Rose Gudin v. Western Reserve Psychiatric Hospital C/o Ohio Department of Mental Health, 01-LW-2239
| Decision Date | 14 June 2001 |
| Docket Number | 00AP-912,01-LW-2239 |
| Parties | Rose Gudin, Plaintiff-Appellant v. Western Reserve Psychiatric Hospital c/o Ohio Department of Mental Health, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
APPEAL from the Ohio Court of Claims.
Michael Terrence Conway Co., and Michael Terrence Conway, for appellant.
Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, and Randall W. Knutti, for appellee.
Plaintiff-appellant, Rose Gudin, appeals the July 12, 2000 judgment entry of the Ohio Court of Claims dismissing pursuant to Civ.R. 41(B)(2), her claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress ("IIED") against defendant-appellee, Western Reserve Psychiatric Hospital. The trial court granted appellee's motion to dismiss on two alternative grounds: (1) that the Court of Claims lacked jurisdiction over appellant's claim because it fell within the grievance provisions of the collective bargaining agreement governing appellant's employment with appellee and (2) that appellant failed to prove a prima facie case of IIED. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.
On January 15, 1998, appellant, a registered nurse and former employee of appellee, filed her complaint against appellee in the Ohio Court of Claims raising, inter alia, a claim for IIED.[1] Appellant generally alleged that she was forced to seek early retirement from her employment at the Western Reserve Psychiatric Hospital due to harassing and humiliating conduct of her supervisors, in particular, her immediate supervisor Mr. Indra Sharma.
On September 8, 1998, the parties stipulated that appellant's three supervisors at the hospital, including Sharma, were entitled to civil immunity pursuant to R.C. 9.86. In this stipulation, the parties specifically agreed that, at all times relevant to the case, the three supervisors acted within the course and scope of their official employment duties and responsibilities, and acted "without malicious purpose, not in bad faith, and not in a wanton or reckless manner." [Stipulation and agreed order vacating the August 20, 1998 Immunity Hearing, R. 21.]
On July 10, 2000, the issue of liability was tried to the court. At trial, appellant identified the following incidents of mistreatment in support of her IIED claim: (1) that Sharma had scolded her in front of patients; (2) that Sharma wrote appellant up for errors that she did not commit; (3) that Sharma told appellant to "shut up and take it" when she protested his treatment of her, and that he also told her she could "quit if she could not take it anymore"; (4) that Sharma frequently telephoned appellant at home at 8:00 a.m. after her second (3:30 p.m. to midnight) shift, waking appellant up and criticizing her work performance; (5) that appellant was not given an LPN assistant but other RN's were; and (6) that despite the suggestion of the hospital's chief operating officer that appellant transfer to a different shift, no such transfer was ever approved.[2]
Likewise, appellant's friend and former co-worker, Patricia Miller, testified as to the general understaffing problems at the hospital and that appellant did not receive the same LPN assistance that other RNs received during their shift.
At the close of appellant's case, various documents were admitted by the trial court, including a copy of the collective bargaining agreement entered into between appellee and appellant's union, District 1199, The Health Care and Social Service Union, Service Employees International Union AFL-CIO. Article 7 of the collective bargaining agreement contains a multi-step grievance procedure for alleged violations, misinterpretations, or misapplications of the terms of the agreement. The grievance procedure includes final and binding arbitration of such disputes.
Thereafter, appellee moved, pursuant to Civ.R. 41(B)(2), for dismissal of appellant's IIED claim for lack of jurisdiction and lack of proof. By judgment entry filed July 12, 2000, the trial court granted appellee's motion to dismiss. In so doing, the trial court specifically found that it lacked jurisdiction over appellant's IIED claim pursuant to the terms of the collective bargaining agreement and R.C. 4117.10(A). The trial court found that appellant was limited to the remedies provided in the collective bargaining agreement, specifically, the final and binding grievance procedure established therein. Alternatively, the trial court also found that appellant failed to prove a prima facie case of IIED, in particular, that appellant did not prove that appellee's conduct was extreme or outrageous, or that appellee intentionally or recklessly caused her severe emotional distress.
Appellant timely appealed, raising the following three assignments of error:
Through her three assignments of error, appellant challenges the trial court's two independent basis for dismissing her IIED claim against appellee. As such, the assignments of error are interdependent in that failure on either argument requires affirmance of the trial court's decision. As such, we address the relevant issues (i.e., whether the trial court had jurisdiction to entertain appellant's claim and, if so, whether she otherwise proved her claim) without specific reference to her assignments of error.
As to the jurisdictional issue, R.C. 4117.10(A) provides that a collective bargaining agreement between a public employer and the bargaining unit "governs the wages, hours, and terms and conditions of public employment covered by the agreement." That section further provides that "[i]f the agreement provides for a final and binding arbitration of grievances, public employers, employees, and employee organizations are subject solely to that grievance procedure." Therefore, R.C. 4117.10(A) clearly provides that the collective bargaining agreement controls all matters related to the terms and conditions of employment and, further, when the collective bargaining agreement provides for binding arbitration, R.C. 4117.10(A) recognizes that arbitration provides the exclusive remedy for violations of an employee's employment rights. See, generally, Oglesby v. City of Columbus (Feb. 8, 2001), Franklin App. No. 00AP-544, unreported.
Appellant contends that her IIED claim is wholly independent of the collective bargaining agreement and, therefore, it is not subject to the mandatory grievance procedures, including final and binding arbitration, established under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. In particular, appellant argues that her IIED claim does not rely on the existence of the collective bargaining agreement, any rights thereunder, or any alleged breach by appellee of the agreement. According to appellant, the collective bargaining agreement is no more relevant to her IIED claim than it would be if she were suing for assault and battery. In support, appellant relies on the analysis of the United States Supreme Court in Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, Inc. (1988), 486 U.S. 399, addressing an analogous issue under federal law as to when state-law claims are preempted by collective bargaining agreements under Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 ("LMRA"), Section 185(a), Title 29, U.S.Code.
In Lingle, supra, at 407, the United States Supreme Court held that a state-law retaliatory discharge claim was independent of the collective bargaining agreement and, thus, not preempted by federal labor law, when the state-law claim presented purely factual questions that could be resolved without interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement. In so holding, the United States Supreme Court expressly rejected the argument that the LMRA preempts a state-law claim simply because resolution of such a claim would involve the same factual matters implicated by a dispute under the collective bargaining agreement. Id. at 408-410. As noted by the court, "'not every dispute ... tangentially involving a provision of a collective-bargaining agreement, is pre-empted by § 301.'" Id. at 413 fn. 12 (quoting Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck [1985], 471 U.S. 202, 211).
Accordingly, under the Lingle analysis, state-law claims are preempted in two situations: (1) if the state claim is founded on rights created by collective bargaining agreements; or (2) if the rights are created by state law but the application of the law is dependent on an analysis or interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement. Sinea v. Denman Tire Corp. (1999), 135 Ohio App.3d 44, 62; Street v. Gerstenslager Co. (1995), 103 Ohio App.3d 156, 160.
Whether a common law IIED claim is preempted by the collective bargaining agreement under the Lingle analysis is dependant upon a case-by-case analysis of the alleged factual conduct forming the basis for plaintiff's claim. Under Ohio common law, a plaintiff's IIED claim requires plaintiff to show, inter alia, that defendant's conduct was extreme and outrageous. Yeager v. Local Union 20 (1983), 6 Ohio St.3d 369, syllabus. However, an employer is not liable for an employee's emotional distress if the employer does no more than insist upon his legal rights in a permissible way, even though he is...
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