Brazinski v. Transport Service Co., 86-3058

• Citation: 513 N.E.2d 76,159 Ill.App.3d 1061
• Decision Date: 18 August 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-3058,86-3058
• Parties: , 111 Ill.Dec. 830, 126 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3069, 28 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 526, 2 IER Cases 1095 Dennis BRAZINSKI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TRANSPORT SERVICE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 76

513 N.E.2d 76

159 Ill.App.3d 1061, 111 Ill.Dec. 830,

126 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3069,

28 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 526, 2 IER Cases 1095

Dennis BRAZINSKI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TRANSPORT SERVICE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 86-3058.

Appellate Court of Illinois First District, Second Division.

Aug. 18, 1987.

Potter & Schaffner, Chicago, Mark S. Schaffner and Robin B. Potter, of counsel, for plaintiff-appellant.

Fagel, Haber & Maragos, Chicago, Steven J. Teplinsky and Leonard R. Kofkin, of counsel, for defendant-appellee.

Justice STAMOS delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiff-Appellant, David Brazinski ("Brazinski"), appeals from the circuit court's granting of defendant's, Transport Service Company ("Transport"), motion for summary judgment.

Brazinski was employed by Transport as a truck driver from October 28, 1978, until August 25, 1983. On April 21, 1983, Brazinski filed a wage claim with the Illinois Department of Labor asserting that he and other drivers were wrongfully denied wages by Transport's policies which he believed violated the collective bargaining agreement. Brazinski alleged a violation of the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act which provides guidelines for employers paying wages due nongovernmental employees. Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 48, par. 39m-1, et seq.

Transport was notified by the Department of Labor that Brazinski had filed a wage claim and that the matter was scheduled for a hearing before the Department of Labor on August 26, 1983.

On August 24, 1983, Bill Hovel, a Transport dispatcher, called Brazinski at home and instructed him to drive a load from Chicago to Peoria, Illinois. Brazinski informed Hovel that he had to be in Chicago on August 26, 1983. Brazinski asked Hovel if there was a backhaul (an additional assignment given after the initial assignment is completed) on the load. Hovel replied, "No, at this point there is no backhaul on it."

On August 25, 1983, Brazinski left Chicago Central Terminal, his home terminal, with a load bound for Peoria, Illinois. At the Peoria terminal, Brazinski was dispatched by Transport to deliver a load to Decatur, Illinois. Upon his arrival in Decatur on August 25, Brazinski was instructed by William Berger ("Berger"), the assistant terminal manager in Chicago, to take a load to Fremont, Ohio. Brazinski informed Berger that he had to be in Chicago on August 26. Berger stated to Brazinski that "if he didn't take the load, he was going to voluntarily quit his job." After two other telephone conversations with Berger, Brazinski decided not to take the load to Ohio because he would then miss the hearing scheduled for August 26, 1983, on his wage claim. Brazinski took a bus to attend his wage claim hearing in Chicago and was not subsequently employed by Transport.

Upon returning to Chicago, Brazinski filed a grievance protesting his discharge on the grounds that he was fired in retaliation for making his wage claim. On September 21, 1983, a hearing was held by a six-person joint union-employer arbitration committee on Brazinski's grievance. While there is no record of the proceedings leading to the committee's decision, Brazinski stated in his affidavit that the grievance committee refused to hear his argument that he was fired because he filed a wage claim and explicitly instructed him that its jurisdiction was limited to issues arising under the labor contract. The committee determined that the "discharge be upheld on the basis that it was a voluntary resignation by his refusal to accept work."

Brazinski's first contention is that Federal law does not preempt his claim of retaliatory discharge. Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, (section 301) provides that Federal courts shall have jurisdiction over suits for breach of collective bargaining agreements. (29 U.S.C. § 185(a) (1982).) While State courts also have jurisdiction over section 301 claims, principles of Federal labor law preempt inconsistent State law. (Local 174, Teamsters v. Lucas Flour Co. (1962), 369 U.S. 95, 104, 82 S.Ct. 571, 577, 7 L.Ed.2d 593, 600.) In Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck (1985), 471 U.S. 202, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 85 L.Ed.2d 206, the Supreme Court held that Federal labor law preempted a State tort action against an employer and insurer. The employee-plaintiff alleged that defendants acted in bad faith in handling the employee's claim for nonoccupational disability insurance as provided for in the parties' collective bargaining agreement. The court determined that Federal law preempted the State tort action because resolution of the claim required an interpretation of the parties' contract:

"The interests in interpretive uniformity and predictability that require that labor-contract disputes be resolved by reference to federal law also require that the meaning given a contract phrase or term be subject to uniform federal interpretation. Thus, questions relating to what the parties to a labor agreement agreed, and what legal consequences were intended to flow from breaches of that agreement, must be resolved by reference to uniform federal law, whether such questions arise in the context of a suit for breach of contract or in a suit alleging liability in tort." Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck (1985), 471 U.S. 202, 211, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 1911, 85 L.Ed.2d 206, 215.

