North Star Steel Co. v. Thomas

• Decision Date: 30 May 1995
• Docket Number: 94834
• Citation: 515 U.S. 29,115 S.Ct. 1927,132 L.Ed.2d 27
• Parties: NORTH STAR STEEL COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Charles A. THOMAS et al. CROWN CORK & SEAL CO., INC., Petitioner, v. UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA,
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

515 U.S. 29

115 S.Ct. 1927

132 L.Ed.2d 27

NORTH STAR STEEL COMPANY, Petitioner,

v Charles A. THOMAS et al.

CROWN CORK & SEAL CO., INC., Petitioner,

v. UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO-CLC.

Nos. 94-834, 94-835.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued April 25, 1995.

Decided May 30, 1995.

Syllabus^*

Respondents filed separate claims under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), which authorizes a civil enforcement action by aggrieved employees or their union against a covered employer who fails to give 60 days notice of a plant closing or mass layoff, but provides no limitations period for such an action. In rejecting petitioner employer's contention that the statute of limitations had run, the District Court in Crown Cork held that the source of the limitations period for WARN suits is state law and that respondent union's suit was timely under any of the arguably applicable Pennsylvania statutes. In North Star, however, another District Court granted summary judgment for petitioner employer, holding respondent employees' suit barred under a limitations period borrowed from the National Labor Relations Act, which the court believed was "more analogous" to WARN than any state law. The Third Circuit consolidated the cases and held that a WARN limitations period should be borrowed from state, not federal, law, reversing in North Star and affirming in Crown Cork.

Held: State law is the proper source of the limitations period for civil actions brought to enforce WARN. Pp. __.

(a) Where a federal statute fails to provide any limitations period for a new cause of action, this Court's longstanding and settled practice has been to borrow the limitations period from the most closely analogous state statute. A closely circumscribed and narrow exception to this general rule allows borrowing from elsewhere in federal law when the arguably relevant state limitations periods would frustrate or interfere with the implementation of national policies or be at odds with the purpose or operation of federal substantive law. See, e.g., DelCostello v. Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 161, 172, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 2289, 2294, 76 L.Ed.2d 476. Pp. __.

(b) This case falls squarely inside the general rule, not the exception. The presumption that state law will be the source of a missing federal limitations period was already longstanding when WARN was passed in 1988, justifying the assumption that Congress intended by its silence that courts borrow state law. Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U.S. 143, 147, 107 S.Ct. 2759, 2762, 97 L.Ed.2d 121. Accordingly, since the complaints in both of these cases were timely even under the shortest of the potentially-applicable Pennsylvania statutes of limitations, there is no need to go beyond the Court of Appeals's decision to choose the best of the four, and it is enough to say here that none of these statutes would be at odds with WARN's purpose or operation, or frustrate or interfere with the intent behind it. DelCostello, supra, at 166, 103 S.Ct. at 2291, distinguished. Although petitioners are right that the adoption of state limitations periods can result in variations from State to State and encourage forum shopping, these are just the costs of the general rule itself, and nothing about WARN makes them exorbitant. Agency Holding Corp., supra, at 149, 153-154, 107 S.Ct., at 2765-2766, distinguished. Because a state counterpart provides a limitations period without frustrating consequences here, it is simply beside the point that a perfectly good federal analogue exists. Pp. __.

32 F.3d 53, affirmed.

SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and STEVENS, O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, THOMAS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.

Steven B. Feirson, Philadelphia, PA, for petitioner.

Laurence Gold, Washington, DC, for respondents.

Malcolm L. Stewart, Washington, DC, for U.S., as amicus curiae by special leave of the Court.

Justice SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN or Act), 102 Stat. 890, 29 U.S.C. § 2101 et seq., obliges covered employers to give employees or their union 60 days notice of a plant closing or mass layoff. These consolidated cases raise the issue of the proper source of the limitations period for civil actions brought to enforce the Act. For actions brought in Pennsylvania, and generally, we hold it to be state law.

