Gore v. TWA

• Decision Date: 16 December 1999
• Docket Number: No. 99-2363,99-2363
• Citation: 210 F.3d 944
• Parties: (8th Cir. 2000) Andrew L. Gore,Appellant, v. Trans World Airlines, a Delawarecorporation; Thomas J. Clossick;James Nass; Harold Smallwood;Kenneth Gabriel; Rollin O. Parker,Appellees. Submitted:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 944

210 F.3d 944 (8th Cir. 2000)

Andrew L. Gore,Appellant, v. Trans World Airlines, a Delawarecorporation; Thomas J. Clossick;James Nass; Harold Smallwood;Kenneth Gabriel; Rollin O. Parker,Appellees.

No. 99-2363

United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

Submitted: December 16, 1999

Filed: April 26, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Before BEAM, HEANEY, and HANSEN, Circuit Judges.

HANSEN, Circuit Judge.

Andrew Gore appeals the district court's ¹ dismissal of his case due to preemption under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 45 U.S.C. 151-163, 181-188 (1994 & Supp. II 1996). We affirm.

I.

Andrew Gore is employed as a mechanic by Trans World Airlines (TWA) at its Maintenance and Engineering Center, also known as the Overhaul Base, in Kansas City, Missouri. He is a member of the International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO and the terms of his employment are subject to a collective bargaining agreement.

On the evening of December 15, 1996, Gore was working at the Overhaul Base. While he and coworker Howard Cowher were on a break, another coworker, Harold Smallwood, allegedly overheard Gore telling Cowher that he planned to kill himself as well as other TWA employees. Smallwood reported the comments to union steward Roy Gardner, who in turn reported the comments by telephone to Thomas Clossick, a supervisor in the Facilities Maintenance Department at the Overhaul Base. Clossick telephoned the report to James Nass, who is the Manager of the Facilities Maintenance Department and Clossick's immediate supervisor. Nass consulted with Paul Davis, who is TWA's Employee Relations Manager. Nass then instructed Clossick to get written statements from the coworkers as to Gore's statements and if necessary to call the police.

After reading the coworkers' statements,² Clossick called the Kansas City International Airport Police. Gore asserted that Smallwood had not heard the entire conversation and had taken Gore's statements out of context. The police handcuffed Gore and patted him down searching for weapons. They requested permission to search his locker, tool chest, tool box, lunch box, and vehicle. Gore initially denied consent, but after consulting with union stewards, Gore consented to the search of his vehicle and locker. Supervisor Clossick required Gore to turn in his TWA identification badge and parking pass, and he suspended Gore pending a termination hearing.

The following morning, Rollin Parker, a supervisor in the Facilities Maintenance Department at that time, informed his crew members of the occurrence, warned them not to allow Gore onto the premises, and instructed them to call the guard house if Gore attempted to return to the Overhaul Base. Nass held a supervisors' meeting with Parker and Kenneth Gabriel and told them to warn their employees that Gore was a dangerous man. Gore's identification badge photograph was enlarged and posted in various places at the Overhaul Base to enable TWA employees to recognize Gore.

The collective bargaining agreement includes a management rights clause, pursuant to which TWA issued Rules of Conduct and Personnel Regulations, providing in pertinent part that violence, threatening other employees, and firearms are prohibited from the premises and that the company reserves the right to make inspections of employee lockers, desks, lunch boxes, vehicles, and other items of personal property located on the premises when there is reason to believe they may contain prohibited items. Also, the collective bargaining agreement imposes contractual obligations on TWA to protect the safety of its employees. The agreement requires TWA to maintain safe working conditions and to promptly handle complaints involving the safety of working conditions. (See J.A. at 179.) The defendants claim to have acted in accordance with the duties imposed by the collective bargaining agreement.

Gore disputed the truth of the statements made by supervisors advising employees that Gore was dangerous or posed a threat to TWA employees. While on suspension, Gore submitted to a psychological examination which demonstrated that he posed no threat to TWA personnel. Thereafter, the TWA hearing board decided that Gore did not pose a threat and reinstated him with back pay.

