Court Opinion

ID: 9690176
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:55:55.912003+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:53.958235
License: Public Domain

CRIPPEN, Judge
(dissenting).
Under Minnesota statutory law, if an employer discharges an employee for seeking workers’ compensation benefits the employee is entitled to recover damages in a civil action. Minn.Stat. § 176.82 (1990). As the majority reports, this court once conditioned this employee remedy on prior exhaustion of grievance procedures and other labor law remedies under a collective bargaining agreement. Schuyler v. Metropolitan Transit Comm’n, 374 N.W.2d 453, 457 (Minn.App.1985). It is incumbent upon us to reconsider and recast the law of Schuyler as a result of the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Lingle v. Norge Division of Magic Chef, Inc., 486 U.S. 399, 108 S.Ct. 1877, 100 L.Ed.2d 410 (1988).
1. Initially, the court should recognize that there is logical disharmony between the rationale in Schuyler and the subsequent reasoning of the United States Supreme Court in Lingle. In Schuyler, the employee claimed his absenteeism was caused by a work-related compensable injury. Because the employer’s medical doctor reported Schuyler was able to work, the employer claimed absenteeism of Schuyler was inexcusable and his discharge justified. We concluded that Schuyler was “essentially claiming” that his discharge was not “just or merited” and that [the employer] therefore violated the collective bargaining agreement. Schuyler, 374 N.W.2d at 456. We added:
This grievance is not critically unlike other types of grievances involving [the employer’s] policies. Resolution of Schuyler’s claim would involve [the employer’s] interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement and would affect future relations between [the employer] and other employees.

Id.

