Court Opinion

ID: 9471215
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:27:06.271884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:18.803793
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The plaintiff, Jackson, a railroad worker, was injured on the job and sued the railroad (Conrail) under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. §§ 51 et seq. He later amended his complaint to add a pendent claim that the railroad, in violation of his rights under Indiana tort law, had fired him after and because he filed his FELA suit. He obtained a judgment awarding him damages of $13,500 for violation of the FELA and another $182,000 on his pendent claim, and the railroad has appealed. I agree with my brethren that the FELA damage award must be affirmed and for the reasons they give, but I disagree that the Railway Labor Act deprived the district court of jurisdiction over Jackson’s claim for retaliatory discharge.
There is another jurisdictional issue, though, and it requires, I believe, a remand to the district court. A pendent claim must arise from “a common nucleus of operative fact” with the main claim. United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 725, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1138, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966); Hargrave v. OKI Nursery, Inc., 646 F.2d 716, 719 (2d Cir.1980). This formulation is metaphorical rather than functional but can be made functional by considering how best to give effect to both the policy behind pendent jurisdiction and the competing policies that limit its proper scope. The functional approach requires comparison of two harms: the harm to the state’s interest in confining adjudication of state law issues to its own courts, if pendent jurisdiction is exercised; and the harm to the holder of a federal claim in having to bring two suits in order to get complete relief in federal court for the wrong done him by the defendant, if pendent jurisdiction is declined. Jackson’s FELA claim is based on the facts of the accident. The pendent claim, added by amendment to his complaint more than three years after the accident, is based on the facts of his discharge — distinct facts, which arose long after the accident. Any factual overlap between the two claims is minimal. The judicial economy created by allowing Jacks on to maintain his state claim as an adjunct to his federal claim is therefore also minimal, and seems clearly outweighed by the impairment of state autonomy if Jackson is allowed to litigate his state claim in federal court.
There is an alternative route, also with support in Gibbs, see 383 U.S. at 725, 86 S.Ct. at 1138, to the same destination. Since Article III of the Constitution does not authorize the federal courts to exercise pendent jurisdiction as such, Jackson’s state law claim can be adjudicated in federal court as pendent to his federal claim only if the two claims can be said to constitute a single federal case. There is a sense in which Jackson’s claim for retaliatory dis*1058charge is an offshoot of his FELA accident case, but they are no more the same case than a father and son are the same person.
Of course, if Jackson were alleging a federal rather than state tort, we could forget pendent jurisdiction. Though one might think that federal law would forbid retaliation against a railroad worker for exercising his rights under the FELA, a federal statute, probably it does not, see Graf v. Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Ry., 697 F.2d 771, 775 (7th Cir.1983), and in any event Jackson has not pleaded a federal tort and he may not plead one for the first time after appeal. There is also as it happens a good deal of doubt whether retaliatory discharge for exercising a federal right is tor-tious under Indiana law; but as my brethren point out, we must assume for purposes of this appeal that it is since the railroad failed to preserve the question for appeal.
But if Jackson and the railroad are citizens of different states, his state claim has an independent jurisdictional basis in 28 U.S.C. § 1332, the diversity statute, since the requirement that there be at least $10,-000 in dispute is satisfied. The complaint alleges that Jackson is a citizen of Indiana and that Conrail is “organized as a railroad corporation engaged in interstate commerce” in Illinois. It is unlikely that this is meant to be an allegation that Conrail is incorporated in Illinois; but in any event, since some public utilities and common carriers incorporate in many states, it is possible (though I should think unlikely) that Conrail is a corporate citizen of Indiana, which would defeat diversity. I am sure Conrail does not have its principal place of business in Indiana, which would also defeat diversity. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c).
So I would remand the case to determine whether Jackson’s state law claim is within the diversity jurisdiction. Not only do my brethren proceed by a different route, holding that the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. §§ 151 et seq., bars jurisdiction over Jackson’s state law claim, but they do not discuss the question whether the claim is within either the pendent or diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts. Now one might think that it would make no difference why the federal courts lack jurisdiction over Jackson’s claim, provided they do, and that the majority’s approach is more economical than mine because it avoids the necessity of remanding. But I believe it does make- a difference. If a case is not within the jurisdiction conferred on the federal courts by Article III, they have no power to decide whether Congress has withdrawn their jurisdiction over a particular claim; they must dismiss before reaching that issue. To illustrate, suppose I brought a suit in federal court against Conrail complaining about its treatment of Mr. Jackson — brought the suit in my capacity as a public-spirited citizen. Article III would bar the federal court from adjudicating my claim. I would lack the constitutionally required standing; there would be no case within the meaning of Article III. The court could not ignore the issue of standing, proceed to the merits, and dismiss the suit on the ground that the Railway Labor Act barred it. This case is no different.
