Byrd v. Voca Corp. of Washington, D.C.

• Decision Date: 31 December 2008
• Docket Number: No. 05-CV-803.,No. 05-CV-778.,05-CV-778.,05-CV-803.
• Citation: 962 A.2d 927
• Parties: Kathie BYRD and Lisha Quarles, Appellants, v. VOCA CORPORATION OF WASHINGTON, D.C., Appellee. Michelle Monroe, Appellant, v. VOCA Corporation of Washington, D.C., Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

962 A.2d 927

Kathie BYRD and Lisha Quarles, Appellants, v. VOCA CORPORATION OF WASHINGTON, D.C., Appellee.

Michelle Monroe, Appellant, v. VOCA Corporation of Washington, D.C., Appellee.

No. 05-CV-778.

No. 05-CV-803.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued June 22, 2006.

Decided December 31, 2008.

Leslie D. Alderman III, with whom T. Cary Devorsetz and Sundeep Hora were on the brief, for appellants.

Steven Sarfatti, Washington, for appellees.

Jonathan L. Gould filed a brief amicus curiae for the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association in support of appellants.

Before FISHER, Associate Judge, and WAGNER and SCHWELB,^* Senior Judges.

WAGNER, Senior Judge:

Appellants, Kathie Byrd, Lisha Quarles, and Michelle Monroe, sued their former employer, appellee, VOCA Corporation of Washington, D.C., for wrongful termination of employment based on public policy grounds. The trial court granted appellee summary judgment, having concluded that appellants' remedy for wrongful discharge was preempted by § 301(a) of the National Labor Relations Act of 1947 (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. § 185(a) (2001). The trial court also dismissed appellants' cases on the separate ground of failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Appellants argue that the trial court erred in its rulings because: (1) their causes of action are independent of the applicable collective bargaining agreement, and therefore, not preempted by § 301(a) of the NLRA; and (2) exhaustion of administrative remedies is not required because their claims involve rights independent of the contractual rights protected by the collective bargaining agreement.¹ We affirm the trial court's dismissal of appellant Monroe's claim on preemption grounds. We remand the cases of appellants Byrd and Quarles for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

Appellants were employed by VOCA in separate group homes for developmentally disabled individuals in the District. They were members of Service Employees International Union (the Union) which had a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with VOCA governing the terms of their employment. Under the terms of the CBA, Union members could be disciplined or terminated only for "just cause" and "commensurate with the offense." The CBA also established a procedure for arbitration of grievances and terminations contested by the Union on an employee's behalf.

Each of the appellants complained to their supervisors about deficiencies in the conditions of the respective group homes where they worked. In addition, appellants Byrd and Quarles complained to members of the Council of the District of Columbia and officials in the Mayor's office. Shortly thereafter, appellants were terminated from their employment. The Union initiated arbitration proceedings on appellants' behalf, but appellants elected not to pursue arbitration. Each of them filed a complaint in the trial court alleging wrongful termination of employment.²

The trial court granted VOCA's motion for summary judgment, holding that the appellants' claims were "inextricably bound up in the collective bargaining agreement between [their] union and [their] employer and that [the] local law wrongful termination claim is therefore preempted by § 301(a) of the National Labor Relations Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C. § 185(a) [NLRA]." The court explained that it was impossible to resolve the claim or adjudicate VOCA's defenses without interpreting the collective bargaining agreement and that such interpretation is precluded under the federal preemption doctrine. The court also dismissed the claims on the independent ground of failure to exhaust administrative remedies.

II.

A. Preemption Principles

Section 301 of the NLRA "mandate[s] resort to federal rules of law in order to ensure uniform interpretation of collective-bargaining agreements, and thus to promote the peaceable, consistent resolution of labor-management disputes." Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, Inc., 486 U.S. 399, 404, 108 S.Ct. 1877, 100 L.Ed.2d 410 (1988) (citing Teamsters v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U.S. 95, 82 S.Ct. 571, 7 L.Ed.2d 593 (1962)). "Thus, in cases involving collective bargaining agreements, state laws purporting `to define the meaning or scope of a term in a contract suit [are] preempted by federal labor law.'" Roberts v. Howard Univ., 740 A.2d 16, 18 (D.C.1999) (quoting Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 210, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 85 L.Ed.2d 206 (1985)). Similarly, state tort remedies may be preempted under § 301. See Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 218-19, 105 S.Ct. 1904 (holding that § 301 preempted application of a state tort remedy where the scope of the defendant's duty to plaintiff was determined from consideration of the collective bargaining agreement). The Supreme Court made clear in Lingle "that interpretation of collective-bargaining agreements remains firmly in the arbitral realm; [ ] judges can determine questions of state law involving labor-management relations only if such questions do not require construing collective-bargaining agreements." 486 U.S. at 411, 108 S.Ct. 1877. If the state law claim does not require construing the collective bargaining agreement, it is independent of it for purposes of § 301, and therefore will not be preempted. See id., at 407, 108 S.Ct. 1877. On the other hand, if resolution of the state law claim requires interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement, it will be preempted under § 301. Id. at 405-06, 108 S.Ct. 1877.

