Bell v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 01 C 2166.
| Decision Date | 27 June 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 01 C 2166.,01 C 2166. |
| Citation | 236 F.Supp.2d 882 |
| Parties | Dolores BELL and Robert Bell, Plaintiffs, v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD CO.; Safetron Systems Corporation; General Electric Company; General Signal Co., Birmingham Steel Company, John Stokes, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Michael Kelly Demetrio, Corboy & Demetrio, Chicago, IL, for plaintiffs.
M. Elizabeth Bennett, Susan Kay Laing, Anderson, Bennett & Partners, Chicago IL, Mark S. Landman, Landman, Corsi, Ballaine & Ford, P.C., New York City, for Illinois Central Railroad Co.
Michael D. Hayesm Michael Vincent Casey, Paul M. Drucker, Varga, Berger, Ledsky, Hayes & Casey, chicago, IL, James B. Cohoon, Bistine and Cohoon, Torrance, CA, for Safetran Systems Corp.
Lloyd E. Williams, Jr., Bradley Charels Nahrstadt, Williams, Montgomery & John, Ltd., Chicago, IL, Ross Benjamin Bricker, Lise Taylor Spacapan, John Fee Ward, John J. Hamill, Jr., Jenner & Block, Chicago, IL, for General Signal Co.
Robert J. Franco, II, John J. Moroney, IV, Vincent Paul Tomkiewicz, Andrew Mueller, Bollinger, Ruberry and Garvey, Chicago, IL, for Birmingham Steel Co.
Bradford Scott Purcell, Purcell & Wardrope, Chtd., Chicago, IL, for Melco Transfer, Inc., John Stokes.
On March 15, 1999, an Amtrak passenger train commonly known as the "City of New Orleans," while heading southbound outside of Chicago on the Illinois Central Railroad line, collided with a semi-tractor trailer truck driven by defendant John Stokes and derailed in Bourbonnais, Illinois. At the time of the crash, the Amtrak train was powered by defendant General Electric's Genesis Locomotive. The derailment resulted in passenger injuries and fatalities. Some of the victims (hereinafter "plaintiffs" or "the state court plaintiffs") sued a number of defendants, including General Electric Company ("General Electric") and General Signal Corporation ("General Signal"), in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. The complaints of the various state court plaintiffs alleged tort claims including negligence, strict liability, and breach of various implied warranties. Anticipating the filing of those cases, General Electric filed its own actions for declaratory judgment in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois requesting a declaration that: (1) any claim brought by the state court plaintiffs, including any claim alleging defects or negligence in the design, manufacture, construction, performance or choice of materials of General Electric's Genesis locomotive or a claim for breach of implied warranty, is preempted by federal law (Count I); and (2) that its Genesis locomotives were not defectively or negligently designed and that the design, manufacture, construction, performance, and choice of materials of its locomotives did not contribute to causing any injury to or the death of plaintiffs (Count II). Additionally, General Electric and General Signal each removed the state court cases (hereinafter "the removed cases" or "the state court cases") to this federal district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a) and federal question jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. 1331.1
Plaintiffs have sought a remand of the removed cases, arguing that there is no federal question on the face of their complaints, and that their claims are not completely preempted by federal law. General Electric has opposed the motions to remand the removed state court cases.2 On May 8, 2001, this court set a schedule, after conferring with counsel for the various parties, for the briefing of dispositive motions regarding federal preemption issues raised by the cases assigned to this court, as well as to the related cases assigned to and pending before other judges of this federal district court.3 General Electric moved for summary judgment on its declaratory judgment actions pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 and moved to dismiss the removed cases pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). This order therefore applies to all removed cases in which General Electric is a defendant and applies to all cases in which General Electric is a plaintiff seeking declaratory judgment arising out of the 1999 Bourbonnais Amtrak crash.4
As mentioned, the state court plaintiffs' complaints alleged several common law causes of action against General Electric, including product liability, negligence, breach of implied warranty of merchantability, and breach of implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. General Electric removed the cases to this federal district court on the basis that federal law, including the Locomotive Inspection Act, 49 U.S.C. § 20701, et. seq. ("LIA")5 preempts plaintiffs' complaints. The state court plaintiffs argue that their state law claims were improperly removed from state court and must be remanded because this court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over them. The state court plaintiffs argue that they have not alleged any federal claims against General Electric, and that their claims are not subject to complete preemption. Plaintiffs also moved for costs incurred as a result of General Electric's "improper" removal of their claims from state court.
