Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters v. Amerijet Int'l, Inc.

• Decision Date: 18 March 2013
• Docket Number: Case No. 12–60654–CIV.
• Citation: 932 F.Supp.2d 1336
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, Plaintiff, v. AMERIJET INTERNATIONAL, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida

932 F.Supp.2d 1336

INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, Plaintiff,

v.AMERIJET INTERNATIONAL, INC., Defendant.

Case No. 12–60654–CIV.

United States District Court,

S.D. Florida,

Miami Division.

March 18, 2013.

Noah Scott Warman Sugarman & Susskind, P.A. Coral Gables, FL, for Plaintiff.

Joan Marie Canny, Amerijet International, Inc., Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Defendant.

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING PART MOTION TO DISMISS

FEDERICO A. MORENO, District Judge.

THIS CAUSE came before the Court upon Defendant Amerijet International, Inc.'s Motion to Strike Counts I, II, and III and to Dismiss Counts IV, V, and VI of the First Amended Complaint (D.E. No. 31), filed on November 20, 2012. Plaintiff International Brotherhood of Teamsters (“IBT”) submitted its first amended complainton November 6, 2012 seeking confirmation of arbitral awards and an order requiring Amerijet's compliance with those awards. Amerijet in turn filed the present motion to dismiss, requesting the Court to dismiss all six counts of the IBT's amended complaint. For the following reasons, the Court grants Amerijet's motion in part and denies it in part. The Court grants Amerijet's motion to strike Counts I, II, and III as the Court has previously ruled that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction over them. The Court likewise grants Amerijet's motion to dismiss Count IV as the IBT fails to allege a specific violation of the minimum pay arbitral award. Finally, the Court denies Amerijet's motion to dismiss Counts V and VI, finding instead that the IBT has sufficiently stated claims alleging violations of the respective arbitral awards. Accordingly, the IBT shall file an amended complaint no later than April 9, 2013.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff IBT is a labor union certified for purposes of the Railway Labor Act (“RLA”) as the exclusive representative of the pilots and flight engineers of Defendant Amerijet International. Amerijet itself is a cargo and common air carrier subject to the RLA. Following a strike by the IBT in August and September 2009, the parties entered into separate collective bargaining agreements covering pilots and flight engineers respectively. The parties ratified each agreement on September 13, 2009.

On April 12, 2012, the IBT filed a complaint in this Court to compel arbitration and enforce arbitration awards under the RLA. In particular, the IBT alleged six claims arising out of the grievance procedures contained in the bargaining agreements, three of which are pertinent to the present motion. Count IV of the complaint addressed an arbitration award resolving a dispute over minimum pay guarantees for pilots and flight engineers. Count V concerned an April 2011 arbitration award requiring Amerijet to continue its prior procedure of advising flight engineers in advance of a rotation for planned “Zero–G” flights. Finally, Count VI dealt with a November 2011 arbitration award regarding the posting of component legs of flights in Amerijet's schedules.

Amerijet filed an initial motion to dismiss all six counts on May 24, 2012, which this Court granted in its entirety on October 17, 2012. Of relevance here, the Court dismissed Counts IV, V, and VI due to jurisdictional concerns that the IBT could not allege anything more than hypothetical violations of the arbitration awards and was thus seeking to “confirm the awards as a matter of course.” Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters v. Amerijet Int'l, Inc., 904 F.Supp.2d 1278, 1288 (S.D.Fla.2012). The Court therefore permitted the IBT to resubmit its complaint alleging specific, concrete violations of the awards or risk dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Id. at 1288. The IBT then filed an amended complaint on November 6, 2012 reasserting its allegations in Counts IV, V, and VI with more particularity and requesting that the Court order Amerijet to comply with the respective awards.¹

A. Count IV

The IBT's claims in Count IV stem from the bargaining agreements' guarantee to crew members of a minimum of sixty hours of pay per roster duty period. Prior to a roster duty period, Amerijet determines the duty days for each crew member and issues a duty roster. Due to the IBT's strike from August 27 to September 13, 2009, Amerijet did not issue a duty roster for the roster duty period of September 7 to October 4, 2009 despite the fact that some crew members informed Amerijet during the strike that they were available to work. When Amerijet subsequently issued paychecks for the roster duty period, it did not include the sixty-hour minimum pay guarantee. The IBT then challenged this failure, filing grievances that eventually led to arbitration.