A determination of whether a state law claim is preempted under § 301 of the NLRA requires reference to the terms of the CBA and an analysis of the state law claim. See Lingle, supra, 486 U.S. at 407, 108 S.Ct. 1877 (examining in the § 301 preemption analysis the elements of a state remedy in order to determine whether the claim could be resolved without interpreting the CBA); see also Allis-Chalmers, supra, 471 U.S. at 213-16, 105 S.Ct. 1904 (examining the CBA and analyzing the state tort remedy in order to determine whether § 301 preempted application of the tort remedy). At issue in Lingle was "whether an employee covered by a collective-bargaining agreement that provides her with a contractual remedy for discharge without just cause may enforce her state-law remedy for retaliatory discharge."³ 486 U.S. at 401, 108 S.Ct. 1877. In determining whether the state-law remedy required interpretation of the collective-bargaining agreement, the Supreme Court first analyzed the elements of the state based cause of action. Id. at 407, 108 S.Ct. 1877. Retaliatory discharge under Illinois law required proof (1) that the plaintiff was discharged or threatened with discharge and (2) that the employer's motive for the action was to deter him from exercising his rights under the Act or to interfere with his exercise of those rights. Id. at 407, 108 S.Ct. 1877 (citing Horton v. Miller Chemical Co., 776 F.2d 1351, 1356 (7th Cir.1985)) (summarizing Illinois state-court decisions). Having reviewed these elements, the Supreme Court concluded that purely factual questions concerning the employee's conduct and the employer's motivation for the firing were involved, which did not require interpretation of any terms of the collective bargaining agreement. Therefore, the Court held that the state law remedy was independent for § 301 preemption purposes.

B. Preemption Analysis

Appellants argue that their state law claims are not preempted by § 301 because their wrongful termination causes of action are independent of the collective bargaining agreement. Appellee responds that the pre-emptive effect of § 301 of the NLRA precludes the action. However, preliminarily, appellee argues that appellants have no viable state law claim against which the primacy of national labor laws can be analyzed. Appellee contends that the cause of action that appellants seek to assert, wrongful discharge in violation of public policy, is based upon a narrow exception to the at-will employment doctrine which is not applicable to employees, like appellants, whose job tenure is protected by contract.

(i) Public Policy Claim

Appellants ask this court to extend to employees covered by contract a cause of action for wrongful discharge based on the narrow exception to the at-will employment doctrine recognized in Adams v. Cochran & Co., 597 A.2d 28 (D.C.1991).⁴ In Adams, this court held "that there is a very narrow exception to the at-will doctrine under which a discharged at-will employee may sue his former employer for wrongful discharge when the sole reason for the discharge is the employee's refusal to violate the law, as expressed in a statute or municipal regulation." Id. at 34 (emphasis added). Subsequently, the en banc court held that Adams did not foreclose a panel or the en banc court from recognizing other public policy exceptions to the at-will employment doctrine. Carl, supra note 1, 702 A.2d at 160.⁵ A majority stated that "the recognition of any public policy exception to the at-will doctrine must be solidly based on a statute or regulation that reflects the particular public policy to be applied, or (if appropriate) on a constitutional provision concretely applicable to the defendant's conduct." Id. at 163.⁶ Applying the principles extracted from Carl, this court reversed the grant of summary judgment in favor of an employer where the at-will employee claimed that her firing was in retaliation for protesting health, food, and safety violations. Washington v. Guest Servs., Inc., 718 A.2d 1071 (D.C.1998).⁷ Subsequently, this court reversed an order dismissing a wrongful termination claim for failure to state a cause of action where the former at-will employee alleged that his employer fired him for refusing to violate certain District of Columbia statutes. Fingerhut v. Children's Nat'l Med. Ctr., 738 A.2d 799, 802, 807 (D.C.1999). This court concluded that Fingerhut had made the requisite allegations under Carl to avoid...