Bailey v. Norfolk and Western Ry. Co.

• Citation: 206 W.Va. 654,527 S.E.2d 516
• Decision Date: 15 December 1999
• Docket Number: No. 26004.,26004.
• Parties: Joe BAILEY, et al., Plaintiffs Below, Appellees, v. NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Defendant Below, Appellant. Eddie S. Caldwell, et al., Plaintiffs Below, Appellees, v. Norfolk and Western Railway Company, Defendant Below, Appellant.
• Court: Supreme Court of West Virginia

527 S.E.2d 516

206 W.Va. 654

Joe BAILEY, et al., Plaintiffs Below, Appellees, v. NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Defendant Below, Appellant.

Eddie S. Caldwell, et al., Plaintiffs Below, Appellees, v. Norfolk and Western Railway Company, Defendant Below, Appellant.

No. 26004.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted October 19, 1999.

Decided December 15, 1999.

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion of Justice Maynard December 17, 1999.

William Flanigan, Esquire, Lane O. Austin, Esquire, Sanders, Austin, Swope & Flanigan, Princeton, West Virginia, Attorneys for the Appellees, Bailey and Caldwell, et al.

Jeffrey S. Berlin, Esquire, Mark E. Martin, Esquire, Sidley & Austin, Washington, D.C., and Wade T. Watson, Esquire, Brumfield & Watson, Bluefield, West Virginia, and

Mark D. Perreault, Esquire, Norfolk, Virginia, Attorneys for the Appellant.

McGRAW, Justice:

This is an appeal by Norfolk and Western Railway Company (hereinafter "the Railroad" or "Appellant")¹ from a jury verdict in the Circuit Court of McDowell County finding that the Railroad had discriminated against sixty-seven employees upon the basis of age when it promoted those employees from brakemen to conductor and placed them at the bottom of the conductors' seniority roster. On appeal, the Railroad maintains that there was insufficient evidence to prove age discrimination and that the jury verdict should be overturned. We disagree and affirm the decision of the lower court.

I. FACTS

The two cases presently consolidated for review in this Court originated in the lower court and were subsequently removed by the Railroad to the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. The Railroad sought a ruling in federal court permitting removal and dismissing the action based upon federal preemption by the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151-188 (1990). The District Court determined that it lacked jurisdiction and remanded the cases to state court, reasoning as follows: "If Plaintiffs' assertions in their Complaint are well-founded, this right [under the West Virginia Human Rights Act] exists separate and apart from any collective bargaining agreement between the defendant and the Plaintiffs' union." Bailey v. Norfolk and Western Railway Co., 842 F.Supp. 218, 223 (S.D.W.Va. 1994).

Upon remand from federal court to the Circuit Court of McDowell County, the two cases were consolidated and issues of liability and damages were bifurcated for trial. Fifty-two Plaintiffs filed their actions within the Bailey lawsuit, and the additional fifteen filed identical claims in the Caldwell suit. Forty-one Plaintiffs are currently active employees of the Railroad; the remaining twenty-six have retired, resigned, or have become disabled. Five of the Plaintiffs in this action were under forty years of age at the time of their alleged discriminatory placement, effective April 1, 1992. Although the Plaintiffs claim that they were targeted based upon their association with the protected group, the Railroad contends that the lower court erred by allowing the verdict to stand as to these five Plaintiffs.

The essence of the Plaintiffs' complaint is that the Railroad implemented its policies and procedures in such manner as to discriminate against "a large class of older and age-protected workers, who had far greater trainmen seniority than workers hired after November 1, 1985...." These workers were "placed on the bottom of the conductor list...." The Plaintiffs alleged that this action by the Railroad violated West Virginia Code § 5-11-9(1) (1999), the West Virginia Human Rights Act, providing in pertinent part as follows:

It shall be an unlawful discriminatory practice... [f]or any employer to discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, hire, tenure, terms, conditions or privileges of employment if the individual is able and competent to perform the services required even if such individual is blind or disabled: Provided, That it shall not be an unlawful discriminatory practice for an employer to observe the provisions of any bona fide pension, retirement, group or employee insurance or welfare benefit plan or system not adopted as a subterfuge to evade the provisions of this subdivision[.]

The Plaintiffs allege that the Railroad engaged in a purposeful venture to eliminate workers who maintained expensive benefit packages earned and vested by employees hired before November 1, 1985, in favor of a class of workers whose membership is comprised of workers predominantly younger than the Plaintiffs and whose benefit packages are less expensive for the Railroad. The Plaintiffs' rights, they contend, are grounded in state law and do not present a federal question involving violations of collective bargaining agreements.