I also disagree with my brethren’s analysis of the effect of the Railway Labor Act on Jackson’s claim. They have applied the doctrine of exclusive jurisdiction; they should have applied the doctrine of primary jurisdiction. The Railway Labor Act does give the arbitration panels established under the Act exclusive jurisdiction to decide disputes between railroads and their employees “growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of [collective bargaining] agreements .... ” 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (i). This means that if as in Andrews v. Louisville & Nashville R.R., 406 U.S. 320, 92 S.Ct. 1562, 32 L.Ed.2d 95 (1972), a railroad worker complains that he has been fired, or refused reinstatement, in violation of the collective bargaining agreement between his union and the railroad, he must litigate his claim before the arbitration panels set up under the Railway Labor Act; he may not, simply by describing his grievance as wrongful discharge (or intentional infliction of emotional distress, see Magnuson v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 576 F.2d 1367 (9th Cir.1978)), get a state or federal court to determine his rights under *1059the collective bargaining agreement. But Jackson claims to have been fired for exercising a statutory right, and such a claim is not a grievance founded on the collective bargaining agreement. (Although the statute refers to “grievances” and “interpretation or application of [collective bargaining] agreements” disjunctively, “grievance” means a dispute over the application of a collective bargaining agreement. See, e.g., Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Chicago River & Indiana R.R., 353 U.S. 30, 33, 77 S.Ct. 635, 637, 1 L.Ed.2d 622 (1957).)
It is not a grievance because it would exist even if there were no collective bargaining agreement, unlike the situation in Andrews. There it was “conceded by all that the only source of petitioner’s right not to be discharged, and therefore to treat an alleged discharge as a ‘wrongful’ one that entitles him to damages, is the collective-bargaining agreement between the employer and the union.” 406 U.S. at 324, 92 S.Ct. at 1565. See also de la Rosa Sanchez v. Eastern Airlines, Inc., 574 F.2d 29, 32-33 (1st Cir.1978). The collective bargaining agreement in this case is no more the source of Jackson’s cause of action than if he were suing Conrail for a battery committed against him by his supervisor. Although an employee might as in Graf v. Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Ry., supra, 697 F.2d at 774-75, complain that retaliatory discharge was a violation of the collective bargaining agreement, he need not in order to have a cause of action; retaliatory discharge, even if not forbidden by the agreement, may — as Jackson claims and we must assume — be tor-tious under state law. Cf. id. at 781-82.
All this is not to say that the collective bargaining agreement is irrelevant to this case. But it is relevant if at all as a defense to rather than as the foundation of Jackson’s claim. The railroad argues that it discharged Jackson not because he sued it under the FELA but because he violated work rules and that the collective bargaining agreement entitled it to fire him for such violations. Now if the railroad fired Jackson only because he sued it, it is immaterial that it could validly have fired him on another ground. But if it fired him both in retaliation and for violating work rules, and each reason would have resulted in his being fired even in the absence of the other, the retaliation did not injure him. He would have been fired anyway, so there was no “but for” causation and hence no tort, which presupposes injury. This assumes, however, that the collective bargaining agreement would have allowed the railroad to fire Jackson for violating work rules; and whether this assumption is correct depends on the interpretation of the agreement — a matter within the exclusive competence of the arbitration panels under the Railway Labor Act.
But it does not follow that because the interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement is outside the district court’s jurisdiction, yet may be material to Jackson’s tort claim, the district court lacked jurisdiction over that claim. It follows only that upon the railroad’s timely request the district court would have been required by the doctrine of primary jurisdiction to stay the proceedings before it while the parties repaired to the arbitrators for a definitive interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement. (On the doctrine generally see United States v. Western Pac. R.R., 352 U.S. 59, 77 S.Ct. 161, 1 L.Ed.2d 126 (1956); Port of Boston Marine Terminal Ass'n v. Rederiaktiebolaget Transatlantic, 400 U.S. 62, 68, 91 S.Ct. 203, 208, 27 L.Ed.2d 203 (1970).) If the arbitrators decided that the railroad had fired Jackson in violation of the agreement, the district court proceeding could resume. If the arbitrators decided he was fired in full compliance with the agreement (implying not only that the agreement provided valid grounds for discharge but also that the railroad would have fired Jackson on those grounds even if he had never sued it), then he could not prove tort causation and this suit would have to be dismissed.
We noted recently that the doctrine of primary jurisdiction is applicable to proceedings in which an issue arises that is within the exclusive competence of the Railway Labor Act arbitrators, and that the application of the doctrine may — depending *1060on legislative intent — be waivable by a party’s failing to make a timely request for reference to the arbitrators. In re Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pac. R.R., 713 F.2d 274, at 282-288 (7th Cir.1983). Neither the language nor the general scheme and background of the Railway Labor Act suggests that Congress would have wanted a court to dismiss a railroad worker’s common law suit merely because the interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement might — not that it must — become material, when the railroad did not think enough of the point to ask the trial court to send the parties to the arbitrators. And if reference is waivable, it was waived here by the railroad’s failure to ask the district court for such a reference.
Now in Andrews, it is true, even if the railroad had not objected to the employee’s failure to seek redress before the arbitrators, the court would have had no jurisdiction over his claim. “[T]he notion that the grievance and arbitration procedures provided for minor disputes in the Railway Labor Act are optional, to be availed of as the employee or the carrier chooses was never good history and is no longer good law.” 406 U.S. at 322, 92 S.Ct. at 1564. But that is because the Act gives exclusive jurisdiction over disputes arising from a railroad collective bargaining agreement to the arbitrators. The present dispute does not arise from the collective bargaining agreement. It has an independent basis in tort law and is therefore outside the arbitrators’ exclusive jurisdiction though aspects of it may be within their primary jurisdiction.
