Professional Staff Nurses Ass'n v. Dimensions Health Corp.

• Decision Date: 01 September 1995
• Docket Number: No. 1382,1382
• Citation: 110 Md.App. 270,677 A.2d 87
• Parties: , 152 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2549, 65 USLW 2028 PROFESSIONAL STAFF NURSES ASSOCIATION v. DIMENSIONS HEALTH CORPORATION et al
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 270

110 Md.App. 270

677 A.2d 87, 152 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2549,

65 USLW 2028

PROFESSIONAL STAFF NURSES ASSOCIATION v. DIMENSIONS HEALTH CORPORATION et al.

No. 1382 Sept. Term, 1995.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

June 3, 1996.

Marley S. Weiss, Baltimore (Roger Schlossberg, Curtis Hane and Schlossberg & Associates, Hagerstown, on the brief), for appellant.

Stephen D. Shawe, Baltimore (Gary L. Simpler, Elizabeth Torphy-Donzella, Shawe & Rosenthal, Baltimore, Joseph B. Chazen and Meyers, Billingsly, Rosenbaum & Rodbell, P.A., Riverdale, on the brief), for appellees.

Argued before WENNER, MURPHY and EYLER, JJ.

EYLER, Judge.

The gradual deterioration of the collective bargaining process between labor and management resulted in labor giving notice to management of labor's intent to strike, and management, in anticipation thereof, seeking replacement workers. The Circuit Court for Prince George's County considered labor's complaint, in which labor alleged that the firm offering replacement workers to management had maliciously and wrongfully interfered with the economic relationship between labor and management, based on § 4-403 of the Labor and Employment Article (strikebreaker statute), and dismissed it under the doctrine of federal preemption and for failing to state a cause of action. Aggrieved with that result, labor exercised its prerogative and noted an appeal to this Court. For reasons discussed below, we shall affirm the judgment of the circuit court.

The parties to this dispute are members of the health-care industry. Dimensions Health Corporation, appellee ("Dimensions"), owns and operates health-care facilities in Maryland. Professional Staff Nurses Association, appellant ("Professional"), is an unincorporated labor union that represents nursing professionals throughout Maryland, including approximately seven hundred registered nurses employed by Dimensions. The last party to this triangle is Favorite Nurses, Inc., appellee ("Favorite"), a company that provides replacement registered nurses to employers whose employees are on strike. ¹

Professional presents three issues for our consideration. Slightly rephrased, they are as follows:

I. Did the court below err in permitting DHC to intervene as a party defendant when no claim was asserted against it, and assuming intervention in some form were appropriate, did the lower court err in treating DHC's answer as though it constituted an amendment to plaintiff's complaint, adding a non-existent and meritless tort claim against DHC, and then holding the non-asserted tort claim both preempted and dismissed for failure to state the elements of the tort?

II. Did the lower court improperly consider and rely on matters outside the pleadings in ruling on a motion to dismiss, and did the complaint in any event plead the elements of the claim that Favorite Nurses tortiously interfered with economic and business relations between PSNA and DHC?

III. Is the tortious interference claim against FN preempted by either Garmon or Machinists NLRA preemption where FN is not in an employer-employee or employer-union relationship with either PSNA or DHC, and where the narrow regulatory range of the tort and the strikebreaker act as to FN place the claim squarely within preemption exceptions for matters deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility and for matters of only peripheral concern to the federal labor law system?

I. Facts ²

Dimensions owns and operates four health-care facilities in Prince George's County: Prince George's Hospital Center, Laurel Regional Medical Center, Gladys Spellman Nursing Center, and the Bowie Health Center. Professional, an unincorporated labor union, represents approximately seven hundred registered nurses who work at Dimensions's Prince George's County facilities. For eight years, beginning in 1986, Dimensions and Professional successfully negotiated collective bargaining agreements relating to the wages, hours, and other terms and conditions affecting Professional's union members employed by Dimensions. Beginning in the summer of 1994, and continuing into early winter of that same year, the parties engaged in collective bargaining negotiations. The efforts were to no avail, and Professional served Dimensions with a ten day notice ³ that its members would go on strike beginning on December 14, 1994. ⁴ Professional apparently called off the strike, for on December 24, 1994, the parties attended a mediation session conducted by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Over the next several months, ending in March of 1995, the parties pursued a course of negotiation. On April 4, 1995, Professional served Dimensions with its second ten day strike notice. Two days before the strike date, Professional filed suit in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County against Favorite and other firms providing similar services.

