Plumley v. Southern Container, Inc.

• Decision Date: 13 September 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-2747.,01-2747.
• Parties: John PLUMLEY, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. SOUTHERN CONTAINER, INC., Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 364

303 F.3d 364

John PLUMLEY, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. SOUTHERN CONTAINER, INC., Defendant, Appellee.

No. 01-2747.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard July 31, 2002.

Decided September 13, 2002.

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Gerald F. Petruccelli, with whom Petruccelli & Martin, LLP, Francis M. Jackson, and Jackson & MacNichol were on brief, for appellant.

Perry S. Heidecker, with whom Joseph M. Labuda, Milman & Heidecker, James R. Erwin, and Pierce Atwood were on brief, for appellee.

Before SELYA, Circuit Judge, GIBSON^* and GREENBERG,^** Senior Circuit Judges.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

This case poses a question of first impression: should compensation awarded for work-hours lost during an employee's successful pursuit of a grievance count as "hours of service" within the meaning of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 2601-2654 (1994)? The district court answered this question in the negative and, accordingly, entered judgment in favor of the employer.¹ We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

We present the facts in the light most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment (here, the plaintiff), consistent with record support. See McIntosh v. Antonino, 71 F.3d 29, 32 (1st Cir.1995).

In February of 1996, defendant-appellee Southern Container, Inc. (SCI) hired plaintiff-appellant John Plumley to work at its plant in Westbrook, Maine. Throughout his tenure, Plumley was part of a bargaining unit represented by Local 669 of the United Paperworkers International Union (the Union). At all times relevant hereto, SCI and the Union were parties to a collective bargaining agreement (the CBA) that included a standard grievance procedure. Under it, an employee who believed that he had been treated unfairly by SCI could file a grievance and expect a grievance committee elected by the Union to represent his interests. Any settlement between SCI and the grievance committee would bind the complaining employee. If SCI and the grievance committee could not resolve the dispute amicably, either side could take the matter to arbitration. The CBA stipulated that the parties (and the complaining employee) would be bound by the arbitrator's decision.

Plumley invoked the grievance procedure no fewer than seven times during his tour of duty with SCI. One such occasion followed his discharge on March 21, 1998. The ensuing dispute reached the arbitration stage. Finding that the sanction imposed was overly harsh, the arbitrator vacated the dismissal in favor of a two-week suspension without pay. Ancillary to this determination, the arbitrator ordered SCI to compensate Plumley in full for the wages and benefits that he had lost during the period when his grievance was being processed (adjusted for the two-week suspension). Plumley received these emoluments—wages and benefits for a span of approximately six months—despite the fact that he had not worked for SCI during that interval.

The plant manager, Leo Parenteau, learned of the arbitral award on October 5, 1998. The next day, he sent Plumley a registered letter directing him to return to work on October 12. Plumley received the letter on October 7, but found the timing inconvenient.² He requested a brief delay, but Parenteau remained resolute.

On October 12, Plumley reported to work at SCI, but departed before completing his shift. The next day, he left a message stating that he would be either late or absent because he needed to see his ill father. Plumley did not report to work at all, but, rather, visited his father at a hospital in Boston. When Plumley arrived at the plant on October 14, Parenteau cashiered him for abandoning his duties. Plumley attempted to grieve the firing but the Union elected not to submit his grievance to arbitration.

So goes a rote story in modern labor-management relations — facts as routine as they are simple. The atypicality of this case is not apparent until certain elements are viewed through the prism of the FMLA, a federal statute that "entitle[s eligible] employees to take reasonable leave for medical reasons ... [including] the care of a child, spouse, or parent who has a serious health condition...." 29 U.S.C. § 2601(b)(2). The statute allows such employees to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave for specified reasons during any twelve-month period without jeopardizing their employment security. Id. § 2612. It defines an eligible employee as one "who has been employed (i) for at least 12 months by the employer with respect to whom leave is requested ...; and (ii) for at least 1,250 hours of service with such employer during the previous 12-month period." Id. § 2611(2)(A).

