Opinion ID: 8704053
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether Exhaustion Is Excused Due to Futility

Text: Plaintiffs argue in the alternative that “even if the exhaustion requirement applied, the Court should excuse the class members’ failure to exhaust administrative remedies because doing so would have been futile.” Pl. Mem. at 9 (citing Commc’ns Workers, 40 F.3d at 433). According to Plaintiffs, other pilots’ efforts to exhaust their remedies “would have been futile because the Retirement Board’s written rules, practices, and procedures bound it to the Stephens precedent.” PL Reply at 5. This is not so, the PBGC argues, because “it is impossible to establish what the result of any appeal [to the Retirement Board] would have been, much less the results of multiple appeals,” especially given that deadlocks of the four-person board were resolved by an “independent, neutral arbitrator to be designated by the Board in each case” as a fifth, tiebreaking vote. Def. Opp. at 9. While futility is an exception to the general principle of exhaustion, it is “ ‘quite restricted,’ and has been applied only when resort to administrative remedies is ‘clearly useless.’ ” Commc’ns Workers, 40 F.3d at 432 (quoting Randolph-Sheppard Vendors of Am. v. Weinberger, 795 F.2d 90, 105 (D.C.Cir.1986)). The D.C. Circuit has emphasized that the application of the futility exception is “discretionary.” Id. To invoke it, plaintiffs “must show that it is certain that their claim will be denied on [administrative] appeal, not merely that they doubt an appeal will result in a different decision.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Plaintiffs have not made that showing here. Plaintiffs rely heavily on the declarations of Captain John Davis, a former chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) Local Executive Council 94 (Pittsburgh), who is “familiar with U.S. Airways’ policy with respect to the handling of grievances, arbitrations, and retirement board disputes.” See PI. Mem., Ex. D, First Davis Decl. [Dkt. 62-4] ¶ 3; see also PL Mem., Ex. E, Second Davis Decl. [Dkt. 62-5]. According to Captain Davis, the Retirement Board “always abided by prior decisions” to “resolve any subsequent disagreements on analogous issues.” First Davis Decl. ¶ 4. Therefore, he is “certain that U.S. Airways and the Retirement Board would have treated all claims for interest on delayed lump sum payments in a manner consistent with the Retirement Board Impartial Referee’s decision in Mr. James C. Stephens’ claim.” Id. ¶ 7. Moreover, Captain Davis asserts, “if more than one pilot brought the same dispute to the Retirement Board, the company and ALPA discouraged additional filings of similar disputes by deferring consideration of the subsequent similar disputes until the initial matter was determined[, and the] Board decision rendered on the first pilot would then determine the resolution for all subsequent pilots with the same dispute.” Second Davis Decl. ¶¶4-5. As further evidence that denial of Mr. Stephens’s claim made other pilots’ claims futile, Plaintiffs submitted a Letter of Agreement between U.S. Airways and the Air Line Pilots Association providing that “[a]ll decisions of the [Retirement] Board shall be final and binding upon the Company, the Association and any other person having an interest in such decisions or actions.” Pl. Reply, Ex. B [Dkt. 65-2] (Letter of Agreement) ¶ 1.6. The shortcoming in Plaintiffs’ argument is that, “[r]ather than speculating on the outcome if administrative procedures are pursued, a plaintiff must show that ‘it is certain that their claim will be denied.’ ” Cox v. Graphic Commc’ns Conference of Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 603 F.Supp.2d 23, 31 (D.D.C.2009) (quoting Commc’ns Workers, 40 F.3d at 432; other internal quotations omitted). Plaintiffs attempt to cobble together Captain Davis’s assertions about what the Board “would” have done with other pilots’ appeals of the denial of interest on a lump-sum benefit, Second Davis Decl. ¶ 5, with documentary evidence that the Retirement Board treated like cases alike. But, taken as a whole, their evidence essentially amounts to speculation as to how the Board would have decided other appeals; it shows neither that the Board viewed its denial of Mr. Stephens’s claim as unconditionally prohibiting future claims nor that it absolutely refused to reconsider its decisions in subsequent cases. Because the Retirement Board was a committee of two pilots’ union representatives and two company representatives who used an independent fifth vote to break deadlocks, it stands to reason that a case after Mr. Stephens’s could, in fact, have ended with a decision that the pilot was owed interest. This is all the more true in light of the evidence submitted by the PBGC showing that the Retirement Board anticipated that “the 45 day issue would again be addressed outside of the Stephens case which will probably result in an additional arbitration.” Def. Opp., Ex. 1 [Dkt. 64-1], ALPA-05184 to-05186 (Retirement Board Minutes) ¶ 14. Plaintiffs’ exhaustion evidence does not “satisfy [the] strict futility standard requiring a certainty of an adverse decision.” Commc’ns Workers, 40 F.3d at 433. This case, therefore, does not present the “most exceptional circumstances” in which the futility exception to the exhaustion requirement applies. Id. (quoting Peter Kiewit Sons’ Co. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 714 F.2d 163, 168-69 (D.C.Cir. 1983)). Mr. Stephens is the only pilot who exhausted his remedies under the Plan. Only Mr. Stephens can pursue his claim here.