Courie v. Alcoa Wheel & Forged Products

• Decision Date: 18 August 2009
• Docket Number: No. 07-4440.,07-4440.
• Citation: 577 F.3d 625
• Parties: Charles COURIE, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. ALCOA WHEEL & FORGED PRODUCTS, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

577 F.3d 625

Charles COURIE, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. ALCOA WHEEL & FORGED PRODUCTS, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 07-4440.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: April 28, 2009.

Decided and Filed: August 18, 2009.

ARGUED: Raymond R. Froelich, Jr., Cleveland, OH, for Appellants. Scot Allen Lewis Hinshaw, Hunton & Williams LLP, Washington, D.C., Joyce Goldstein, Goldstein Gragel LLC, Cleveland, OH, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Raymond R. Froelich, Jr., Cleveland, OH, for Appellants. Scot Allen Lewis Hinshaw, Hunton & Williams LLP, Washington, D.C., Joyce Goldstein, Gina L. Fraternali, Goldstein Gragel LLC, Cleveland, OH, for Appellees.

Before MARTIN, SUHRHEINRICH, and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Circuit Judge.

Charles Courie sued his employer, ALCOA and Alcoa Wheel & Forged Products (collectively, "Alcoa"), and his union, the United Auto Workers Local 1050 and the international UAW (along with certain employees of the union and employer), alleging that they discriminated against him by settling his union grievance via an agreement that branded him a racist. The district court disagreed and dismissed all of his federal and state claims. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.

I.

In 2003, someone left an inappropriate note on an Alcoa cafeteria table where African-American employees tended to sit. In its investigation into the incident, an employee of Alcoa's human resources department spoke with Courie, who denied leaving the note. Recalling who he did sit with at lunch that day, Courie, unable to recall the employee's name, said he sat with "Jew Boy," among others. Alcoa later sent Courie a warning stating that it considered that term "racially offensive." In response, Courie filed a grievance with his union, stating it was not racist and that other Alcoa employees of various races had also used the term. Courie also claimed the warning constituted a breach of the collective bargaining agreement because Alcoa reprimanded him only. A union grievance hearing was held but Alcoa maintained that its actions were proper, and the union did not push for arbitration. Courie then sued Alcoa and the human resources employee who sent the warning in state court, alleging discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and interference with business relations. Courie lost, first at the trial court and then on appeal. The appeals court reasoned that Alcoa could lawfully single Courie out because only he had used "Jew Boy" in front of management. Courie v. ALCOA, 162 Ohio App.3d 133, 832 N.E.2d 1230, 1230 (2005).

While his state suit was pending, Courie discovered that Alcoa and his union had considered settling his original dispute— he alleges that they reached a firm settlement, but the record contains only a "settlement proposal," which reads:

Since over a year has elapsed since the incident, the Company is willing to remove the discipline from Mr. Courie's record. This offer is made with the understanding that the Company's response to his inappropriate remarks was correct and in accordance with its responsibility to maintain a proper work environment for all employees, and that Mr. Courie understands and acknowledges his remarks were inappropriate.

J.A. 32-33. With this "settlement agreement" in hand, Courie filed suit in federal court, naming Alcoa, the UAW, Jeff Judson and Roy King (union employees), and Ann Isaac (Alcoa employee) as defendants. He alleged that: (1) Alcoa breached the anti-discrimination provisions of Article XV of the collective bargaining agreement and the union breached its duty of fair representation to him when they entered into the settlement—together a "hybrid action" under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185; (2) each of the defendants discriminated against him in violation of Ohio Rev.Code § 4112.02 by entering into the settlement; (3) defendant employees defamed him and (4) committed the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress when they entered into the settlement without his consent and sent the letter to him. In addition, Courie's wife, Cindy, alleges loss of consortium.

