Gay v. Carlson
| Citation | 60 F.3d 83 |
| Decision Date | 12 July 1995 |
| Docket Number | D,No. 872,872 |
| Parties | 149 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2920, 130 Lab.Cas. P 57,931 Harold M. GAY, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Roy F. CARLSON; Daniel J. Affourtit; Manuel F. LaBee; Joseph F. Gamarano; Stuart H. Archer; William Q. Glathe; Ivan Johnston; Archie J. Lenzi; Richard L. Burke; Thomas F. Brielmann; James E. Rogers; Dennis H. Brooks and Robert H. Ellrich, Defendants-Appellees. ocket 93-9252. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit) |
Michael S. Haber (Israel Weinstock, Belle Harbor, NY, of counsel) for plaintiff-appellant.
Richard Schoolman, Brooklyn, NY (Bradford W. Coupe, William E. Hannum III, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, New York City, Louis P. Malone III, O'Donoghue & O'Donoghue, Washington, DC, of counsel) for defendants-appellees.
Before: NEWMAN, Chief Judge, MINER and CABRANES, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff-appellant Harold Gay, an airline pilot and captain, appeals from a judgment dismissing all the state tort claims that he asserted against defendants-appellees, an airline manager of the airline that employed him and various fellow employees of the airline. The claims revolved around certain reports of misconduct made against Gay by the defendants and an alleged conspiracy to have him fired by his employer.
On the appeal, Gay challenges three separate determinations made by the district judge: the dismissal of his claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress; the dismissal of certain claims against various defendants on statute of limitations grounds; and the dismissal of the remaining state tort claims as pre-empted by the Railway Labor Act.
For the reasons that follow, we reverse on the preemption issue and affirm in all other respects.
On September 25, 1988, Gay was employed by Pan Am as the captain of Pan Am Flight No. 81, a Boeing 747 passenger aircraft enroute from New York to Los Angeles. During the course of the flight, First Officer Dennis Brooks temporarily vacated the co-pilot's seat and Flight Attendant Naomi Kaneda sat in his place. It was reported that Ms. Kaneda put her hands on the control yoke, but it never was clearly established that she actually manipulated the controls of the aircraft. The testimony of certain witnesses before the National Transportation Safety Board did indicate that Ms. Kaneda actually hand-flew the aircraft and that the aircraft deviated from its assigned altitude at that time.
An investigation of the incident was conducted by the Regional Chief Pilot of Pan Am, and he concluded that Gay was guilty of misconduct in the incident. The Chief Pilot found that Gay had allowed an unqualified person to manipulate the controls of the aircraft, in violation of Pan Am's Flight Operations Manual and Federal Aviation Regulations. As a consequence of these findings, Gay was discharged by Pan Am on December 31, 1988. Gay then filed a grievance over his discharge as provided in the collective bargaining agreement entered into between Pan Am and its pilots. The grievance proceeded to arbitration before the System Board of Adjustment, the body designated to conduct arbitrations under the collective bargaining agreement. The Board found that While his grievance was pending, Gay commenced the action giving rise to this appeal against the Pan Am Vice President for Flight Operations and twelve other Pan Am employees. According to the original complaint, these Pan Am employees conspired to fabricate the official reports submitted to the Chief Pilot in order to induce Pan Am to fire Gay. Originally filed in the New York Supreme Court, the complaint pleaded claims of libel, slander, prima facie tort, tortious interference with contractual relations, intentional infliction of emotional distress and conspiracy. The action was removed to federal court, and the district judge denied Gay's motion to remand it to state court. Thereafter, the district court dismissed a number of the claims that Gay pleaded in his original complaint, but Gay appeals only from the dismissal of his claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. According to the district court, the conduct of the defendants in submitting official complaints regarding Gay's conduct and in discussing such conduct with others did not rise to the level necessary to sustain the claim.
Gay was deprived of a full and fair investigation of the charges lodged against him and ordered him reinstated with full back pay and seniority rights. The Board made no finding on whether Gay allowed a flight attendant to fly the aircraft.
