Nelson v. Nat'l Hockey League

• Decision Date: 20 February 2014
• Citation: 20 F.Supp.3d 650
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois
• Parties: Robert D. Nelson, Personal Representative of the Estate of Derek Boogaard, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. National Hockey League, National Hockey League Board of Governors, and Commissioner Gary B. Bettman, Defendants.

20 F.Supp.3d 650

Robert D. Nelson, Personal Representative of the Estate of Derek Boogaard, Deceased, Plaintiff,

v.National Hockey League, National Hockey League Board of Governors, and Commissioner Gary B. Bettman, Defendants.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division.

13 C 4846

Filed 02/20/2014

Motion denied. Thomas A. Demetrio, William T. Gibbs, Corboy Demetrio, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.

Howard Z. Robbins, Joseph Baumgarten, Proskauer Rose, New York, NY, Paul L. Langer, Michael Frederik Derksen, Proskauer Rose LLP, Chicago, IL, for Defendants.

Memorandum Opinion and Order

Gary Scott Feinerman, United States District Judge

The personal representative of Derek Boogaard's estate, who for ease of reference will be called “Boogaard” unless context requires otherwise, brought this suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, against the National Hockey League and its Board of Governors and Commissioner (collectively, “NHL”). Doc. 1–1. The complaint characterizes Boogaard's claims as arising under Illinois law. The NHL removed the case to this court under 28 U.S.C. § 1441, asserting that federal question jurisdiction lies under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 because Boogaard's purported state law claims are completely preempted by § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (“LMRA”), 29 U.S.C. § 185, and thus in fact are federal claims.^* Doc. 1. Boogaard has moved to remand the case to state court, arguing that his claims are not completely preempted by the LMRA and thus are true Illinois law claims. Doc. 23. Because at least some of Boogaard's claims are completely preempted, the motion is denied.

By alleging that the NHL voluntarily undertook duties to Boogaard upon his enrollment in the SABH Program, and by further alleging that the NHL breached those voluntarily undertaken duties by failing to comply with the Program's requirements and by otherwise failing to properly treat Boogaard within the confines of the Program, Counts III and IV walk themselves into complete preemption. The voluntary undertaking theory of tort liability provides that “one who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another is subject to liability for bodily harm caused to the other by one's failure to exercise due care in the performance of the undertaking.” Reynolds v. CB Sports Bar, Inc., 623 F.3d 1143, 1153 (7th Cir.2010) (quoting Wakulich v. Mraz, 203 Ill.2d 223, 271 Ill.Dec. 649, 785 N.E.2d 843, 854 (2003)); see also Homer v. Pabst Brewing Co., 806 F.2d 119, 121 n. 2 (7th Cir.1986) (same). “[A] voluntary undertaking is just that—voluntary—and as such, the scope of the duty that is assumed is limited to the extent of the undertaking.” LM ex rel. KM v. United States, 344 F.3d 695, 701 (7th Cir.2003); see also Figueroa v. Evangelical Covenant Church, 879 F.2d 1427, 1435 (7th Cir.1989) (holding that “any duty [voluntarily] assumed [must] be limited strictly to the scope of the undertaking”). Where, as here, the extent of a defendant's voluntary undertaking is set forth in a collective bargaining agreement, the voluntary undertaking claim by necessity “is inextricably intertwined with consideration of the terms of the labor contract,” Crosby, 725 F.3d at 800 (internal quotation marks omitted), and thus is completely preempted by § 301 of the LMRA. See Banks v. Alexander, 294 Fed.Appx. 221, 224–25 (6th Cir.2008) (holding that a claim against a union official for failing to properly compensate the plaintiffs for making suggestions was completely preempted because the CBA is where the union official allegedly assumed the duty to provide such compensation and because determining whether the official breached that duty required interpreting the CBA); England v. Thermo Prods., Inc., 956 F.Supp. 1446, 1455–56 (N.D.Ind.1996) (holding that the employee's claim that the employer breached its voluntarily undertaken duty to disclose results of a chest x-ray was completely preempted because the CBA was alleged to have imposed the duty to take x-rays).

