Lorenz v. CSX Transp., Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 January 1993
• Docket Number: No. 91-1876,91-1876
• Citation: 980 F.2d 263
• Parties: 141 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2921, 143 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2635, 61 USLW 2356, 123 Lab.Cas. P 10,461, 125 Lab.Cas. P 10,773, 8 IER Cases 1470, 8 IER Cases 177 Joseph T. LORENZ, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CSX TRANSPORTATION, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 263

980 F.2d 263

141 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2921, 143 L.R.R.M. (BNA)

2635, 61 USLW 2356,

123 Lab.Cas. P 10,461, 125 Lab.Cas. P 10,773,

8 IER Cases 1470, 8 IER Cases 177

Joseph T. LORENZ, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CSX TRANSPORTATION, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 91-1876.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued June 1, 1992.

Decided Nov. 24, 1992.

As Amended Jan. 5, 1993.

David Joseph Norman, Mason, Ketterman & Morgan, P.A., Baltimore, Md., argued (David F. Albright, Jr., Horn & Bennett, P.A., Baltimore, Md., on brief), for plaintiff-appellant.

Stephen Bennett Caplis, Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, Baltimore, Md., argued (H. Russell Smouse, Nancy S. Allen, Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, Baltimore, Md., James D. Tomola, Sr. Counsel, CSX Transp., Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., on brief), for defendant-appellee.

Before HAMILTON, Circuit Judge, SPROUSE, Senior Circuit Judge, and TILLEY, United States District Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina, sitting by designation.

OPINION

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge:

This case arises out of disciplinary action taken against Joseph Lorenz by his employer, CSX Transportation, Inc. (CSX). Lorenz contested CSX's action through the mandatory grievance procedures of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 45 U.S.C. §§ 151-88. As a result of CSX's accusations against him, and while his grievance was pending before a public law board, Lorenz filed a defamation action in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. CSX removed the action to federal district court based on diversity and federal question jurisdiction and then moved for dismissal under Fed.R.Civ.Proc. 12(b)(1) on the ground that Lorenz's claim was preempted by the RLA. The district court granted the motion. Because we find that Lorenz's state law claim for defamation is preempted by the RLA, we affirm the decision of the district court.

I

Lorenz was a locomotive crane operator for CSX. On July 9, 1990, Lorenz's supervisor gave him instructions to pick up a boxcar load of tieplates and deliver them to a CSX project site at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland. Lorenz claims that because access to the tieplates was blocked by other boxcars, and because he had to wait while other crews cleared them, he resumed his previous job assignment of clearing materials from boxcars in the Curtis Bay rail yard and adjoining spur lines. Lorenz went to the adjoining Seawall branch spur line where he unloaded switch ties and switch points from boxcars sitting there and placed them on property belonging to the Delta Chemical Co. On July 10, 1990, employees of the Delta Chemical Co. informed CSX that materials were removed from a CSX railway car on the Seawall branch spur and placed on its property. A CSX investigator went to the scene and found the materials in an area covered with tall weeds and grass. CSX alleged that Lorenz and a coworker were neither authorized nor was it part of their job assignment to remove materials from these boxcars, and that they had removed the materials with the intent of allowing another party to steal them.

CSX is bound by a collective bargaining agreement, The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co. and Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employee's Rules and Working Conditions Agreement (BMWE). Under Rule 48(a) of the BMWE, an employee must be notified in writing of the specific charges against him and must have a hearing before disciplinary action can be taken. Such a hearing is required to be held within twenty days of the infraction giving rise to the disciplinary action, and notice of the hearing must be given not later than five days before the hearing. (BMWE Agreement, Joint Appendix (J.A.) 68-75). Pending this hearing, CSX suspended Lorenz from service, as permitted by Rule 48 of the BMWE, on charges of insubordination and unauthorized removal and/or theft of company property. CSX sent Lorenz the required notice, dated July 13, 1990, informing him of the charges and that a company investigatory hearing would be held on Friday, July 20, 1990. To accommodate a request from Lorenz's union representative for more time to arrange for witnesses, the hearing was postponed until Monday, July 23, 1990. CSX, therefore, issued a new notice to Lorenz and all company and union witnesses, indicating the rescheduled hearing date. Lorenz stated that some unidentified member of CSX's management staff posted a copy of this new notice on the office bulletin board. According to Lorenz, someone from CSX stated that the intention in posting the notice was to aid in the process of notifying witnesses of the rescheduled hearing date with little time to do so. The letter stated, in part:

You are charged with insubordination and unauthorized removal and/or theft of company property when you failed to follow instructions....