The Plaintiffs presented evidence at trial indicating an extensive, intentional campaign by the Railroad during the early 1980's designed to reduce the workforce and directed primarily at the older workers who enjoyed the expensive benefit packages.² The alleged targets of this strategy were brakemen who had the right under collective bargaining agreements to refuse promotion to conductor, thereby retaining their seniority rights and benefits packages as brakemen.

Through a collective bargaining agreement dated October 1, 1985, the Railroad achieved the right to force-promote all employees hired after November 1, 1985, from brakemen to conductor.³ Under the terms of a 1988 labor agreement negotiated to govern conductor seniority for post-1985 employees, a post-1985 employee's conductor seniority was to be established by reference to his ranking on the brakemen roster, thereby allowing him to effectively transfer his brakemen seniority to the conductor roster. The 1988 collective bargaining agreement did not address the conductor seniority rights of the pre-1985 employees since they had not yet been subjected to force-promotion.

Subsequent to achieving the right to force-promote the post-1985 employees, the new target of the Railroad's elimination policies, according to the Plaintiffs, became the senior brakemen hired prior to November 1, 1985, who still possessed the right to refuse promotion to conductor. This group allegedly consisted of approximately 130 brakemen on the Pocahontas Division of the Railroad, 87 percent of whom were over the age of forty.

In a new round of national bargaining beginning in 1988, the Railroad sought to achieve the right to force-promote the pre-1985 employees to conductor. Subsequent to two years of unsuccessful bargaining, the President of the United States created Presidential Emergency Board No. 219 (hereinafter "PEB 219") to investigate the unresolved disputes.⁴ In 1991, PEB 219 acceded to the Railroad's position and awarded carriers the right to force-promote the brakemen to conductor. By report dated January 15, 1991, the PEB stated that "[i]t is the Board's view, and it so recommends, that all brakemen who are offered promotion to conductor should be required to accept such promotion."

In response to the PEB decision, the United Transportation Union (hereinafter "UTU") and seven other unions initiated a nationwide rail strike. Congress intervened by enacting Public Law No. 102-29, 105 Stat. 69 (1991) which made the report of PEB 219 binding on the Railroads and unions except as might be clarified or modified by a "Special Board" established by the statute. During these Special Board proceedings, the UTU argued that the force-promotion would result in inequitable placement of senior brakemen at the bottom of the conductor seniority roster, below employees who were more junior as brakemen but who were already conductors. The Railroads responded by assuring the UTU that if "UTU wants brakemen seniority dates to be used for purposes of conductors' seniority, the carriers have no objection; the matter can be resolved when implementing language is adopted." Based upon those proceedings, the Special Board thereafter found PEB 219 to be "fair and demonstrably equitable." Accordingly, on July 29, 1991, PEB 219 became binding on the UTU and the Railroads. The implementing agreement did not impose a national rule for the placement of employees onto the conductor seniority roster, but instead stated that existing rules will "continue in effect."

The Railroad thereafter informed the Plaintiffs and other pre-1985 employees that they would be forced to work under the conductor label and would be placed on the bottom of the conductor seniority roster, effectively stripping them of the seniority they had accrued in years of work as brakemen and placing them on the roster below employees with less overall seniority. The older brakemen would be force-promoted and placed upon the conductor roster as of the date they became conductors.⁵ As explained above, the workers hired after November 1, 1985, were placed upon the conductor roster as of their date of hire with the Railroad, thereby permitting them to use their brakemen seniority. Thus, the Plaintiffs alleged that the Railroad created two separate classes of workers to be force-promoted to conductor, treating those hired after November 1, 1985, substantially differently and in a discriminatory fashion based upon their age.

According to the Plaintiffs, the Railroad sought consensus from the Plaintiffs' union, the UTU, regarding the placement of the pre-1985 hirees at the bottom of the conductor seniority roster. The Plaintiffs acknowledge that many of the UTU Division Chairmen signed letters accepting the Railroad's placement decision, including Division Chairmen from Knoxville, Tennessee;⁶ Macon, Georgia; Danville, Kentucky; and Norfolk, Virginia. The UTU Division Chairman from the Plaintiffs' division, however, refused to sign the letter and refused to consent to the placement of these pre-1985 workers at the bottom of the conductor roster.⁷

In addition to the circumstances surrounding the collective bargaining, the...