Douglas v. American Information Technologies Corp.

• Decision Date: 14 June 1989
• Docket Number: No. 88-1815,88-1815
• Citation: 877 F.2d 565
• Parties: 131 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2846, 58 USLW 2005, 112 Lab.Cas. P 11,259, 4 Indiv.Empl.Rts.Cas. 851 Delores J. DOUGLAS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AMERICAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION, a corporation, also known as Ameritech Company and/or Illinois Bell Telephone Company, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 565

877 F.2d 565

131 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2846, 58 USLW 2005,

112 Lab.Cas. P 11,259,

4 Indiv.Empl.Rts.Cas. 851

Delores J. DOUGLAS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AMERICAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION, a corporation, also known as Ameritech Company and/or Illinois Bell Telephone Company Defendant-Appellee.

No. 88-1815.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Nov. 3, 1988.

Decided June 14, 1989.

Robert Guritz, Illinois Bell Telephone Co., Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee.

L. Lee Burks, Jr., Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.

Before POSNER and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges, and ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

Delores J. Douglas appeals from the district court's judgment dismissing her complaint for failure to exhaust her administrative remedies under a collective bargaining agreement. Ms. Douglas initiated this lawsuit by filing a state-law tort action in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, seeking damages from her employer, the Illinois Bell Telephone Co. (Illinois Bell), for the intentional infliction of emotional distress. Illinois Bell removed this case to federal court under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1441(a). Illinois Bell asserted that the case was within the original jurisdiction of the district court since it was actually a suit alleging violation of a collective bargaining agreement and was, therefore, a suit arising under section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. Sec. 185(a). ¹ After petitioning for removal, Illinois Bell moved to dismiss Ms Douglas' suit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. Illinois Bell contended that Ms. Douglas has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted because she has not satisfied one of the prerequisites of an action under section 301: exhaustion of grievance and arbitration remedies under the collective bargaining agreement. The district court granted Illinois Bell's motion. For the reasons stated in this opinion, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. Background

A. Facts

Ms. Douglas is a customer-service representative with Illinois Bell (a wholly owned subsidiary of American Information Technologies Corp.). With the exception of a three-month separation period in 1976, Ms. Douglas has been employed by Illinois Bell since 1964. She is a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (the Union), and the terms and conditions of her employment are governed by a collective bargaining agreement between Illinois Bell and the Union.

On May 29, 1984, Ms. Douglas injured her back on the job. Since the time of the injury, Ms. Douglas has experienced high blood pressure, severe headaches, and an occasional inability to walk without great pain and a pronounced lean. This condition required Ms. Douglas to take disability leave periodically. She last returned from disability leave in July 1986. Ms. Douglas maintains that Illinois Bell was aware of the details of her condition, including the recommendation of her doctors that she limit her work hours by excluding overtime work and that she not participate in voluntary stress-laden work.

Since her return to work in July 1986, Ms. Douglas has consistently refused overtime work and has not participated in "merit or non-merit but highly stressed work." R.1, Ex. I (Douglas Complaint) at p 10. Ms. Douglas' complaint alleges that, in retaliation for her refusal to participate in these activities, the management of Illinois Bell engaged in a series of acts with the intention of inflicting emotional distress upon her. For example, Ms. Douglas maintains that, in April 1987, she was compelled to participate in a type of stress-laden work known as "Helord" (held customer orders dealing with cable facility problems). R.1, Ex. I at p 11. In addition, paragraph 14 of the complaint details a series of wrongs allegedly inflicted upon Ms. Douglas by Illinois Bell management employees. Ms. Douglas maintains that she was:

A. Arbitrarily denied her excused work days (stress relief days). These denials were set out in a grievance that Ms. Douglas filed with her union.

B. Subjected to "constant harassment" until she "strenuously objected" to such treatment. This harassment included denial of the right to use handicap parking, an allegation also included in a union grievance.

C. Forced to draw "undue and undesired attention" to her predicament by being forced to file discrimination charges with the Illinois Department of Human Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in order to protect her rights. One of these discrimination charges involved a denial of Ms. Douglas' request to carry "excused days with pay" over into the next year. Ms. Douglas was told that, "under the contract," such days could not be carried over into the next year. Ms. Douglas (a black woman), however, alleged that a white woman employed under the same contract was allowed to carry her excused days with pay over into the next year. See R.1, Ex. I (Douglas Complaint Ex. I).

