International Union, United Mine Workers of America v. Covenant Coal Corp.

• Decision Date: 02 November 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-2078,91-2078
• Citation: 977 F.2d 895
• Parties: 141 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2508, 123 Lab.Cas. P 10,427 INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED MINE WORKERS of AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COVENANT COAL CORPORATION; William B. Simmons; Jack Simmons; Bill Simmons; Dennis Simmons; George Kidd; Ron Jackson; Bernard Simmons, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 895

977 F.2d 895

141 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2508, 123 Lab.Cas. P 10,427

INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED MINE WORKERS of AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COVENANT COAL CORPORATION;

William B. Simmons; Jack Simmons; Bill Simmons; Dennis

Simmons; George Kidd; Ron Jackson; Bernard

Simmons, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 91-2078.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 5, 1992.

Decided Oct. 15, 1992.

As Amended Nov. 2, 1992.

Judith Ann Scott, United Mine Workers of America, Washington, D.C., argued (Robert H. Stropp, Jr., United Mine Workers of America, Washington, D.C., James J. Vergara, Jr., Vergara & Associates, Hopewell, Va., on brief) for plaintiff-appellant.

Gardner G. Courson, Glass, McCullough, Sherrill & Harrold, Atlanta, Ga., argued (Allen W. Groves, Glass, McCullough, Sherrill & Harrold, Atlanta, Ga., Robert M. Galumbeck, Deannis Simmons, Dudley, Galumbeck & Simmons, Tazewell, Va., on brief), for defendants-appellees.

Before WIDENER and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges, and ELLIS, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

OPINION

ELLIS, District Judge:

This appeal calls upon this court to decide whether a federal court has jurisdiction under section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (the "LMRA"), 29 U.S.C. § 185, to entertain a claim of tortious interference with a collective bargaining agreement in which defendants are non-signatories of that agreement. Appellant, the International Union, United Mine Workers of America (the "Union"), appeals from the district court's dismissal of its action, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. 759 F.Supp. 1204. The district court based its ruling on a finding that it lacked jurisdiction under section 301 because none of the defendants were parties to the relevant collective bargaining agreement. The district court also dismissed a pendent state law claim, ruling that the cause of action was preempted by section 301 of the LMRA. We affirm.

I.

In reviewing a district court's dismissal of a case pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), we accept the truth of the facts as alleged in the plaintiff's complaint. See, e.g., Goldstar (Panama) S.A. v. United States, 967 F.2d 965 (4th Cir.1992). Those facts are as follows:

For several years prior to 1987, the Union represented coal miners employed by five contract mining companies in the Greasy Creek area of Tazewell County, Virginia. These companies operated pursuant to contract mining agreements they had negotiated with certain subsidiaries of The Pittston Company, including Jewell Ridge Coal Corporation ("Jewell Ridge"). Each company was also a party to a collective bargaining agreement with the Union--most recently, the National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreement of 1984 (the "1984 NBCWA").

In November 1986, defendant Covenant Coal Company ("Covenant") entered into a sublease with Jewell Ridge, thereby acquiring the coal production rights on the Greasy Creek properties. Despite their knowledge of the collective bargaining agreements between the contract mining operators and the Union, Covenant and the other defendants, individual directors and officers of Covenant, ¹ required the mining operators to repudiate their union contracts and then resume operations on a non-union basis, disguising their identities by changing their corporate names.

On May 25, 1990, the Union filed suit against Covenant in federal district court in the Western District of Virginia. The Union's complaint alleged a federal cause of action, under § 301 of the LMRA, for tortious interference with the collective bargaining agreement between the Union and the mining operators. The complaint also alleged a pendent state claim, under the law of Virginia, for tortious interference with the contract. The district court granted Covenant's motion for dismissal of the case, ruling that section 301 of the LMRA did not confer federal jurisdiction for tort claims against non-signatories of a collective bargaining agreement. The court also ruled that the Union's state claim was preempted by section 301. The Union appeals both rulings.

II.

Section 301 of the LMRA provides in relevant part:

Suits for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization representing employees in an industry affecting commerce as defined in this chapter, or between any such labor organizations, may be brought in any district court of the United States having jurisdiction of the parties....

29 U.S.C. § 185. In Textile Workers Union v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S. 448, 77 S.Ct. 912, 1 L.Ed.2d 972 (1957), the Supreme Court held that Congress intended this provision to be more than jurisdictional in nature, and instead, that the provision authorized the federal courts to fashion a body of common law related to the enforcement of collective bargaining agreements. In reaching this conclusion, the Court noted that:

some [situations] will lack express statutory sanction but will be solved by looking at the policy of the legislation and fashioning a remedy that will effectuate that policy. The range of judicial inventiveness will be determined by the nature of the problem.