Gay then filed his first amended complaint, which the district court dismissed on statute of limitations grounds as to defendants Brooks, Carlson, Ellrich, Gamarano, Johnston, Lenzi and Glathe and, with regard to the defamation claims pleaded, as to defendants Brielmann, Rogers and Labee. On appeal, Gay challenges the district court's rejection of his argument that the pertinent limitations periods should have been tolled. The court's rulings with respect to the first amended complaint included a rejection of defendants' argument that Gay's claims were pre-empted by the Railway Labor Act. In his second amended complaint, Gay named six defendants--Affourtit, Labee, Archer, Burke, Brielmann and Rogers. Against these defendants, he pleaded only claims of libel, slander, prima facie tort and conspiracy. These claims all referred to false allegations of Gay's misconduct made by the defendants to Pan Am and to the dissemination of false information derived from these allegations.
Next, the defendants moved to certify for appeal so much of the court's order relating to the first amended complaint as ruled that Gay's claims were not pre-empted by the Railway Labor Act. In the alternative, the defendants sought reconsideration of that ruling. The district court granted reconsideration, concluded that Gay's state tort claims were pre-empted by the Railway Labor Act and therefore dismissed the second amended complaint for lack of jurisdiction. The district court decided that the adjudication of Gay's claims would require interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement entered into between the pilots' union and Pan Am, a matter confided exclusively to the arbitral mechanism described in the Railway Labor Act.
With respect to the specific state tort claims pleaded by Gay in his second amended complaint, the district court stated:
[T]he rules of conduct and, therefore, the CBA [collective bargaining agreement], must be consulted to determine whether aircraft crew members and other employees enjoy a qualified privilege to report the misconduct of pilots, even if those reports turn out to be false and defamatory. Similarly, lack of excuse or justification is an element of a prima facie tort claim.... Therefore, it is relevant whether the CBA justified defendants' conduct which would otherwise constitute a prima facie tort.
Apparently, the district court concluded that the conspiracy claim failed because the tort claims underlying it were pre-empted by the Railway Labor Act.
The Railway Labor Act requires the establishment of arbitration panels known as "Adjustment Boards" to deal with disputes between employers and employees in the airline industry. 45 U.S.C. Sec. 181; see Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Buell, 480 U.S. 557, 562, 107 S.Ct. 1410, 1414, 94 The collective bargaining agreement entered into by Pan Am and its pilots and relied upon by defendants-appellees here is an agreement of the type contemplated by the Railway Labor Act. Disputes that are spawned by grievances or by interpretations or applications of such agreements, known as "minor disputes," must be resolved exclusively under the arbitration procedures established by the Railway Labor Act. Id. Sec. 151a; see Baylis v. Marriott Corp., 843 F.2d 658, 662-63 (2d Cir.1988) ("Baylis I" ). Accordingly, any state-law claim determined to be a "minor dispute" within the meaning of the Railway Labor Act is pre-empted, and a court is without subject matter jurisdiction to entertain a claim of that sort. See Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. v. Norris, --- U.S. ----, ----, 114 S.Ct. 2239, 2244, 129 L.Ed.2d 203 (1994) ().
L.Ed.2d 563 (1987). These Boards are composed of members selected by the air carriers and by labor organizations representing their employees. 45 U.S.C. Secs. 153, 184-185. Their jurisdiction extends to disputes "growing out of grievances, or out of the interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or working conditions." Id. Sec. 184
Prior to Norris, a number of courts, including our own, took an expansive view of pre-emption under the Railway Labor Act. See, e.g., Baylis v. Marriott Corp., 906 F.2d 874, 877-78 (2d Cir.1990) ("Baylis II" ). In Baylis II, we determined that a state-law claim of tortious interference with contract, pleaded against Marriott, a stranger to a collective bargaining agreement between Pan Am and a union representing its commissary employees, was barred by the Railway Labor Act. Id. at 877. We noted in that case that state law required proof of the breach of the underlying contract as a condition to recovery for tortious inducement of the breach. We then reached the following conclusion:
Since plaintiffs cannot establish that Marriott tortiously induced Pan Am to breach without establishing the meaning of the collective bargaining agreement and its breach by Pan Am, their claims of tortious inducement of breach are preempted by the RLA.
Our expansive view of pre-emption in Baylis II has been called into question by the Supreme Court's decision in Norris. In the latter case, an airline mechanic asserted a state-law claim of wrongful discharge under Hawaii's Whistleblower Protection Act. The mechanic, a...
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