D. Denied the right to visit her doctor when she had "a clear right to do so."

E. Given an unjustified final warning. This allegation was also set out in a union grievance.

F. Subjected to the ordeal of filing numerous grievances to protect her rights.

G. Threatened with firing if she took off for any reason, including a doctor's appointment.

H. Embarrassed when the defendant, "through its conduct," questioned the veracity of a respected physician.

I. Subjected to "unwarranted and excessive" scrutiny of her work. The same scrutiny was not applied to other customer-service representatives in Ms. Douglas' work unit.

J. Subjected to the "exploitation" of her medical condition as set forth in the complaint.

See R.1, Ex. I at p 14. Ms. Douglas alleged that all of these acts were "done willfully ... with the intention to inflict emotional distress upon [her] and/or were done in reckless disregard of the probability of causing [her] emotional distress, and these acts did in fact result in severe and extreme emotional distress." R.1, Ex. I at p 15.

B. District Court Opinion

The district court granted Illinois Bell's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and denied Ms. Douglas' motion to remand. Before considering the merits of Illinois Bell's 12(b)(6) motion, the district court addressed the question of whether the case was properly removed to federal court. The court concluded that removal was proper since original jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1331 existed. The court agreed with the contention of Illinois Bell that, even though the complaint facially stated a state-law tort claim, Ms. Douglas was actually seeking relief for alleged breaches of the collective bargaining agreement. Employing the analysis enunciated by the Supreme Court in Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 105 S.Ct. 1904, 85 L.Ed.2d 206 (1985), the court concluded that the claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress was preempted by section 301.

Finally, the district court concluded that Ms. Douglas did not have a viable section 301 claim. Section 301 plaintiffs are required to exhaust their administrative remedies under the collective bargaining agreement. In this case, it is undisputed that Ms. Douglas has indeed failed to exhaust those remedies: although she has filed a number of grievances concerning the same conduct that is the basis for this action, she has only pursued those grievances through step two of the agreement's three-step grievance and arbitration process. Ms. Douglas sought to excuse this failure by invoking the futility exception to the exhaustion requirement. See D'Amato v. Wisconsin Gas Co., 760 F.2d 1474, 1488 (7th Cir.1985). Rather than explaining why D'Amato's futility exception might apply in her case, however, Ms. Douglas' Response to the Defendant's Motion to Dismiss merely repeated the language of the exception. Therefore, the district court dismissed Ms. Douglas' claim for failure to exhaust her remedies under the collective bargaining agreement.

II. Discussion

A.

In considering Ms. Douglas' appeal, we must first determine whether her state-law claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress is preempted by section 301 of the LMRA. If the claim is preempted, the claim was properly removed to the district court. See Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, Inc., 486 U.S. 399, 108 S.Ct. 1877, 1881 n. 5, 100 L.Ed.2d 410 (1988) (discussing Avco Corp. v. Aero Lodge No. 735, Int'l Ass'n of Machinists, 390 U.S. 557, 88 S.Ct. 1235, 20 L.Ed.2d 126 (1968), and Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 107 S.Ct. 2425, 96 L.Ed.2d 318 (1987)). In Caterpillar, a unanimous Supreme Court noted that, in cases raising claims under section 301, the Court employs the so-called "complete preemption" doctrine. 482 U.S. at 393, 107 S.Ct. at 2430. Under this approach, the preemptive force of section 301 " 'converts an ordinary state common-law complaint into one stating a federal claim for purposes of the well-pleaded complaint rule.' " Id. (quoting Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58, 65, 107 S.Ct. 1542, 1546, 95 L.Ed.2d 55 (1987)). ² As the Supreme Court explained in Caterpillar, "[o]nce an area of state law has been completely pre-empted, any claim purportedly based on that pre-empted state law is considered, from its inception, a federal claim, and therefore arises under federal law." Id.; see also Franchise Tax Bd. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust for Southern Cal., 463 U.S. 1, 24, 103 S.Ct. 2841, 2854, 77 L.Ed.2d 420 (1983) ("[I]f a federal cause of action completely pre-empts a state cause of action any complaint that comes within the scope of the federal cause of action necessarily 'arises under' federal law."). Thus, state-law claims preempted by section 301 are properly removable to federal court despite a plaintiff's failure to plead explicitly a federal cause of action. See Lingle, 108 S.Ct. at...