I

With some exceptions and conditions, WARN forbids an employer of 100 or more employees to "order a plant closing or mass layoff until the end of a 60-day period after the employer serves written notice of such an order." 29 U.S.C. § 2102(a). The employer is supposed to notify, among others, "each affected employee" or "each representative of the affected employees." 29 U.S.C. § 2102(a)(1). An employer who violates the notice provisions is liable for penalties by way of a civil action that may be brought "in any district court of the United States for any district in which the violation is alleged to have occurred, or in which the employer transacts business." § 2104(a)(5). The class of plaintiffs includes aggrieved employees (or their unions, as representatives), ibid., who may collect "back pay for each day of violation," § 2104(a)(1)(A), "up to a maximum of 60 days," § 2104(a)(1). While the terms of the statute are specific on other matters, WARN does not provide a limitations period for the civil actions authorized by § 2104.

In Crown Cork, respondent United Steelworkers of America brought a WARN claim in Federal District Court in Pennsylvania, charging Crown Cork & Seal Co., Inc. with laying off 85 employees at its Perry, Georgia plant in September 1991, without giving the required 60-day notice. Crown Cork moved for summary judgment, claiming that the statute of limitations had run. The District Court denied the motion, holding the source of the limitations period for WARN suits to be Pennsylvania state law and the union's suit timely under any of the arguably applicable state statutes. 833 F.Supp. 467 (ED Pa.1993). The District Court nevertheless certified the question of the limitations period for immediate interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292.

The North Star respondents are former, non-union employees of petitioner North Star Steel Company who filed a WARN claim against the company (also in a Federal District Court in Pennsylvania) alleging that the company laid off 270 workers at a Pennsylvania plant without giving the 60-day advance notice. Like Crown Cork, and for like reasons, North Star also moved for summary judgment. But North Star was successful, the District Court holding the suit barred under the 6-month limitations period for unfair labor practice claims borrowed from the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) , 49 Stat. 449, 29 U.S.C. § 160(b), a statute believed by the Court to be "more analogous" to WARN than anything in state law. 838 F.Supp. 970, 974 (MD Pa.1993).

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit consolidated the cases and held that a period of limitations for WARN should be borrowed from state, not federal, law, reversing in North Star and affirming in Crown Cork. 32 F.3d 53 (1994). Like the District Court in Crown Cork, the Court of Appeals did not pick from among the several Pennsylvania statutes of limitations that might apply to WARN, since none of them would have barred either of the actions before it.

The Third Circuit's decision deepened a split among the Courts of Appeals on the issue of WARN's limitations period. See United Paperworkers Int'l Union v. Specialty Paperboard, Inc., 999 F.2d 51 (CA2 1993) (applying state law limitations period); Halkias v. General Dynamics Corp., 31 F.3d 224 (CA5) (applying NLRA limitations period), reh'g en banc granted, 1994 U.S.App. LEXIS 26998 (CA5, Sept. 22, 1994); United Mine Workers of America v. Peabody Coal Co., 38 F.3d 850 (CA6 1994) (same). We granted certiorari to resolve it, 513 U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 715, 130 L.Ed.2d 622 (1995), and now affirm.

II

A

A look at this Court's docket in recent years will show how often federal statutes fail to provide any limitations period for the causes of action they create, leaving courts to borrow a period, generally from state law, to limit these claims. See, e.g., Reed v. United Transportation Union, 488 U.S. 319, 109 S.Ct. 621, 102 L.Ed.2d 665 (1989) (claims under § 101(a)(2) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 522, 29 U.S.C. § 411(a)(2), governed by state personal injury statutes); Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U.S. 143, 107 S.Ct. 2759, 97 L.Ed.2d 121 (1987) (civil actions under Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. § 1964, governed by 4-year statute of limitations of the Clayton Act, 69 Stat. 283, as amended, 15 U.S.C. § 15b); Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985) (civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 governed by state statutes of limitations for personal injury actions); DelCostello v. Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983) (hybrid suit by employee against employer for breach of a collective bargaining agreement and against union for breach of a duty of fair representation governed by NLRA limitations period). Although these examples show borrowing from federal law as well as state, our practice has left no doubt about the lender of first resort. Since 1830, "state statutes have repeatedly supplied the periods of limitations for federal causes of action" when the federal legislation made no provision, Automobile Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U.S. 696, 703-704, 86 S.Ct. 1107, 1111-1113, 16 L.Ed.2d 192 (1966), and in seeking the right state rule to apply, courts look to the state statute " 'most closely analogous' " to the federal act in need, Reed,...