The defendants filed motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The magistrate denied the Couries' motion for leave to amend their complaint, instead giving them the benefit of any amendment—which would have been to clarify their claim to avoid the res judicata effect of their state claims. See A-1 Nursing Care of Cleveland, Inc. v. Florence Nightingale Nursing, Inc., 97 Ohio App.3d 623, 647 N.E.2d 222, 224 (1994). On the magistrate's recommendation, the district court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss. The Couries appeal.

II.

On appeal, we review de novo a dismissal for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Marks v. Newcourt Credit Group, Inc., 342 F.3d 444, 451-52 (6th Cir.2003). The Supreme Court recently raised the bar for pleading requirements beyond the old "no-set-of-facts" standard of Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957), that had prevailed for the last few decades. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009); Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). Conley itself had reflected the change away from "code pleading"¹ to "notice pleading," and the standard it announced was designed to screen out only those cases that patently had no theoretical hope of success. 355 U.S. at 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99 ("In appraising the sufficiency of the complaint we follow, of course, the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief."); see also Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1959 (Souter, J., dissenting) (observing that "[t]he sole exception" to the Conley rule was for "allegations that [were] sufficiently fantastic to defy reality as we know it: claims about little green men, or the plaintiff's recent trip to Pluto, or experiences in time travel").

The Court has now explained, however, that a civil complaint only survives a motion to dismiss if it "contain[s] sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949. Indeed, while this new Iqbal/Twombly standard screens out the "little green men" cases just as Conley did, it is designed to also screen out cases that, while not utterly impossible, are "implausible." See Robert G. Bone, Twombly, Pleading Rules, and the Regulation of Court Access, 94 IOWA L. REV. 873, 887-90 (2009). Exactly how implausible is "implausible" remains to be seen, as such a malleable standard will have to be worked out in practice.

The Couries' legal arguments rest wholly upon the existence of a "settlement agreement" that possibly does not exist: all we have is an unsigned proposal from the UAW to Alcoa. Yet a complaint need only "contain sufficient factual matter" to be "plausible," Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949, and we cannot dismiss for factual implausibility "even if it [would] strike[] a savvy judge that ... recovery is very remote and unlikely," Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see also Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950 ("Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief will ... be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense."). Here, Courie has alleged that this settlement agreement exists and has provided an unsigned settlement proposal as an exhibit to his complaint in support. For purposes of his motion to dismiss, that is "sufficient" detail for us to assume that the agreement existed. But, as explained below, even assuming the agreement exists, Courie's complaint does not state claims upon which relief may be granted.

III.

Courie contends that the settlement agreement between the UAW and Alcoa simultaneously amounted to both a breach of the union's duty of fair representation and a breach by Alcoa of the collective bargaining agreement—together, a so-called "hybrid § 301" claim. To further § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act's purpose of encouraging the arbitration of labor disputes, the Supreme Court generally bars these suits from being brought directly against employers until relief is first sought under the labor contract. Republic Steel Corp. v. Maddox, 379 U.S. 650, 653, 85 S.Ct. 614, 13 L.Ed.2d 580 (1965). Thus, employees must go to their unions before courts, and so the grievance and arbitration procedure can only be invoked by the union: the worker must persuade his union to prosecute his grievance and to submit it to arbitration. Federal courts may grant the employee relief against both his employer and his union for the employer's violation only if he can also show that the union breached its duty of fair representation in prosecuting his grievance. White v. Detroit Edison Co., 472 F.3d 420, 425 (6th Cir.2006); DelCostello v. Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 163-65, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983). Liability attaches to neither employer nor union unless fault can be proved as to both. Roeder v. American Postal Workers Union, 180 F.3d 733, 737 (6th Cir.1999).²

A. Union duty of fair representation

When a union is selected as exclusive representative of the employees in a bargaining unit, it has a duty under § 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act to fairly represent them. Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 177, 87 S.Ct. 903, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967). A union breaches this duty when its conduct toward an employee is "arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith." Air Line Pilots v. O'Neill, 499 U.S. 65, 67, 111 S.Ct. 1127, 113 L.Ed.2d 51 (1991). A union's action is "arbitrary" "only if [such conduct] can be...