Campbell v. McLean Trucking Co.

• Decision Date: 05 September 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83 CV 1347 (ERN).,83 CV 1347 (ERN).
• Citation: 592 F. Supp. 1560
• Parties: James CAMPBELL, Jo Elaine Campbell and Joseph Castiglia, Plaintiffs, v. McLEAN TRUCKING COMPANY and Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers, Local 445, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

592 F. Supp. 1560

James CAMPBELL, Jo Elaine Campbell and Joseph Castiglia, Plaintiffs, v. McLEAN TRUCKING COMPANY and Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers, Local 445, Defendants.

No. 83 CV 1347 (ERN).

United States District Court, E.D. New York.

September 5, 1984.

Bernstein & Arfa by Jonathan P. Arfa, Stephen G. Eisenberg, New York City, for plaintiffs.

Apruzzese & McDermott, Mastro & Murphy by Frederick T. Danser, III, Springfield, N.J., for defendant McLean Trucking Co.

David Kramer, New York City, for defendant Local 445.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

NEAHER, District Judge.

Plaintiffs James Campbell and Joseph Castiglia filed suit on April 8, 1983 under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185, against McLean Trucking Company ("McLean") and Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers Local 445 ("Local 445").¹ In claim one against McLean alone, plaintiffs seek redress for alleged conduct which sounds in blacklisting. In claims two through five, plaintiffs request relief against McLean and Local 445 for, respectively, wrongful discharge and breach of the duty of fair representation.

Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b), defendants have moved to dismiss all claims. McLean maintains that claim one is barred by the doctrine of preemption. Both defendants assert that claims two through five are precluded by the applicable statute of limitations. The Court agrees with defendants' contentions and, accordingly, grants their motions to dismiss for the reasons which follow.²

FACTS

Plaintiffs, who had been terminated once previously but ordered reinstated, were employed at McLean's Newburgh, New York, break bulk facility until discharged on June 28, 1980. That final firing was assertedly for leading an unauthorized work stoppage, stemming from a dispute concerning a regularly scheduled coffee break. Not having been employed in the trucking industry since then, plaintiffs charge McLean with using its influence to thwart their hiring elsewhere.

In any event, plaintiffs contested the discharges by filing a grievance with the Joint Local Grievance Committee. They were represented by Local 445 at those proceedings. The panel deadlocked and the case was submitted to the New York State Board of Mediation. Issued in October 1980, that body's decision upheld the firings.

Presumably quite unsatisfied with that result, plaintiffs sought relief from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) rendered a December 31, 1981 decision for plaintiffs. McLean took exceptions and those objections are still pending before the NLRB.

On April 8, 1983, plaintiffs filed this action.

DISCUSSION

A. Claims Two through Five and DelCostello

As each plaintiff has done in claims two through five, an individual employee may bring an action under § 301 charging an employer with violating the collective bargaining agreement and a union with violating its duty of fair representation. Such an action is referred to as a Vaca-Hines or hybrid suit. See Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 87 S.Ct. 903, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967); Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, 424 U.S. 554, 96 S.Ct. 1048, 47 L.Ed.2d 231 (1976).

Until recently, the time period governing these hybrid actions was unsettled because congress has not enacted a statute of limitations for them. Melin v. Arcata Graphics, 556 F.Supp. 177, 179 (W.D.N.Y.1983). That uncertainty, however, no longer exists. In June 1983, the Supreme Court determined in DelCostello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, ___, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 2285, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983), that the statute of limitations for a § 301 suit is six months. That time length was borrowed from the National Labor Relations Act (Act) § 10(b), 29 U.S.C. § 160(b).

Plaintiffs filed this action two months before DelCostello was rendered. They acknowledge in their Brief at p. 4 that "had the instant case been filed today, or any time after DelCostello ..., such a six-month statute of limitations would be applicable ...." Therefore, relevant to claims two through five, the obvious question is whether the DelCostello decision should be given retroactive effect.

All but one Circuit considering this question have found DelCostello retroactive. Perez v. Dana Corp., 718 F.2d 581 (3d Cir.1983); Murray v. Branch Motor Express Co., 723 F.2d 1146 (4th Cir.1983); Edwards v. Sea Land Service, Inc., 720 F.2d 857 (5th Cir.1983); Curtis v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 299, 716 F.2d 360 (6th Cir.1983); Storck v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local Union 600, 712 F.2d 1194 (7th Cir. 1983); Lincoln v. District 9 of the International Ass'n of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, 723 F.2d 627 (8th Cir.1983); Hand v. International Chemical Workers Union, 712 F.2d 1350 (11th Cir.1983). Contra Edwards v. Teamsters Local No. 36, 719 F.2d 1036 (9th Cir.1983), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 104 S.Ct. 1599, 80 L.Ed.2d 130 (1984); Barina v. Gulf Trading and Transportation Co., 726 F.2d 560 (9th Cir.1984).

