Anderson v. United Auto Workers

• Decision Date: 21 May 1990
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 89-2271-0.
• Citation: 738 F. Supp. 441
• Parties: Denise ANDERSON, Plaintiff, v. UNITED AUTO WORKERS and General Motors Corporation, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kansas

738 F. Supp. 441

Denise ANDERSON, Plaintiff, v. UNITED AUTO WORKERS and General Motors Corporation, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 89-2271-0.

United States District Court, D. Kansas.

May 21, 1990.

Annette Jackson, Kansas City, Kan., Carl W. Bussey, Kansas City, Mo., for Denise Anderson.

Paul Scott Kelly, Jr., John J. Yates, Gage & Tucker, Kansas City, Mo., Stephen A. Murphy, Gage & Tucker, Overland Park, Kan., for General Motors Corp.

Bruce C. Jackson, Jr., Whipple, Whipple & Jackson, Kansas City, Mo., Thomas E. Osborn, Corson & Osborn, Kansas City, Kan., for United Auto Workers.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

EARL E. O'CONNOR, Chief Judge.

This matter comes before the court on the motions of the United Auto Workers ("UAW") and the General Motors Corporation ("GM") for reconsideration of the April 30, 1990 memorandum and order entered in this case. On April 17, 1990, this court entered an order granting plaintiff's motion to amend and granting summary judgment for defendants with regard to plaintiff's claims for violation of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, breach of duty of fair representation, and violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981. We also dismissed count V of plaintiff's original complaint. The court denied defendants' motion to dismiss count IV because plaintiff's amended complaint cured any defects as to pleading a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. For the reasons stated below, we will deny the motions of UAW and GM for reconsideration.

Appropriate circumstances for a motion to reconsider are where the court has obviously misapprehended a party's position or the facts or the law, or the court has mistakenly has decided issues outside of those the parties presented for determination. Elmore v. City of Kansas City, No. 88-2605, slip op. at 5, 1989 WL 134282 (D.Kan. Oct. 31, 1989). A motion to reconsider cannot be employed as a vehicle to introduce new evidence that could have been adduced during the pendency of a summary judgment motion. Keene Corp. v. Int'l Fidelity Ins. Co., 561 F.Supp. 656, 665 (D.Ill.1982) aff'd 735 F.2d 1367 (7th Cir.1984). A district court does not abuse its discretion when it denies a motion to reconsider in the absence of a showing that the movant had exercised due diligence in attempting to produce the evidence offered in support of its motion where all of that evidence was in existence prior to the time of the original summary judgment. Rothwell Cotton Co. v. Rosenthal & Co., 827 F.2d 246, 251-52 (7th Cir.1987).

Defendant UAW argues that the conduct alleged by Anderson does not rise to the level required for the actionable tort of outrageous conduct. Plaintiff is handicapped by a severe learning disability. Despite her handicap, Anderson was able to perform one job as an assembly line worker. She performed this task for over five years. Plaintiff's treating physician stated that her responsibilities at work should be limited to "simplified job duties that can be concretely defined." Anderson alleges that she was hired under this special medical restriction and that her employer and union subsequently disregarded it when they required her to work at seven different jobs. She claims that defendants' indifference to her needs proximately caused her to suffer from an anxiety disorder accompanied by panic attacks. Having carefully reviewing these facts in a light most favorable to plaintiff, we believe that defendants' alleged conduct may reasonably be regarded as sufficiently "extreme and outrageous" at this stage of the case. The court will give Anderson the benefit of the doubt at this point.

UAW and GM argue that count IV of plaintiff's amended complaint is preempted by federal labor law under either §§ 7 or 8 of the National Labor Relations Act (hereinafter "NLRA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 157-58, or under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (hereinafter "LMRA"), 29 U.S.C. § 185, because plaintiff's claim relates to a provision in the collective bargaining agreement.¹ Anderson asserts that the collective bargaining agreement need not be examined and interpreted for the trier of fact to make a determination of whether defendants intentionally inflicted her with emotional distress.²

Not every state law claim relating in some way to a provision in a collective bargaining contract is necessarily preempted by the NLRA or LMRA. Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 211, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 1911, 85 L.Ed.2d 206 (1985); Mitchell v. Pepsi-Cola Bottlers, Inc., 772 F.2d 342, 346 (7th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1047, 106 S.Ct. 1266, 89 L.Ed.2d 575 (1986); Sutton v. Southwest Forest Indus., Inc., 628 F.Supp. 1034, 1035 (D.Kan.1985). The court has a duty to balance the legitimate and substantial interests of the state in protecting its citizens against the potential for interference with the federal scheme of regulation. Farmer v. United Bhd. of Carpenters & Joiners, 430 U.S. 290, 304, 97 S.Ct. 1056, 1065, 51 L.Ed.2d 338 (1977); Sutton v. Southwest Forest Indus., Inc., 628 F.Supp. at 1036. State interests that are merely of peripheral concern to the scheme of regulation embodied in the LMRA or the NLRA override federal interests. Local 926, Int'l Union of Operating Eng'rs, AFL-CIO v. Jones, 460 U.S. 669, 676, 103 S.Ct. 1453, 1458, 75 L.Ed.2d 368 (1983), on remand 166 Ga.App. 723, 306 S.E.2d 99 (1983); Ray v. W.S. Dickey Clay Mfg. Co., 584 F.Supp. 1225, 1227 (D.Kan.1984).

In the instant case, Denise Anderson claims that the defendants' extreme and outrageous conduct caused her to suffer from an anxiety disorder accompanied by panic attacks. She adds that the severity of her mental illness, schizophrenia, requires her to take the prescribed medications of Haldol and Artane three times a day. Plaintiff submits that no one in our society including General Motors and the United Auto Workers has the right to intentionally and recklessly inflict a person with severe mental distress through outrageous conduct.

We believe that the State of Kansas unquestionably has an overriding interest in protecting all of its citizens from intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Supreme Court has also recognized the state's paramount interest in protecting its citizens from such tortious conduct:

The State ... has a substantial interest in protecting

...