The presence or absence of federal-question jurisdiction is governed by the "well-pleaded complaint rule," which provides that federal jurisdiction exists only when a federal question is presented on the face of the plaintiff's properly pleaded complaint. Taylor v. Anderson, 234 U.S. 74, 75-76, 34 S.Ct. 724, 724, 58 L.Ed. 1218 (1914). A case may not be removed to federal court on the basis of a federal defense the defendant might raise to defeat the plaintiff's claim. Franchise Tax Bd. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust, 463 U.S. 1, 10, 103 S.Ct. 2841, 2846, 77 L.Ed.2d 420 (1983). Although a plaintiff is generally considered the "master of his complaint," Lister v. Stark, 890 F.2d 941, 943 (7th Cir.1989), this principle is not without limitation. An independent corollary to the "well-pleaded complaint rule" is the "artful pleading doctrine." Franchise Tax Board, 463 U.S. at 22, 103 S.Ct. at 2853. A plaintiff may not frame claims under state law and omit federal questions that are essential to that plaintiffs' recovery. Id. Therefore, a federal court may, in some situations, look beyond the face of the complaint to determine whether a plaintiff has artfully pleaded the suit so as to couch a federal claim in terms of state law. Burda v. M. Ecker Co., 954 F.2d 434, 438 (7th Cir.1992) (). In such cases, the court will conclude that a plaintiff's claim actually arose under federal law and is therefore removable. Id.
Federal preemption normally would constitute a federal defense to a state law action, and therefore would not support removal from state court. See Bastien v. AT&T Wireless Servs., Inc., 205 F.3d 983, 986 (7th Cir.2000). In some instances, however, Congress has so completely preempted a particular area that no room remains for any state regulation and the complaint would be "necessarily federal in character." Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58, 63-64, 107 S.Ct. 1542, 1546, 95 L.Ed.2d 55 (1987). In that situation, removal is proper despite the well-pleaded complaint rule. See id. Once an area of state law has been completely preempted by federal law, any claim purportedly based on state law is considered, from its inception, a federal claim, and therefore arising under federal law. Franchise Tax Board, 463 U.S. at 24, 103 S.Ct. at 2854. Under the law of the Seventh Circuit, a court is not bound by the names and labels placed on a complaint by the plaintiff when that complaint in fact raises a federal question. See Bastien, 205 F.3d at 987. The issue is whether a plaintiff's complaint, however denominated, actually raises matters preempted by federal law. See id.
Federal preemption of state law claims can be either express or implied. "[T]he scheme of federal regulation may be so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it, because the Act of Congress may touch a field in which the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the subject, or because the object sought to be obtained by federal law and the character of obligations imposed by it may reveal the same purpose." Fidelity Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n v. de la Cuesta, 458 U.S. 141, 153, 102 S.Ct. 3014, 3022, 73 L.Ed.2d 664 (1982) (internal quotations omitted). Where Congress intends to occupy a field, state law in that field is preempted. Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation & Dev. Comm'n, 461 U.S. 190, 212-213, 103 S.Ct. 1713, 1726-27, 75 L.Ed.2d 752 (1983).
The LIA does not contain an express preemption clause. Therefore, this court must determine whether it presents an implied preemption of state law. When facing a question of implied preemption, a court must begin with the presumption that the state law is valid. New York State Dept. of Soc. Servs. v. Dublino, 413 U.S. 405, 413, 93 S.Ct. 2507, 2513, 37 L.Ed.2d 688 (1973) (citation omitted). This court begins the task of determining whether the LIA impliedly preempts state law by looking at the language of the statute itself. The LIA provides:
A railroad carrier may use or allow to be used a locomotive or tender on its...
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