Gore filed a complaint in federal court against TWA, Clossick, Nass, Smallwood, and Parker, asserting a 42 U.S.C. 1983 violation along with several state-law claims. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of TWA and Clossick on the 1983 claim, concluding that they were not state actors and did not act under color of state law. (J.A. at 254.) Having thus disposed of the only federal law claim, the district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims. This court affirmed the dismissal for lack of a state actor. See Gore v. Trans World Airlines, 163 F.3d 603 (8th Cir. 1998) (unpublished); (J.A. at 255).

Gore then filed an amended complaint in state court, asserting claims of false arrest, negligence, libel and slander, and invasion of privacy for publicly placing him in a false light and public disclosure of private facts. The defendants removed the case to federal district court. Gore filed a motion to remand, which the district court denied upon concluding that "the evaluation of whether the Plaintiff's claims have merit is inextricably intertwined with consideration of terms in the [collective bargaining agreement]." (J.A. at 284.) Noting that the resolution of Gore's claims will require an analysis of both his rights and the defendants' duties under the collective bargaining agreement, the district court determined that the claims are minor disputes preempted by the RLA.

The district court then granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, citing its previous determination that the claims are preempted by the RLA and refusing to reconsider the preemption issue. Gore now appeals the district court's denial of his motion for remand and the dismissal of his complaint on grounds of preemption.

II.

We review the district court's denial of a motion to remand and its dismissal of the complaint on grounds of preemption under a de novo standard. See Schuver v. MidAmerican Energy Co., 154 F.3d 795, 798 (8th Cir. 1998); Taggart v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 40 F.3d 269, 272 (8th Cir. 1994).

A defendant may remove a state court claim to federal court only if the claim originally could have been filed in federal court, and the well-pleaded complaint rule provides that a federal question must be presented on the face of the properly pleaded complaint to invoke federal court jurisdiction. Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 392 (1987). A defendant is not permitted to inject a federal question into an otherwise state-law claim and thereby transform the action into one arising under federal law. See id. "Congress has long since decided that federal defenses do not provide a basis for removal." Id. at 399. "Thus, a case may not be removed to federal court on the basis of a federal defense, even if the defense is anticipated in the plaintiff's complaint, and even if both parties admit that the defense is the only question truly at issue in the case." Rivet v. Regions Bank of Louisiana, 522 U.S. 470, 475 (1998) (internal quotations and alterations omitted). To permit removal on the basis of a federal defense would deprive the plaintiff of the right to be the master of his cause of action. See Caterpillar Inc., 482 U.S. at 399.

An independent corollary to the well-pleaded complaint rule is known as the complete preemption doctrine. Id. at 393. The complete preemption doctrine converts an ordinary state-law claim into a federal claim where "the pre-emptive force of a statute is so 'extraordinary' that it '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 (1987)). Whether federal law preempts a state-law cause of action is a question of congressional intent. Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. v. Norris, 512 U.S. 246, 252 (1994).

"Congress' purpose in passing the RLA was to promote stability in labor-management relations by providing a comprehensive framework for resolving labor disputes." Id. Under the RLA, parties are obligated to arbitrate minor disputes, which are controversies arising out of the application or interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement, and therefore, complete preemption applies to disputes involving duties and rights created or defined by the collective bargaining agreement. See id. at 256-59. Claims of preemption under the RLA are governed by a standard that is "virtually identical" to that employed under 301 of the Labor and Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. 185; under this standard, "a state-law cause of action is not pre-empted by the RLA if it involves rights and obligations that exist independent of the [collective bargaining agreement]." Norris, 512 U.S. at 260.

"[W]here the resolution of a state law claim depends on an interpretation of the [collective bargaining agreement], the claim is pre-empted." Id. at 261 (discussing favorably the analysis set forth in Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, Inc, 486 U.S. 399 (1988)). However, "'purely factual questions' about an employee's conduct or an employer's conduct and motives do not 'requir[e] a court to interpret any term of a collective-bargaining agreement.'" Id. (quoting Lingle, 486 U.S. at 407) (alteration in original). Also, a mere need to reference or consult a collective bargaining agreement during the course of state court litigation does not require preemption. See id. at 261 n.8. Our preemption analysis focuses on a determination of whether the state-law claim "confers nonnegotiable...