); Magnuson v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 576 F.2d 1367 (9th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 930, 99 S.Ct. 318, 58 L.Ed.2d 323 (1978) (wrongful discharge claim of railway employee preempted). Unlike a claim of wrongful discharge, a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress where the distress results from a continual pattern of harassment is not a minor dispute under the RLA. Such a claim does not stem from differing interpretations of the collective-bargaining agreement, Andrews, 406 U.S. at 324, 92 S.Ct. at 1565, but rather is premised on the tort-law principle that citizens of our state must be protected from conduct so atrocious that it passes the boundaries of decency and is utterly intolerable to the civilized community. Haagenson v. National Farmers Union Property and Casualty Co., 277 N.W.2d 648, 652 n. 3 (Minn. 1979) (citing the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46, Comment (1965)). The conduct that Pikop and Gulati allege transcends the four corners of the collective-bargaining agreement Burlington Northern entered into with its employees. The alleged behavior, if proven, will constitute a continual pattern of harassment on the part of Burlington Northern, conduct that is not merely a wrongful discharge claim or other grievance premised on a collective-bargaining agreement. Burlington Northern contends that a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress relates to a working condition and thus must be resolved by the administrative procedures of the Act. We disagree. In Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 318 U.S. 1, 63 S.Ct. 420, 87 L.Ed. 571 (1943), the United States Supreme Court upheld a state safety requirement that cabooses be attached to all trains operating within the state. The railroad had argued that the RLA precluded the state from regulating such working conditions. The Court disagreed, stating: The Railway Labor Act, like the National Labor Relations Act, does not undertake governmental regulation of wages, hours, or working conditions. Instead it seeks to provide a means by which agreement may be reached with respect to them. The national interest expressed by those Acts is not primarily in the working conditions as such. So far as the Act itself is concerned these conditions may be as bad as the employees will tolerate or be made as good as they can bargain for. The Act does not fix and does not authorize anyone to fix generally applicable standards for working conditions. The federal interest that is fostered is to see that disagreement about conditions does not reach the point of interfering with interstate commerce. The Mediation Board and Adjustment Board act to compose differences that threaten continuity of work, not to remove conditions that threaten the health or safety of workers. State laws have long regulated a great variety of conditions in transportation and industry, such as sanitary facilities and conditions, safety devices and protections, purity of water supply, fire protection, and innumerable others. Any of these matters might, we suppose, be the subject of a demand by workmen for better protection and upon refusal might be the subject of a labor dispute which would have such effect on interstate commerce that federal agencies might be invoked to deal with some phase of it. But we would hardly be expected to hold that the price of the federal effort to protect the peace and continuity of commerce has been to strike down state sanitary codes, health regulations, factory inspections, and safety provisions for industry and transportation. We suppose employees might consider that state or municipal requirements of fire escapes, fire doors, and fire protection were inadequate and make them the subject of a dispute, at least some phases of which would be of federal concern. But it cannot be that the minimum requirements laid down by state authority are all set aside. We hold that the enactment by Congress of the Railway Labor Act was not a preemption of the field of regulating working conditions themselves and did not preclude the State of Illinois from making the order in question. Id. at 6-7, 63 S.Ct. at 423 (footnote and citation omitted; emphasis added). See also Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 372 U.S. 284, 289-90, 83 S.Ct. 691, 694, 9 L.Ed.2d 759 (1963) (reiterating that the RLA does not regulate wages, hours, or working conditions). Although Pikop's and Gulati's claims do not constitute either a major dispute or a minor dispute under the Act, their claims would, nevertheless, be preempted if Congress intended to preclude any claims against the railroad other than those that are, in essence, major or minor disputes under the RLA. In determining such congressional intent, we must examine the potential for interference with the federal scheme that such a claim presents. See Fidelity Federal Savings, 458 U.S. at 153, 102 S.Ct. at 3022; Rice, 331 U.S. at 230, 67 S.Ct. at 1152; Hines, 312 U.S. at 67, 61 S.Ct. at 404. This potential for interference is then weighed against the nature of the state interest in regulating the conduct in question. Thus, when the potential for interference is nil and the state interest involved is substantial, we can infer that Congress did not intend to preempt the state-law claim. This balancing approach is derived from Farmer v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America, Local 25, 430 U.S. 290, 97 S.Ct. 1056, 51 L.Ed.2d 338 (1977). In Farmer, the United States Supreme Court held that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) did not preempt a union member's state-law claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. [6] The Court in Farmer noted that no provision of the NLRA protected the union member from the outrageous conduct alleged in the complaint. Such is the case here. The RLA affords Pikop and Gulati no remedy for