Opinion ID: 424926
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Vindication of Federal Right.

Text: 16 Jackson analogizes this case to those in which a claim based on a federal statute has been upheld, despite petitioner's failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the RLA or to obtain relief pursuant to those remedies. E.g., Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 450 U.S. 728, 101 S.Ct. 1437, 67 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981); Johnson v. American Airlines, Inc., 487 F.Supp. 1343 (N.D.Tex.1980). Jackson reasons that he had a federal statutory right to bring an FELA suit, 45 U.S.C. Sec. 51, and that suffering discharge in retaliation for bringing such a suit has an impermissible impact on his federal right. 17 In Johnson v. American Airlines, Inc., 487 F.Supp. 1343 (N.D.Tex.1980), former commercial airline pilots challenged American's rule that made retirement of pilots mandatory at age sixty. The former pilots wanted to continue working for American as flight engineers. Flight engineers were not subject to the age sixty retirement rule. The district court held that the pilots' suit, based on the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 623 (ADEA), was cognizable even though the plaintiffs had not exhausted the applicable remedies under the collective bargaining agreement or the RLA. The court relied on the holding in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 45, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 1018, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974), in which the Court stated that an arbitrator's resolution of a contractual claim is not necessarily dispositive of a statutory claim premised on Title VII. Johnson, 487 F.Supp. at 1345. The Johnson court noted that exhaustion of administrative remedies was not a condition precedent to maintaining an ADEA suit because the right not to suffer from age discrimination is a federal statutory right rather than a contractual right. Id. at 1346. See also Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 450 U.S. 728, 101 S.Ct. 1437, 67 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981) (wage claims based on Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 201-219, not barred by prior submission of grievances to contractual dispute resolution procedures); Conrad v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 494 F.2d 914 (7th Cir.1974) (distinguishing Andrews from Conrad's allegations that Delta discharged him, in violation of the express provisions of 45 U.S.C. Sec. 152 Fourth, because of his union activities). 18 The present case is distinguishable from Barrentine, Conrad, and Johnson because neither the FELA, the RLA, nor any other federal statute specifically provides a right of action to one discharged under the circumstances alleged by Jackson. The question is whether the state tort action for retaliatory discharge, buttressed by the policies underlying the FELA, is sufficiently analogous to a federal statutory right to rebut the preemption of the RLA. 19 The case most relevant to resolving this issue is Hendley v. Central of Georgia Railroad, 609 F.2d 1146 (5th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1093, 101 S.Ct. 890, 66 L.Ed.2d 822 (1981). Hendley brought suit to enjoin the railroad for which he worked from conducting a disciplinary hearing relating to his alleged disloyalty in assisting a fellow employee's FELA action against the railroad. Hendley relied on 45 U.S.C. Sec. 60 which provides that it is a crime to discipline an employee for voluntarily furnishing information in connection with an FELA case. The district court in Hendley had ruled that his claim was a minor dispute, within the exclusive jurisdiction of the NRAB, because the FELA case was already concluded and there was no possibility that relevant evidence would be suppressed through coercion by the railroad. 20 Several factors were relevant to the Fifth Circuit's holding that Hendley's claim was cognizable in federal court. The court noted that the case involved interpretation of a federal statute because it was necessary to determine whether 45 U.S.C. Sec. 60 was applicable after the FELA action was concluded. The Fifth Circuit also analogized Hendley to Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Central of Georgia Railway, 305 F.2d 605 (5th Cir.1962) (Brotherhood ), in which the plaintiff had alleged that a disloyalty investigation by the railroad was instituted in order to discredit the union of which he was a representative. Because these allegations constituted, if proven, a violation of 45 U.S.C. Sec. 152 Third, which prohibits coercion in the employees' choice of a representative, the Fifth Circuit had held that it had jurisdiction over the case. The Hendley court explicitly distinguished Brotherhood from a later Fifth Circuit disposition, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Southern Railway, 393 F.2d 303 (5th Cir.1968) (Southern ), in which the plaintiff had relied on the general policy provisions of the RLA. The Southern court had held that jurisdiction could not be premised on such a general policy statement. Hendley, 609 F.2d at 1152 n. 4. 21 The Hendley decision therefore recognizes an exception to preemption only if the suit is premised on a specific federal statutory section. It distinguishes such a claim from one in which the allegations constitute, if proven, only a violation of the policy underlying a federal statute. This distinction, recognized in Hendley, strongly suggests that the statutory procedures and remedies of the RLA are not rebutted in Jackson's case. 22 There is admittedly a superficial appeal to reasoning that the FELA, particularly those sections stating the right to sue, 45 U.S.C. Sec. 51, and the prohibition against coercing an employee not to volunteer information relative to a fellow employee's FELA action, id. Sec. 60, prohibits an employer from discharging an employee in retaliation for filing an FELA action. Such a statute has not, however, been enacted by Congress. 23 In a case like this involving a railway worker subject to the RLA, yet entitled to rely upon the FELA, there is a tension between the two federal statutes. In such a context, a court must be particularly reluctant to elevate an FELA policy to the status of a federal right. Such caution is illustrated by Bay v. Western Pacific Railroad, 595 F.2d 514 (9th Cir.1979), in which the court held that the language of 45 U.S.C. Sec. 55, which, inter alia, declares void any device utilized by a common carrier to exempt itself from FELA liability, provides no private cause of action for an employee allegedly discharged in retaliation for filing an FELA action. That Jackson's claim is separately grounded in a state cause of action is immaterial because it is only federal statutory rights that have been held, under cases such as Barrentine, Hendley, Conrad, and Johnson, to rebut the preemption of the RLA. See De La Rosa Sanchez v. Eastern Airlines, Inc., 574 F.2d 29 (1st Cir.1978) (holding pension claim based on law of Puerto Rico subject to exclusive jurisdiction of the RLA despite alleged federal interest, embodied in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, in fulfillment of pension obligations). We therefore concur with the distinction recognized by the Hendley court between cases premised on a federal statutory provision and those premised on a federal policy and hold that the policies underlying the FELA do not overcome the RLA mandate that Jackson's exclusive remedy lay with administrative grievance procedures. 7 24