Seizing upon this language, Plumley filed suit against SCI in Maine's federal district court, alleging that SCI violated the FMLA and the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 141-197 (1994), when it terminated his employment on October 14, 1998.³ SCI denied the material allegations of the complaint. In due season, Plumley moved for summary judgment.

In his motion, Plumley contended that he met the requirements for FMLA eligibility because he had worked full-time for SCI for more than one year and had provided more than 1,250 hours of service during the twelve months preceding the leave request. He arrived at the total number of hours by aggregating 851.25 hours actually worked up to March 21 (the date when he had been improvidently discharged) and the hours for which he was compensated under the arbitral award. In Plumley's estimation, those hours — which corresponded generally to the work weeks from March 22 to October 11, 1998, minus the two-week suspension approved by the arbitrator — were, as a matter of law, hours of service within the compass of the FMLA (and, thus, brought his aggregate hours of service well over 1,250 for the relevant twelve-month period). Building on this foundation, he asseverated that SCI had violated the FMLA by firing him for taking leave to care for his ailing father. In the alternative, he theorized that SCI should be estopped from disputing his eligibility for coverage under the FMLA. Finally, he maintained that he had a right under the LMRA to recover from SCI since the Union had breached its duty of fair representation (DFR) by not submitting his grievance to arbitration.

SCI opposed this motion and simultaneously cross-moved for summary judgment, emphasizing that Plumley actually had worked fewer than 1,250 hours in the previous twelve months and thus did not meet the criteria for FMLA eligibility. In SCI's view, this fact scuttled both the FMLA and DFR claims. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of SCI. This appeal followed.

II. ANALYSIS

The role of summary judgment is to look behind the facade of the pleadings and assay the parties' proof in order to determine whether a trial is required. McIntosh, 71 F.3d at 33. In conventional summary judgment practice, the moving party has the initial responsibility of suggesting the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Quintero de Quintero v. Aponte-Roque, 974 F.2d 226, 227-28 (1st Cir.1992). That entails supporting the motion, by affidavits, admissions, or other materials of evidentiary quality, as to issues on which the movant bears the burden of proof. McIntosh, 71 F.3d at 33. Once the movant has fulfilled this obligation, the burden shifts to the summary judgment target to demonstrate that a trialworthy issue exists. Suarez v. Pueblo Int'l, Inc., 229 F.3d 49, 53 (1st Cir.2000). In the last analysis, summary judgment is appropriate only if the "pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c).

This same paradigm governs our de novo review of a district court's grant of summary judgment. See Suarez, 229 F.3d at 53. That non-deferential mode of review is particularly appropriate where, as here, a case turns on a question of statutory interpretation. See Riva v. Commonwealth of Mass., 61 F.3d 1003, 1007 (1st Cir.1995) (explaining that rulings that depend on statutory construction engender de novo review). It is against this backdrop that we ponder Plumley's asseverational array.

A. The FMLA Claim.

As the parties readily concede, the central issue in this appeal presents a pure question of law: the interpretation of the "hours of service" requirement of the FMLA. The record is pellucid that Plumley performed only 851.25 hours of actual physical work for SCI in the twelve-month period prior to the date when he absented himself to visit his ailing father. In the first instance, then, Plumley's case stands or falls on the classification of the hours that he did not actually work but for which he was compensated under the arbitral award. If those hours comprise hours of service within the purview of the FMLA, then Plumley has demonstrated his eligibility for FMLA benefits (and, therefore, his action should have survived a motion for summary judgment). If, however, those hours do not count for FMLA purposes, then Plumley was not eligible for FMLA benefits (and, therefore, his action was ripe for brevis disposition).

The district court interpreted the FMLA as excluding the hours in question and entered judgment accordingly. We test this determination.

In plotting the contours of a statute, courts must look first to its language and structure. Lopez-Soto v. Hawayek, 175 F.3d 170, 172 (1st Cir.1999); United States v. Charles George Trucking Co., 823 F.2d 685, 688 (1st Cir.1987). Thus, statutory interpretation always begins with the text of the relevant statutes — and it sometimes ends there as well. When the statutory language "points unerringly in a single direction, and produces an entirely plausible result, it is unnecessary — and improper — to look for other signposts or to browse in the congressional...