The point is illustrated, and the conclusion is compelled, by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL–CIO v. Hechler, 481 U.S. 851, 107 S.Ct. 2161, 95 L.Ed.2d 791 (1987). After being injured on the job, the plaintiff, Hechler, brought a tort suit against her union, alleging that by virtue of its collective bargaining agreement with her employer, the union had assumed the “duty of care to provide her with a safe workplace and to monitor her work assignments to ensure that they were commensurate with her skills and experience.” Id. at 859, 107 S.Ct. 2161; see also Id. at 860, 107 S.Ct. 2161. In determining whether Hechler's purported state law tort claim was completely preempted by § 301, and thus whether the suit had been properly removed to federal court, the Supreme Court noted that Hechler's “allegations of negligence assume significance if—and only if—the Union, in fact, had assumed the duty of care that the complaint alleges the Union breached.” Id. at 861, 107 S.Ct. 2161. The Court proceeded to explain:

In order to determine the Union's tort liability, ... a court would have to ascertain, first, whether the collective-bargaining agreement in fact placed an implied duty of care on the Union to ensure that Hechler was provided a safe workplace, and, second, the nature and scope of that duty, that is, whether, and to what extent, the Union's duty extended to the particular responsibilities alleged by respondent in her complaint. Thus, ... it is clear that questions of contract interpretation ... underlie any finding of tort liability.

Id. at 862, 107 S.Ct. 2161 (internal quotation marks omitted) (third ellipses in original). The Court accordingly concluded that the tort claims were completely preempted: “The need for federal uniformity in the interpretation of contract terms therefore mandates that ... [Hechler] is precluded from evading the pre-emptive force of § 301 by casting her claim as a state-law tort action.” Ibid.

The Seventh Circuit reached the same result in Sluder v. United Mine Workers of America, International Union, 892 F.2d 549 (7th Cir.1989). As in Hechler, the plaintiff in Sluder was injured on the job and sued his union, alleging that the union breached its duty, which it had voluntarily undertaken in its collective bargaining agreement with Sluder's employer, to appropriately inspect the mine where Sluder worked. Id. at 551–52. In determining whether Sluder's purported state law tort claims were completely preempted by § 301, the Seventh Circuit noted that “before liability could be established, it would be necessary to establish that the union breached a specific duty it had assumed toward the employees,” and that “[i]n order to define the scope of the duty assumed by the union, it would be necessary to establish the precise responsibility assumed by the union.” Id. at 554. The Seventh Circuit proceeded to observe that “it would not be possible to define, with the precision demanded by Illinois [voluntary undertaking] law, the scope of the union's duty without reference to the collective bargaining agreement that governs the relationship between the company and the union.” Ibid. That inquiry into the scope of the union's duty, the Seventh Circuit found, would not be mechanical or factual; instead, “the question of duty in this case is one of law and is open to varying interpretations under the collective bargaining agreement.” Id. at 554–55. The Seventh Circuit concluded that because Sluder's purported state law tort claims “can be resolved only by defining the precise nature of the duty assumed by [the union], and that duty can be defined only by reference to the collective bargaining agreement,” the claims were completely preempted. Id. at 555–56.

Hechler and Sluder govern this case. The nature and scope of the NHL's voluntarily assumed duties to Boogaard—for example, whether the NHL was obligated to provide Boogaard with a chaperone or to otherwise monitor him during his temporary releases from ARC, whether the NHL was obligated to closely monitor Boogaard for compliance with his SABH regime and to strictly enforce the Stage Two and Three progressive disciplinary regimen, and whether the NHL was obligated to warn Boogaard of the increased risk of fatal overdose following his release from ARC—are governed by the SABH Program agreement. Delineating the scope of the NHL's voluntarily assumed duties would not be a mechanical exercise, as the agreement does not explicitly answer the question whether the NHL had voluntarily undertaken the duties that are alleged by Boogaard to have been breached. See In re Bentz, 253 F.3d at 285 (“the overriding principle is that for preemption to apply, interpretation of the CBA and not simply a reference to it is required”); cf. Hernandez v. Conriv Realty Assocs., 116 F.3d 35, 39–40 (2d Cir.1997) (rejecting complete preemption where the court would have to consult the CBA only to ascertain the plaintiff's rate of pay). It necessarily follows that resolution of Boogaard's SABH–related claims in Counts III and IV are “substantially dependent on analysis of a collective-bargaining agreement,” Caterpillar, 482 U.S. at 394, 107 S.Ct. 2425 (internal quotation marks omitted), and thus are completely preempted by § 301. See Atwater v. Nat'l Football League Players Ass'n, 626 F.3d 1170, 1182 (11th Cir.2010) (holding that players' claims against the NFL regarding league-approved financial advisors were completely preempted because “any duty the NFL owed Plaintiffs [required the court] to consult the CBA to determine the scope of the legal relationship between Plaintiffs and the NFL and their expectations based upon that relationship”); Williams v. Nat'l Football League, 582 F.3d 863, 881 (8th Cir.2009) (holding completely preempted a common law duty to warn claim because it required “examining the parties' legal relationship and expectations as established by the CBA”);...