Similarly, employee Lingle brought an Illinois state court proceeding alleging that she had been discharged for exercising her rights under Illinois workers’ compensation laws. After removal, the federal district court found cause to dismiss the complaint because the claim was “inextricably intertwined” with a collective bargaining provision prohibiting discharge without just cause. Lingle, 486 U.S. at 401, 108 S.Ct. at 1879 (quoting Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef Inc., 618 F.Supp. 1448, 1449 (S.D. 111.1985)). Thus, the lower courts concluded that pursuit of the state law action was preempted by the scheme of federal law related to enforcement of collective bargaining agreements. See Lingle, 618 F.Supp. at 1449-50, aff'd, 823 F.2d 1031, 1046 (7th Cir.1987) (en banc).
In its Lingle decision, the Supreme Court reviewed the ingredients of an Illinois retaliatory discharge claim. Lingle, 486 U.S. at 407, 108 S.Ct. at 1882. The court then reversed the lower courts, concluding that adjudication of the state claim “does not depend upon the interpretation of [collective bargaining] agreements.” Id. at 409, 108 S.Ct. at 1883. The court explained:
Each of these purely factual questions [in a retaliatory discharge claim] pertains to the conduct of the employee and the conduct and motivation of the employer. Neither of the elements requires a court to interpret any term of a collective-bargaining agreement. To defend against a retaliatory discharge claim, an employer must show that it had a nonretaliatory reason for the discharge * * *; this purely factual inquiry likewise does not turn on the meaning of any provision of a collective-bargaining agreement.
Id. at 407, 108 S.Ct. at 1882 (citations omitted). Thus, employing a rationale completely at odds with our analysis in Schuyler, the Supreme Court determined that the state law claim could be pursued independently of the federal scheme of law on collective bargaining agreements.
*3402.The effect of Lingle goes beyond its weight as a scheme of analysis for a substantially identical issue. State law on exhaustion of remedies, the subject of Schuyler, is completely interdependent with federal preemption law. Both doctrines, of course, require pursuit of collective bargaining agreement remedies prior to a retaliatory discharge claim. The relationship between the doctrines, however, is even deeper.
State principles on the exhaustion of collective bargaining agreement remedies are premised on the existence of preemptive federal law labor agreement remedies. So, for example, Schuyler observed that the Supreme Court of Hawaii rejected exhaustion of remedies in an unlawful discharge case because of its conclusion that the claim was not preempted by federal labor law. Schuyler, 374 N.W.2d at 456, (discussing Puchert v. Agsalud, 67 Haw. 25, 677 P.2d 449 (1984), appeal dismissed, 472 U.S. 1001, 105 S.Ct. 2693, 86 L.Ed.2d 710 (1985)). Similarly, Maryland state law, paralleling Schuyler, is viewed as complementary to federal preemption principles. Childers v. Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co., 881 F.2d 1259, 1264 (4th Cir. 1989). Thus, although the majority in Childers followed pre-Lingle Maryland law on exhaustion of remedies, id. at 1265, a dissenting judge observed that because of Lingle the Maryland exhaustion of remedies doctrine reflects an erroneous perception of post-Lingle federal law. Id. at 1272 (Phillips, J., dissenting).
In addition, our effort to uphold the exhaustion of remedies principle of Schuyler is simply incompatible with federal preemption law viewing a state law claim of retaliatory discharge as beyond the parameters of federal labor law. Grievance and arbitration proceedings are a distinctive part of federal labor law on enforcement of collective bargaining agreements. Depending upon the outcome in grievance and arbitration, a decision under the collective bargaining agreement may be followed by a federal law court proceeding under section 301(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947. 29 U.S.C. § 185(a) (1988). Under Lingle, none of these federal proceedings provide an appropriate forum to deal with a claim under state statute for damages resulting from a discharge in retaliation for pursuit of workers’ compensation benefits.
3. The Lingle court acknowledged “[i]t is conceivable” that a state could create a nonnegotiable statutory remedy that nonetheless hinges its application on the interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement. Lingle, 486 U.S. at 407 n. 7, 108 S.Ct. at 1882 n. 7. Premised on this footnote, respondent contends that under Schuyler, Minnesota law requires contract interpretation in order to apply Minn.Stat. § 176.82. Similarly, the majority dismisses Lingle on the notion that Schuyler is an established part of Minnesota’s substantive law on claims of retaliatory discharge. These arguments offend the legislative declaration in section 176.82 and they misconstrue the meaning and importance of Schuyler. On its face, the statute creates a nonnegotiable remedy in the event an employee is discharged for seeking workers’ compensation benefits. Nothing must be determined under the contract to decide whether such a discharge has occurred. The Schuyler court reasoned, before Lin-gle was decided, that the statute and the contract dealt with a common topic of discharge. The court did not, however, pretend to alter the statutory remedy so that its application depended in any fashion upon identifying or interpreting the language employed by the parties in their contract.
4. Finally, respondent asserts that the employee’s claim here is unlike the claim considered in Lingle and requires interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement as a matter of fact; respondent argues that elements of the claim are “inextricably intertwined” with discharge language employed in the agreement. The trial court evidently agreed with this contention, concluding that appellant’s claim actually required interpretation of contract provisions. To the contrary, just as in Lin-gle, appellant’s claim can be determined singularly by examining whether or not his *341discharge was in retaliation for an attempt to recover compensation benefits.
The Lingle plaintiff worked under a contract that prohibited discharge except for “proper” or “just” cause. Similarly, appellant worked under a contract prohibiting discharge except for unsatisfactory work or behavior, or reduction in the number of needed employees. No doubt, the Lingle plaintiffs claim of retaliatory discharge involved determinations that would reflect upon what was proper or just. Likewise, appellant’s claims may reflect upon whether his discharge was beyond the scope of those permitted under the contract. In either case, under the rationale of Lingle, the retaliation claim is a subject discernible without a contract interpretation. As in Lingle, the state law claim here can be resolved by determining whether there is evidence the employer actually entertained the motive to retaliate. This state law determination should occur, the Lingle court reasoned, even if the state law claim requires the same factual analysis that would occur in applying the collective bargaining contract. Lingle, 486 U.S. at 408, 108 S.Ct. at 1883.
I respectfully dissent.