conduct that constitutes the intentional infliction of emotional distress. An adjustment board could not award money damages as compensation for the injuries alleged in either Pikop's or Gulati's complaint. The RLA relates only to the collective-bargaining process in the railway industry and seeks only to resolve major and minor disputes that arise in that process. No such dispute is claimed here. Therefore, permitting the exercise of state jurisdiction over such complaints does not result in state regulation of federally protected conduct. Farmer, 430 U.S. at 302, 97 S.Ct. at 1064. See also Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Howard, 343 U.S. 768, 72 S.Ct. 1022, 96 L.Ed. 1283 (1952) (Black railway employees have a judicial remedy to prevent discrimination because no adequate administrative remedy exists under the RLA). Moreover, a state trial court considering such a state-law claim by a former railway employee would not be interpreting the railroad's collective-bargaining agreement with its employees, an inquiry that is reserved exclusively to the federal boards established in the RLA. The focus of the state court's investigation would be on whether the elements of the tort alleged have been proven. Such a determination would be made without resolution of the `merits' of the underlying labor dispute, if any. Farmer, 430 U.S. at 304, 97 S.Ct. at 1065. In Minnesota, recovery for the intentional infliction of emotional distress is limited to those cases in which an aggrieved party can establish conduct that was extreme and outrageous and intentional or reckless. The conduct must also have caused emotional distress that is severe. Hubbard v. United Press International, Inc., 330 N.W.2d 428, 438-39 (Minn.1983). As we noted in Hubbard: In explaining both the extreme nature of the conduct necessary to invoke this tort, and the necessary degree of severity of the consequent mental distress, the Restatement's commentary emphasizes the limited scope of this cause of action, and clearly reflects a strong policy to prevent fictitious and speculative claims. Because this policy has long been a central feature of Minnesota law on the availability of damages for mental distress, our adoption of the Restatement formulation as the standard for the independent tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress does not signal an appreciable expansion in the scope of conduct actionable under this theory of recovery. The operation of this tort is sharply limited to cases involving particularly egregious facts. Id. at 439 (footnote omitted). The fact that the tort is limited to such cases decreases the potential for undue interference with the RLA. See Farmer, 430 U.S. at 305, 97 S.Ct. at 1066. It is apparent that our recognition of a state remedy for the intentional infliction of emotional distress in this case would not frustrate the collective-bargaining process of the RLA. In Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co. 394 U.S. 369, 89 S.Ct. 1109, 22 L.Ed.2d 344 (1969), the Court held that the RLA does not allow a state to preclude all self-help remedies to a railway carrier or union after the parties have exhausted the administrative procedures of the Act. Such a preclusion, the Court said, would make the Act's entire scheme for the resolution of major disputes meaningless. Here, such is not the case. Unlike the state action in Jacksonville, a state remedy for the intentional infliction of emotional distress does not relate to the collective-bargaining process itself. The Act only serves to regulate such a process and thus Burlington Northern's argument that the potential for interference with the RLA scheme is such that preemption is mandated carries no weight. Balanced against any interference with the federal scheme that such a tort claim may produce is the nature of the state's interest in protecting its citizens from the kind of conduct the tort action seeks to redress. Farmer, 430 U.S. at 302, 97 S.Ct. at 1064. The state interest in this case is substantial. In Farmer, the Court discussed the interest a state has in affording its citizens a remedy for the intentional infliction of emotional distress: The State, on the other hand, has a substantial interest in protecting its citizens from the kind of abuse of which Hill complained. That interest is no less worthy of recognition because it concerns protection from emotional distress caused by outrageous conduct, rather than protection from physical injury, as in Russell, or damage to reputation, as in Linn. Although recognition of the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress is a comparatively recent development in state law, see W. Prosser, Law of Torts, § 12, pp. 49-50, 56 (4th ed. 1971), our decisions permitting the exercise of state jurisdiction in tort actions based on violence or defamation have not rested on the history of the tort at issue, but rather on the nature of the State's interest in protecting the health and well-being of its citizens. Id. at 302-03, 97 S.Ct. at 1064-65. Minnesota has a strong interest in protecting its citizens from outrageous emotional abuse because the emotional health and well-being of its citizens is vital, not only to a stable economy, but to a civilized culture. The conduct Pikop and Gulati complain of touches interests deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility. San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 244, 79 S.Ct. 773, 779, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959). In light of the substantial interest the state has in such tort actions and the lack of interference such an action places on the federal railway labor process, we hold that the RLA does not preempt a state-law claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress where the alleged distress results, not from a wrongful discharge, but from a continual pattern of harassment on the part of the railroad-employer.