Court Opinion

ID: 9578686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:47:27.940407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:14.661317
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
specially concurring in Part I:
In light of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. San Diego Dist. Council of Carpenters, 436 U.S. 180, 98 S.Ct. 1745, 56 L.Ed.2d 209 (1978), and Farmer v. Carpenters, Local 25, 430 U.S. 290, 97 S.Ct. 1056, 51 L.Ed.2d 338 (1977), I concur with the majority’s ruling that the trial court erred in dismissing the appellants’ wrongful death action against respondent United Steelworkers because of the preemption doctrine. An action for wrongful death is a creature of our state statutes, is of substan*547tial local interest, and traditionally has been committed to the jurisdiction of the courts of the state. Moreover, this action for wrongful death is unlikely to present the identical legal issues as a proceeding under the federal labor laws arising from this same factual setting. Assertion of jurisdiction by the courts of this state over the appellants’ action would appear to present no significant risk of undue interference with national labor policy.
Nevertheless, in both Farmer and Sears, Roebuck, the court ruled that the jurisdiction of the state courts and state tort law was not preempted, only after a careful scrutiny of the legal issues raised by the actions under state law — intentional infliction of emotional distress in Farmer and trespass in Sears, Roebuck. In the instant case the precise nature of the legal issues raised by the appellants’ wrongful death action is not entirely clear at the present procedural posture of the case. Indeed, it has not yet been determined by either the trial court or this Court that the appellants’ complaint in fact states a claim for relief in tort against the respondent union. Cf. Just’s, Inc. v. Arrington Constr. Co., 99 Idaho 462, 583 P.2d 997 (1978) (ordinarily mere breach of contract not a tort); see also McAlvain v. General Ins. Co. of America, 97 Idaho 777, 554 P.2d 955 (1976); Taylor v. Herbolo, 94 Idaho 133, 483 P.2d 664 (1971). That issue was not briefed in this appeal and so we do not reach it.
In my view a final decision whether the wrongful death action against the respondent union is preempted by federal labor laws must therefore await a full factual development of the legal issues raised under our state tort law.
DONALDSON, C. J., and McFADDEN, J., concur.