The Second Circuit applied DelCostello retroactively in Assad v. Mount Sinai Hospital, 703 F.2d 36 (2d Cir.1983), vacated, ___ U.S. ___, 104 S.Ct. 54, 78 L.Ed.2d 73 (1983), on remand, 725 F.2d 837 (2d Cir. 1984). Yet, the Second Circuit did so without expressly addressing the possibility of relief from such a utilization under Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 92 S.Ct. 349, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971), which provides a three-prong test to determine the breadth of a judicial decision. Seizing upon that absence in Assad, plaintiffs argue that a Chevron analysis is appropriate here. Perhaps, but regardless of initial merit, that argument has since been mooted by the recent decision of Welyczko v. U.S. Air, Inc., 733 F.2d 239 (2d Cir.1984).

Welyczko was a suit against the employer and the union. That plaintiff's cause of action, which accrued in 1975 but not commenced until five years later, was dismissed by the Second Circuit based on a retroactive reading of DelCostello.

Though not conducting a Chevron analysis, the Welyczko Court settled the issue, nonetheless, by finding that Chevron was not suitable to the dispute before it. The Court of Appeals stated that Chevron would be fitting in two situations: (1) if the decision to be analyzed was a Second Circuit case, or (2) if the Supreme Court gave no indication as to the effect of its ruling. Id. at 241.

The first, of course, was not present since DelCostello is not a Second Circuit decision. The second possibility was foreclosed by DelCostello itself, the Supreme Court having applied its decision retroactively to the very parties before it. In view of that tribunal's clear intention, the Court of Appeals held that it "must defer to the Supreme Court's directive on this issue." Id.

The Court of Appeals went on to state the rule for the Second Circuit:

"In employment termination cases, a six-month statute of limitations applies both retroactively and prospectively to wrongful discharge/failure to represent claims."

Id.

In light of that plain statement, this Court, too, "must defer" and, therefore, dismiss plaintiffs' claims two through five as time barred.³

B. Claim One and Preemption

Plaintiffs' first cause of action is against McLean alone, whereby they allege tortious interference with their right to secure other employment resulting in economic and emotional harm. In essence, though, that claim is for blacklisting.

Construing it as such, McLean urges dismissal arguing that this claim is preempted under the Act. The pertinent question, then, is whether the Act does deprive the Court of jurisdiction to adjudicate claim one.

Any discussion of preemption must begin with San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 245, 79 S.Ct. 773, 779, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959), which stated the general rule that:

"When an activity is arguably subject to ... the Act i.e., protected or prohibited by it, the States as well as the federal courts must defer to the exclusive competence of the NLRB if the danger of state interference with national policy is to be averted."

The purposes of preemption are to avoid conflicting regulation by various bodies over substantive law and to protect the exclusive and primary jurisdiction of the NLRB. See Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, 403 U.S. 274, 285-88, 91 S.Ct. 1909, 1917-18, 29 L.Ed.2d 473 (1971); Local 926, International Union of Operating Engineers v. Jones, 460 U.S. 669, 681, 103 S.Ct. 1453, 1461, 75 L.Ed.2d 368 (1983). These goals—avoiding conflict and protecting jurisdiction—can be satisfied without a mechanical application of Garmon preemption. In brief, that rule is not absolute. See Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. San Diego District Council of Carpenters, 436 U.S. 180, 186, 98 S.Ct. 1745, 1751, 56 L.Ed.2d 209 (1978).

To expand, exceptions to preemption do exist. Specifically, the Supreme Court has not employed preemption where (1) the issues only peripherally concern the Act, (2) the issues touch interests deeply rooted in local feeling or (3) judicial supervision will not disserve the federal interests involved. See Garmon, 359 U.S. at 243-45, 79 S.Ct. at 778-79; Lockridge, 403 U.S. at 297, 91 S.Ct. at 1923.

But before reaching possible exceptions, the first step in a preemption case is to determine if the conduct is covered by the Act. If the conduct is either protected or prohibited by the Act, the suit is presumptively preempted. Local 926, 460 U.S. at 675, 103 S.Ct. at 1458-59.

Here, plaintiffs were discharged for purportedly leading an unauthorized work stoppage during a dispute over a regularly scheduled coffee break. Their inability to obtain work in the trucking industry followed. Plaintiffs contend that their continued unemployment was traceable to McLean's conduct. Specifically, plaintiffs maintain that, through its influence in the freight business, McLean has thwarted their re-employment, thereby interfering with their right to contract under State tort law.

That charge, however, is most certainly...