(J.A. 31). At the July 23 hearing, based on the witnesses' testimony, Lorenz was found guilty as charged and his services were terminated on August 10, 1990. Lorenz's subsequent appeal of this decision to CSX's Director of Labor Relations was denied. After exhausting these internal grievance procedures, Lorenz appealed to a public law board designated by Lorenz's union and CSX to arbitrate such disputes in accordance with the provisions of the RLA, 45 U.S.C. § 153 (First)(i). The public law board ultimately determined that Lorenz was appropriately subject to discipline, but it reduced that discipline to a forty-five day suspension without pay. While this dispute awaited arbitration, Lorenz filed a state common law defamation action in the state court on May 6, 1991 based on the posting of the July 23 letter and the accusations therein.

CSX removed the case, based on federal question and diversity, to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. Lorenz did not oppose removal. Thereafter, CSX filed a motion to dismiss the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the ground that the RLA's mandatory arbitration procedures provided the sole and exclusive remedy for resolving "minor disputes" such as this one, and that the federal preemption doctrine precludes the jurisdiction of any court, whether federal or state. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1). This appeal followed.

The district court held a hearing on the matter and ruled that the dispute was preempted by the compulsory arbitration requirement of the RLA and that it was, therefore, without jurisdiction to hear Lorenz's claim.

II

The RLA was created, in part, "to provide for the prompt and orderly settlement of all disputes growing out of grievances, or out of interpretation or application of agreements covering rates of pay, rules, or working conditions." 45 U.S.C. § 151a(5). Consequently, the RLA has a preemptive effect on some tort claims that significantly restricts an employee's right to resort to state law. Peterson v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n Int'l., 759 F.2d 1161 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 946, 106 S.Ct. 312, 88 L.Ed.2d 289 (1985). The preemptive effect of the RLA is usually cast in terms of whether or not the dispute is a "minor" or "major" dispute. Both minor and major disputes are subject to the mandatory grievance resolution mechanisms of the RLA. A minor dispute arises out of the interpretation or application of the collective bargaining agreement. Major disputes are those involving efforts to negotiate or alter the collective bargaining agreement. See, e.g., Conrail Corp. v. Ry. Labor Executives Ass'n., 491 U.S. 299, 109 S.Ct. 2477, 105 L.Ed.2d 250 (1989); Elgin, J. & E.R. Co. v. Burley, 325 U.S. 711, 723, 65 S.Ct. 1282, 1289, 89 L.Ed.1886 adhered to, 327 U.S. 661, 66 S.Ct. 721, 90 L.Ed. 928 (1946). The parties agree that this case does not involve a major dispute. Generally disputes arising from a discharge, such as this one, are minor disputes and are preempted. Sarno, Railway Labor Act Pre-emption, 104 A.L.R.Fed. 548 § 3 (1991). Such minor disputes must be handled through the contractual grievance procedures, with unresolved differences submitted to the contractually created public law boards. 45 U.S.C. § 153 (First)(i); Andrews v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co., 406 U.S. 320, 325, 92 S.Ct. 1562, 1565, 32 L.Ed.2d 95 (1972); see also In Union Pac. R.R. Co. v. Sheehan, 439 U.S. 89, 94, 99 S.Ct. 399, 402, 58 L.Ed.2d 354 (1978), reh'g denied, 439 U.S. 1135, 99 S.Ct. 1060, 59 L.Ed.2d 98 (1979) (noting that "Congress considered it essential to keep the so-called minor disputes within the Adjustment Board and out of the courts."). The question to be decided, therefore, is whether Lorenz's defamation claim constitutes a minor dispute.

The starting point for considering the scope of the preemptive effect of the RLA is the Supreme Court's decision in Andrews. In Andrews, the Court reconsidered its earlier holding in the case of Moore v. Illinois Central R.R. Co., 312 U.S. 630 61 S.Ct. 754, 85 L.Ed. 1089 (1941), in which it ruled that the RLA's dispute resolution mechanism was voluntary. The Court concluded that it had erroneously decided Moore, noting that the view that "the grievance and arbitration procedures provided for minor disputes in the Railway Labor Act are optional, to be availed of as the employee or carrier chooses, was never good history and is no longer good law." Andrews 406 U.S. at 322, 92 S.Ct. at 1564. The Court, in Andrews, found that the employee's right not to be discharged arose from the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. Id. at 323-24, 92 S.Ct. at 1564-65. The claim in Andrews was for breach of contract and concerned the parties' differing interpretations of the obligation under the collective bargaining agreement for the reinstatement of the employee following an automobile accident. Id. at 324, 92 S.Ct. at 1565. Since the dispute arose out of differences regarding the application or interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement, the employee's exclusive remedy was the RLA's grievance procedure, which barred his state law cause of action. Id. at 324-26, 92 S.Ct. at...