The court concluded that section 301 clearly requires preemption of a State-created tort when the existence of a duty is dependent upon the interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement. The court found that the existence of a duty by the employer to pay insurance claims in good faith was directly dependent upon the terms of the contract. Therefore, the court determined that Federal courts had jurisdiction to determine if the parties' collective bargaining agreement contained a covenant of good faith. The court, however, emphasized that "not every dispute concerning employment, or tangentially involving a provision of a collective-bargaining agreement, is pre-empted by § 301 or other provisions of the federal labor law." (Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck (1985), 471 U.S. 202, 211, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 1911, 85 L.Ed.2d 206, 215.) In addition, the court stated that it would be inconsistent with congressional intent under section 301 to preempt State rules that proscribe conduct, or establish rights and obligations, independent of a labor contract. (Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck (1985), 471 U.S. 202, 212, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 1912, 85 L.Ed.2d 206, 216.) Accordingly, the court found that State tort laws are only subject to preemption when they purport to define the meaning of the contractual relationship. Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck (1985), 471 U.S. 202, 213, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 1912, 85 L.Ed.2d 206, 216-17.

In Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams (1987), 482 U.S. 386, 107 S.Ct. 2425, 96 L.Ed. 318, the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the principle that section 301 only governs claims founded directly on rights created by collective bargaining agreements, and claims substantially dependent upon the analysis of collective bargaining agreements. In Caterpillar, the court held that section 301 did not preempt breach-of-contract claims made by employees based on individual contracts entered into prior to the employees' being subject to a collective bargaining agreement. The court observed that section 301 does not preclude employees covered by collective bargaining agreements from asserting legal rights independent of those agreements.

In Gonzalez v. Prestress Engineering Corp. (1986), 115 Ill.2d 1, 104 Ill.Dec. 751, 5O3 N.E.2d 308, the Illinois supreme court held that section 301 did not preempt a tort claim of retaliatory discharge where an employee was fired after filing a workers' compensation claim. (115 Ill.2d 1, 9, 104 Ill.Dec. 751, 503 N.E.2d 308.) Citing Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck (1985), 471 U.S. 202, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 85 L.Ed.2d 206, the supreme court determined that where a State tort claim was based on a duty and right firmly rooted and fixed in an important and clearly defined public policy, evaluation of that claim does not depend upon an interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement. (Gonzalez v. Prestress Engineering Corp. (1986), 115 Ill.2d 1, 10, 104 Ill.Dec. 751, 503 N.E.2d 308.) The court found that the plaintiff's complaint of retaliatory discharge was firmly rooted in the clearly mandated public policy of protecting employees who, whether unionized or not, exercise their rights under the Workers' Compensation Act. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 48, par. 138.4(h)). (Gonzalez v. Prestress Engineering Corp. (1986), 115 Ill.2d 1, 9, 104 Ill.Dec. 751, 503 N.E.2d 308.) Therefore, the court concluded that the tort of retaliatory discharge was separate and independent of any action based on a collective bargaining agreement. 115 Ill.2d 1, 11-12, 104 Ill.Dec. 751, 503 N.E.2d 308.

In Lingle v. Norge Division of Magic Chef, Inc. (7th Cir.1987), 823 F.2d 1031, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the tort of retaliatory discharge is preempted by section 301 because such claims are "substantially dependent upon an analysis of the terms of the collective bargaining agreements." (at 1045.) The court reasoned that a "just cause" provision in the labor contract would provide sufficient relief to employees and a hearing on a complaint by an arbitrator would involve the same analysis as a State court's finding on an employee's action for retaliatory discharge. (at 1045-46.) The dissent noted, however, that the analysis of the court must focus on " 'whether evaluation of the tort claim is inextricably intertwined with consideration of the terms of the labor contract.' " (at 1053 (Ripple, J., dissenting) (quoting Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck (1985), 471 U.S. 202, 213, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 1912, 85 L.Ed.2d 206, 216).) The dissent, again citing Allis-Chalmers argued that cases involving retaliatory discharge for filing workers' compensation claims were...