Opinion ID: 1852214
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Federal Preemption Issue.

Text: Section 301 preempts state claims founded directly on rights created by collective-bargaining agreements, and also claims `substantially dependent on analysis of a collective-bargaining agreement.' Caterpillar, Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 394, 107 S.Ct. 2425, 2431, 96 L.Ed.2d 318, 328 (1987) (quoting Int'l Bhd. of Elec. Workers v. Hechler, 481 U.S. 851, 859 n. 3, 107 S.Ct. 2161, 2167 n. 3, 95 L.Ed.2d 791, 801 n. 3 (1987)). A. The contract claim. US West contends that the plaintiff's suit is preempted, even though it is not based directly on the CBA, because the scope of the CBA's zipper clause must be consulted to determine if a separate action may be maintained. A zipper clause seeks to close out bargaining during the contract term and to make the written contract the exclusive statement of the parties['] rights and obligations. The parties to a written contract typically want the writing to be the exclusive statement of what they have agreed to. A zipper clause conveys the message that this agreement contains the complete understanding of the parties. It zips up and closes their negotiations and announces there is no more to bargain about until next time. Mt. Vernon Educ. Ass'n v. Illinois Educ. Labor Relations Bd., 278 Ill.App.3d 814, 215 Ill.Dec. 553, 663 N.E.2d 1067, 1070 (1996) (quoting NLRB v. Tomco Communications, Inc., 567 F.2d 871, 879 (9th Cir.1978) (alteration by court)). The zipper clause contained in U.S. West's CBA stated: The Agreements of August 13, 1989, between the Union and the Company, superseded any and all past practices, policies, or procedures, either oral or written, which existed between the parties prior to the date of those Agreements. This Agreement between the Union and the Company continues the effect of that understanding and will govern the relationship between the parties during its term. No modification to this Agreement shall be effective unless signed by the parties. Here, U.S. West argues that the contract that Grimm claims was created by the employee handbook was entered into before the CBA became effective and, therefore, may not be enforced because the claim is preempted by the LMRA. U.S. West argues, [a]t the very least, the Court would have to interpret the zipper clause in the CBA to determine if the CBA superseded any past policies or procedures established by the [employee handbook]. This alone renders the resolution of [Grimm's] state law claims ... inextricably intertwined with and substantially dependent upon analysis of the terms of the [CBA] such that Grimm's claims are ... subject to the complete preemption doctrine. (Citations omitted.) We agree with the federal court, which ruled that the language of section 301 does not sweep so broadly as to preempt all claims based on the employee manual. That court relied on Caterpillar, which noted that individual employment contracts are not inevitably superseded by any subsequent collective agreement covering an individual employee, and claims based upon them may arise under state law. Caterpillar's basic error is its failure to recognize that a plaintiff covered by a collective-bargaining agreement is permitted to assert legal rights independent of that agreement, including state-law contract rights, so long as the contract relied upon is not a collective-bargaining agreement. 482 U.S. at 396, 107 S.Ct. at 2431, 96 L.Ed.2d at 329-30. In the present case, as in Caterpillar, the collateral contract is alleged to be implied from conduct, and therefore, it is unclear whether an examination of the collective-bargaining agreement is truly required by [state] law, because `[i]n pleading a cause of action on an agreement implied from conduct, only the facts from which the promise is implied must be alleged.'  Caterpillar, 482 U.S. at 395 n. 9, 107 S.Ct. at 2431 n. 9, 96 L.Ed.2d at 329 n. 9 (quoting Youngman v. Nevada Irrigation Dist., 70 Cal.2d 240, 74 Cal.Rptr. 398, 449 P.2d 462, 466 (1969)). In deciding whether the handbook contract here was inexorably intertwined with the CBA, we must remember first that the plaintiff is the master of [her own] complaint. Caterpillar, 482 U.S. at 398-99, 107 S.Ct. at 2433, 96 L.Ed.2d at 331, and she may intentionally craft her petition to avoid the need to interpret the CBA. Also, U.S. West seeks to derail her suit at the petition stage through its motion to dismiss. In this respect, this case is analogous to federal courts' initial rulings on removal petitions, which turn on whether section 301 preempts state court jurisdiction as a matter of law. In Caterpillar the Supreme Court ruled that a holding of preemption at the removal stage was premature: The fact that a defendant might ultimately prove that a plaintiff's claims are preempted under the NLRA does not establish that they are removable to federal court [on preemption grounds]. Id. at 398, 107 S.Ct. at 2432, 96 L.Ed.2d at 330-31. As the Court has noted, a plaintiff should be master of her pleadings, and a plaintiff may, by eschewing claims based on federal law, choose to have the cause heard in state court. When a plaintiff invokes a right created by a collective-bargaining agreement, the plaintiff has chosen to plead what we have held must be regarded as a federal claim, and removal is at the defendant's option. But a defendant cannot, merely by injecting a federal question into an action that asserts what is plainly a state-law claim, transform the action into one arising under federal law, thereby selecting the forum in which the claim shall be litigated. If a defendant could do so, the plaintiff would be master of nothing. Congress has long since decided that federal defenses do not provide a basis for removal. Id. at 399, 107 S.Ct. at 2433, 96 L.Ed.2d at 331 (footnote omitted). We conclude the district court erred in ruling as a matter of law that Grimm's handbook claim is preempted by the LMRA. B. The tort claims. The defendants contend, and the district court ruled, that the plaintiff's tort claims, as well as her contract claim based on the employee handbook, are preempted by the LMRA. The test for LMRA preemption in a tort case is whether evaluation of the tort claim is inextricably intertwined with consideration of the terms of the labor contract. If the state tort law purports to define the meaning of the contract relationship, that law is pre-empted. Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 213, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 1912, 85 L.Ed.2d 206, 216-17 (1985). Allis-Chalmers illustrates the type of tort case that is preempted by section 301. The CBA in that case provided for an internal Joint Plant Insurance Committee with authority to resolve all disputes involving `any insurance-related issues that may arise from provisions of the [Collective-Bargaining] Agreement.' Id. at 204, 105 S.Ct. at 1907, 85 L.Ed.2d at 211 (alteration by court). In Allis-Chalmers the plaintiff claimed Allis Chalmers had ordered the company's workers' compensation carrier to periodically cut off his workers' compensation benefits. Lueck did not attempt to grieve the matter under the CBA. Instead, he filed a state tort claim for breach of the company's duty to act in good faith and deal fairly with his claim. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held his claim was not preempted by section 301 because that statute dealt with labor contracts, while Lueck's claim was a tort claim of bad faith and thus independent of the contract. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the contract was `irrelevant to the issue of whether the defendants exercised bad faith in the manner in which they handled Lueck's claim.' Id. at 207, 105 S.Ct. at 1909, 85 L.Ed.2d at 212 (quoting Lueck v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 116 Wis.2d 559, 342 N.W.2d 699, 703 (1984)). The Supreme Court held that, [u]nder Wisconsin law, the tort intrinsically relates to the nature and existence of the contract, [and][t]hus the tort exists for breach of a `duty devolv[ed] upon the insurer by reasonable implication from the express terms of the contract,' the scope of which, crucially, is `ascertained from a consideration of the contract itself.' Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 216, 105 S.Ct. at 1914, 85 L.Ed.2d at 218 (quoting Hilker v. W. Auto. Ins. Co., 204 Wis. 1, 235 N.W. 413, 415 (1931) (alteration by court)). The Court held that, when resolution of a state-law claim is substantially dependent upon analysis of the terms of an agreement made between the parties in a labor contract, that claim must either be treated as a § 301 claim, or dismissed as preempted by federal labor-contract law. This complaint should have been dismissed.... Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 220, 105 S.Ct. at 1916, 85 L.Ed.2d at 221 (citation omitted). In Lingle v. Norge Division of Magic Chef, Inc., 486 U.S. 399, 108 S.Ct. 1877, 100 L.Ed.2d 410 (1988), the Supreme Court further refined the principles of section 301 preemption: [I]f the resolution of a state-law claim depends upon the meaning of a collective-bargaining agreement, the application of state law (which might lead to inconsistent results since there could be as many state-law principles as there are States) is preempted and federal labor-law principlesnecessarily uniform throughout the nationmust be employed to resolve the dispute. Lingle, 486 U.S. at 405-06, 108 S.Ct. at 1881, 100 L.Ed.2d at 418-19. The Court noted, however, that `not every dispute... tangentially involving a provision of a collective-bargaining agreement, is pre-empted by section 301[.]' Id. at 413, n. 12, 108 S.Ct. at 1885, n. 12, 100 L.Ed.2d at 424, n. 12 (quoting Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 211, 105 S.Ct. at 1911, 85 L.Ed.2d at 206). We have already held plaintiff's contract claim is not preempted at this stage in the proceedings because she is the master of her own complaint. We believe the reasoning there applies with equal force as to the plaintiff's tortious interference claim. As to plaintiff's intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim, we note the case of Keehr v. Consolidated Freightways of Delaware, Inc., 825 F.2d 133 (7th Cir.1987), presented facts similar to the present case. The issue was whether the plaintiff's state claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress was preempted by the LMRA. The court concluded this claim revolve[s] around conduct by his employer that is not even arguably sanctioned by the labor contract. Keehr, 825 F.2d at 138 n. 6. In rejecting the employer's preemption argument, the court said in Keehr, [the employer] argues that Bruce's claims are preempted because he could have filed a grievance against [his supervisor] for using abusive language. The mere fact that Bruce might be able to grieve [his supervisor's] conduct under procedures provided in the collective bargaining agreement is not sufficient in itself to conclude that Bruce's tort claims are preempted. The crucial issue under Allis-Chalmers is not whether a claim can be taken through the grievance process but whether the state law tort claim being asserted purports to give meaning to the terms of the labor contract. [The employer] has not suggested that Bruce's claims are in any way derived from rights or duties provided for under the contract. Because the resolution of Bruce's tort claims in no way depends on an interpretation of the labor contract, we conclude that Bruce's claims are not preempted by section 301. Keehr, 825 F.2d at 137. Similarly, the court in Lightning v. Roadway Express, Inc., 60 F.3d 1551, 1557 (11th Cir.1995), held an employee's state claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress was not preempted because the claim does not implicate the provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement. See also Knafel v. Pepsi-Cola Bottlers of Akron, Inc., 899 F.2d 1473, 1483 (6th Cir.1990) (This tort claim [for emotional distress]... does not require an interpretation of the labor contract.). We conclude the resolution of Grimm's suit for intentional infliction of emotional distress is not, as a matter of law, preempted by the LMRA and therefore reverse the district court on that issue.