There are questions about the mechanics of primary jurisdiction in a case such as this — who should ask for the reference (if the employee must go to the arbitrators before filing suit, then one would speak of “exhaustion of remedies” rather than of “primary jurisdiction,” but these are essentially the same doctrines, see City of Peoria v. General Electric Cablevision Corp., 690 F.2d 116, 121 (7th Cir.1982), except for timing), what deadlines are applicable, whether an arbitration panel would accept a reference and if not who would bear the onus in the judicial proceeding of having failed to get the panel’s views. The simplest solution would be to require the employee to process his complaint as a grievance first (i.e., to exhaust), but I am not prepared to say that this is the only permissible solution. My basic point is unaffected. In a case like the present, applying primary jurisdiction, or exhaustion of remedies in the sense of “merely requiring exhaustion of remedies in one forum before resorting to another,” rather than of “mak[ing] the federal administrative remedy exclusive,” as in Andrews, 406 U.S. at 325, 92 S.Ct. at 1565, would protect the arbitrators’ exclusive competence to interpret collective bargaining agreements — their interpretation would not even be reviewable in the tort suit, but only by the distinct and limited procedure specified in the Railway Labor Act, cf. Port of Boston Marine Terminal Ass’n, supra, 400 U.S. at 69, 91 S.Ct. at 208; City of Peoria v. General Electric Cablevision Corp., supra, 690 F.2d at 122. But it would do so without cutting down rights under state law any more than is necessary to protect that competence.
It puzzles me why we should go further and hold, as my brethren do in effect, that even if the arbitrators decide that the railroad had no contractual right to fire the employee, the employee may not maintain a tort action for retaliatory discharge. It is a grave matter for an employer to fire an employee for exercising a legal right. True, if he does this he may well be violating the collective bargaining agreement and the arbitrators can order the employee reinstated with back pay. But it would be surprising if compulsory arbitration of contract disputes was intended to wipe out the employee’s common law rights other than his right to enforce the very contracts that are subject to the scheme of compulsory arbitration. It might be different if Congress had established an administrative agency to police tort or tort-like conduct in railroad employment, but it has not; it has contented itself with requiring arbitration of contract disputes.
*1061But maybe this takes too narrow a view of Congress’s objectives in the Railway Labor Act; maybe it can be argued that Congress wanted to exclude the courts, state and federal, from any involvement in the railroad employment relationship beyond the very limited review function that it assigned the federal courts in connection with arbitration awards. There may be something to this argument, but I am sure no one takes it literally. No one would argue that if Jackson’s supervisor had punched him in the nose for refusing to obey an order Jackson could have prosecuted a complaint against the railroad only as a grievance before one of the arbitration panels, and not as a complaint in court for common law battery. I do not see why a case where a railroad intimidates (though not physically) workers who file accident claims should be treated differently.
My brethren’s review of precedent shows that the case law on the displacement of tort law by the Railway Labor Act is in disarray; the suggestion that there are “clearly defined exceptions to the pervasive preemption of the RLA” is a contradiction in terms — if the preemption were truly pervasive, there would be no exceptions. And their further effort to bring that body of case law into phase with the cases dealing with the displacement of tort law by the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 152 et seq., such as Farmer v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 430 U.S. 290, 97 S.Ct. 1056, 51 L.Ed.2d 338 (1977), can only be described as heroic. A possible way out of the mire is to recast the problem as one of primary jurisdiction, a doctrine that applied to these cases (I confine my attention to the Railway Labor Act) would enable federal interests to be fully served with minimum damage to state interests. True, it would not eliminate all difficult questions. Andrews forbids the states to provide common law remedies for breach of a railroad collective bargaining contract simply by calling the breach a tort, and sometimes it will be hard to decide whether a cause of action is based on the contract or on a right (conferred by state law) that is more than just a right to have a contract honored. Here, however, as in the defamation and false-imprisonment cases that the majority opinion cites, the cause of action clearly has an independent source in state tort law; it is not just a case of breach of contract by another name, as in Andrews and (less clearly) Magnuson. Although it would be reckless to suggest that primary jurisdiction is the secret key to reconciling all the cases reviewed in the majority opinion — though the majority I notice quotes the Supreme Court’s description of Farmer as a primary-jurisdiction case, see 430 U.S. at 295 n. 5, 97 S.Ct. at 1060 n. 5 — no previous decision of this court, and no decision of the Supreme Court, prevents us from adopting the approach I have suggested. We are free to innovate, in an area where innovation would be fruitful.
To summarize, if the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction were applicable, the district court would in my view have jurisdiction over Jackson’s claim of retaliatory discharge despite the Railway Labor Act. But as I said earlier this is not a proper case for pendent jurisdiction and we cannot be certain that Jackson’s claim is within the diversity jurisdiction. We should remand, but I earnestly suggest not dismiss, that claim.