II. Proceedings

On April 13, 1995, one day after Professional filed its complaint, Dimensions filed, pursuant to Maryland Rule 2-214, a motion for permissive intervention supported by an affidavit of Steven Smith, its Senior Vice President and General Counsel. ⁵ On the same day, Dimensions and Favorite filed a motion to dismiss Professional's complaint. Due to the time sensitive nature of the matter, the circuit court scheduled a hearing for April 14, 1995. After hearing argument on the pending motions, the circuit court ruled, in part, that Professional would have until May 1, 1995 to respond to the motion to intervene filed by Dimensions and the motion to dismiss filed by Dimensions and Favorite.

Instead of entertaining arguments on the motions on May 5, 1995, as it had previously announced, the circuit court, with consent of the parties' counsel, took the case out of the assignment. In a memorandum opinion and scheduling order dated May 8, 1995, the circuit court set forth the timetable for motions and other matters. For our purposes, the circuit court stated:

When analyzing and ruling on the pending Motions to Dismiss, the Court will confine itself to the pleadings and the supporting documents filed as of this date. For the reason that discovery has not been obtained and will be deferred until after a ruling on the Motion to Dismiss, the Court will not convert the Motion to Dismiss to a Motion for Summary Judgment at the hearing on May 30, 1995 as the rule normally permits this Court to do in its discretion. Furthermore, until discovery has been completed, this Court will not rule on any further dispositive motions which may be filed in the future.

At the conclusion of the May 30th hearing, the circuit court granted Dimensions' motion for permissive intervention. At that time, the circuit court took under advisement the motion to dismiss filed by Dimensions and Favorite. Approximately one month later, on July 25, 1995, the circuit court issued its opinion and order, in which it dismissed Professional's complaint under alternative but overlapping theories: federal preemption and failure to state a claim. On August 2, 1995, Professional timely noted an appeal to this Court.

III. Discussion

Section 4-403 of the Labor and Employment Article is the crux of this dispute.

Strikebreakers.

(a) Recruitment restricted.--A person who is not directly interested in a strike may not provide, obtain, recruit, or refer, for employment in place of a striker, an individual who customarily and repeatedly offers to be employed in place of strikers.

(b) Employment as strikebreaker restricted.--An individual who customarily and repeatedly offers to be employed in place of strikers may not take or offer to take the position of a striker.

(c) Penalty.--A person who violates any provision of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction is subject to a fine not exceeding $1,000 or imprisonment not exceeding 3 years or both.

The General Assembly enacted the predecessor to § 4-403, Md.Code (1957, 1964 Repl.Vol.), Art. 100 § 51A, in 1961. Since that time, neither our Court nor the Court of Appeals has been called upon to examine the section. We now proceed to do so.

A.

Professional contends that the circuit court erred when it allowed Dimensions to intervene in the action between Professional and Favorite and that the circuit court's consideration of Dimensions' pleadings resulted in the circuit court addressing claims not made by Professional.

The court in its opinion below constructs the straw man of a hypothetical tort claim against DHC for interference with its own relationship with PSNA, and then, unsurprisingly, concludes such a theory is unworkable. Of course it is; it was never pled by plaintiff here, and the blatant inappropriateness of the argument demonstrates the inappropriateness of permitting intervention. Even worse, the court's entire consideration of the preemption issues was framed as though[ ] the tortious interference claim were asserted against DHC, an employer in an NLRA-established relationship with PSNA. This, of course, is precisely the opposite of the theory of the Complaint.

Maryland Rule 2-214(b) governs permissive intervention; subsection (c) sets forth the applicable procedure.

(b) Permissive.--

(1) Generally.--Upon timely motion a person may be permitted to intervene in an action when the person's claim or defense has a question of law or fact in common with the action.

...

(3) Considerations.--In exercising its discretion the court shall consider whether the intervention will unduly delay or prejudice the adjudication of the rights of the original parties.

(c) Procedure.--A person desiring to intervene shall file and serve a motion to intervene. The motion shall state the grounds therefor and shall be accompanied by a copy of the proposed pleading setting forth the claim or defense for which intervention is sought. An order granting intervention shall designate the intervenor as a plaintiff or a defendant. Thereupon, the intervenor shall promptly file the pleading and...