On November 5, 2010, the arbitrator found that Amerijet had violated the bargaining agreements and ordered it to make whole those crew members who had indicated their availability to fly during the contested roster duty period. Specifically, he stated that

[a]ll pilots who held bidding privileges during the Contested RDP shall be paid the 60–hour minimum guarantee set forth in CBA Section 5.B.1, subject to the exceptions set forth in CBA Section 5.P [Absence], and less any wages paid them by [Amerijet] with respect to the Contested RDP.

In applying Section 5.P, there shall be no restriction imposed on the means by which a pilot indicated his availability to fly (e.g., an IPD opt-in record, email message, or telephone call supported by billing record confirmation of the call, etc.). Once a pilot has presented evidence of such notice of availability, [Amerijet] will have the burden of proving that a pilot was not available to fly on any particular day claimed. Any failure of [Amerijet] to produce IPD records for the Contested RDP (or other records of pilot availability that [Amerijet] kept in the ordinary course of business) shall warrant an adverse inference as to the content of those records.

Pl.'s Compl. Ex. 6, at 17.

The IBT now alleges that Amerijet has violated this order on a few occasions by refusing to compensate crew members despite the union's indication to the airline that the crew members had been available to fly during the contested roster duty period. To be precise, the IBT states that it sent an email to Amerijet after the issuance of the award informing the airline that it had not paid Pilots Britt Belch and Frank Hartlemark notwithstanding their availability during the contested period. Pl.'s First Am. Compl. Count IV, ¶ 22. Furthermore, the IBT claims that both Belch and Hartlemark had contacted Amerijet via email during the contested period on September 15, 2009 to indicate their availability. Id. Count IV, ¶¶ 18, 20. Last, the IBT sent an email to Amerijet on May 3, 2011 with a list of employees who had been available for work during the contested period. Id. Count IV, ¶ 24. To date, the IBT alleges that Amerijet has refused to pay any of the employees and it thus seeks an order compelling Amerijet to comply with the arbitrator's award.

B. Count V

In Count V, the IBT argues that Amerijet has failed to comply with an arbitral award ordering the airline to provide advance notice to flight engineers of Zero–G flights. Prior to the 2009 strike, Flight Engineers Michael and Luis Roca took part in Zero–G flights intended to simulate zero-gravity situations. After the Rocas participated in the union's strike, Amerijet denied them the opportunity to fly on Zero–G flights in spite of an agreement between the union and the airline prohibiting discrimination against employees for participating in the strike. The IBT then filed grievances and proceeded to arbitration.

The arbitrator reached his decision on April 12, 2011. Despite finding that there was “no quantifiable evidence of discriminatory practice in scheduling or reprisals in the non-assignment of Zero G flights” and thus “no contractual violation and correspondingly no right to the monetary remedy sought,” Pl.'s Compl. Ex. 7, at 11, 13, the arbitrator nevertheless awarded a remedy “to avoid the potential for any misapplied fairness.” Id. at 13. Basing his decision on an effort to “remedy any inference” that Amerijet had discriminated, the arbitrator then directed the airline to continue its pre-strike practice of advising flight engineers in advance of a rotation for planned Zero–G flights. Id. at 8. However, since the issuance of the award, Amerijet has failed to notify the Rocas of opportunities to bid on Zero–G flights. The IBT accordingly seeks an order requiring Amerijet to both issue advance notice of planned Zero–G flights to the Rocas and allow them to bid on those flights.

C. Count VI

Finally, the IBT contends in Count VI that Amerijet has violated an arbitration award requiring the airline to post component legs of flights on their monthly schedules. Section 8(D)(1) of the collective bargaining agreements states that “the rostered or scheduled time of duty periods will include the scheduled time of their component legs, deadheading, aircraft repositioning, reserve, training, ground school, simulator training, stations, block times, trip numbers, rest periods, days off, or other assigned duties.” Pl.'s Compl. Ex. 1, at 27. When Amerijet failed to post rosters with component legs, the IBT filed grievances that proceeded to arbitration.

In his decision issued on November 15, 2011, the arbitrator took into account the plain language of the agreements requiring the presence of “component legs” in Amerijet's schedules. See Pl.'s Compl. Ex. 8, at 12. However, he also noted that the language of the provisions was borrowed directly from a pre-agreement company handbook in effect from 2004 to 2009. See id. Under that handbook, Amerijet did not post component legs on final rosters despite the identical language. See id. Additionally, since component legs are not finalized by the time that the schedules are posted, the arbitrator was concerned with the feasability of requiring Amerijet to post component legs in advance given the difficulty in determining exactly what...