Id. at 457, 77 S.Ct. at 918. In the present case, the Union invites us to utilize our "judicial inventiveness" to authorize a federal cause of action, emanating from section 301, for tortious interference with a collective bargaining agreement. We decline to do so. Like the district court, we find that our inventiveness in this area must ultimately be constrained by the plain language of the statute.

The question of whether section 301 of the LMRA confers federal jurisdiction to hear claims against non-signatories of a collective bargaining agreement for tortious interference with that agreement has occasioned a split in the circuits. The majority of courts to address the issue have refused to construe section 301 in such a way as to allow this type of action. See, e.g., United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local No. 1564 v. Quality Plus Stores, Inc., 961 F.2d 904 (10th Cir.1992); Service, Hospital, Nursing Home & Public Employees Union, Local No. 47 v. Community Property Services, Inc., 755 F.2d 499 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 850, 106 S.Ct. 147, 88 L.Ed.2d 122 (1985); Carpenters Local Union No. 1846 v. Pratt-Farnsworth, Inc., 690 F.2d 489 (5th Cir.1982); cert. denied, 464 U.S. 932, 104 S.Ct. 335, 78 L.Ed.2d 305 (1983); Loss v. Blankenship, 673 F.2d 942 (7th Cir.1982); Bowers v. Ulpiano Casal, Inc., 393 F.2d 421 (1st Cir.1968); Aacon Contracting Co., Inc. v. Ass'n of Catholic Trade Unionists, 276 F.2d 958 (2d Cir.1960), aff'g and adopting 178 F.Supp. 129 (E.D.N.Y.1959). Two circuits, however, have authorized tortious interference claims against non-signatories. See Painting & Decorating Contractors Ass'n v. Painters & Decorators Joint Committee, 707 F.2d 1067, 1070-71, n. 2 (9th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 927, 104 S.Ct. 1709, 80 L.Ed.2d 182 (1984); Wilkes-Barre Publishing Co. v. Newspaper Guild of Wilkes-Barre, Local 120, 647 F.2d 372 (3d Cir.1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1143, 102 S.Ct. 1003, 71 L.Ed.2d 295 (1982). ²

We find the majority position to be the more persuasive. Our analysis begins, as always, with the plain language of the provision. Section 301 authorizes "[s]uits for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization...." 29 U.S.C. § 185 (emphasis added). Applying the most natural interpretation of this language, we find that a suit against a non-signatory of a contract cannot be considered a suit for violation of the contract. As the court below reasoned, "It is axiomatic that only a party to a contract can violate that contract. A contract governs only the conduct of the parties who have agreed to its terms." 759 F.Supp. at 1208. Accord, Pratt-Farnsworth, 690 F.2d at 500-502. The Union's complaint does not at any point allege that Covenant itself violated the terms of a collective bargaining agreement to which it was a party. As a result, we find that the Union's claim does not fall within the scope of section 301 of the LMRA. ³

In support of the contrary position, that section 301 authorizes tortious interference claims against non-signatories, the Third Circuit, in Wilkes-Barre, noted that tortious interference claims often require a court to interpret a collective bargaining agreement to determine whether there has been a breach of the agreement. The court argued that federal jurisdiction must be inferred in such situations to avoid inconsistent state court interpretations of collective bargaining agreements. 647 F.2d at 380 ("It is the need for national uniformity in determining the scope of obligation agreed to in labor contracts that determines whether a federal standard is applicable, and which determines, incidentally, that there is concurrent state and federal subject matter jurisdiction.").

With all due respect, we believe this argument puts the cart before the horse. While uniform interpretation of collective bargaining agreements is an important consideration in cases where the federal courts have expressly granted jurisdictional authority, nowhere in the statutory scheme did Congress display an intent to make such concerns determinative of the scope of federal jurisdiction. We decline to allow generalized notions of the benefits of uniform federal interpretation of labor contracts to override the explicit statutory language of section 301 that limits federal jurisdiction to "suits for violation of [labor] contracts." 29 U.S.C. § 185.

Neither do we accept the Union's argument that the Supreme Court's opinion in Smith v. Evening News Association, 371 U.S. 195, 83 S.Ct. 267, 9 L.Ed.2d 246 (1962), compels adherence to the minority position. In Smith, the Court ruled there was proper jurisdiction under section 301 for an employee's action for damages against his employer, despite the...