Tooley v. Metro-North Commuter Railroad Co.

• Decision Date: 27 June 2000
• Docket Number: (AC 19429)
• Citation: 58 Conn. App. 485,755 A.2d 270
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: RAYMOND TOOLEY v. METRO-NORTH COMMUTER RAILROAD COMPANY

58 Conn. App. 485

755 A.2d 270

RAYMOND TOOLEY v. METRO-NORTH COMMUTER RAILROAD COMPANY

(AC 19429)

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 25, 2000.

Officially released June 27, 2000.

Foti, Mihalakos and Peters, Js. Lewis H. Chimes, with whom, on the brief, was Jennifer Willcox, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Adam S. Bozek, with whom, on the brief, were Mary C. Dollarhide and Carol S. Barnett, for the appellee (defendant).

Opinion

PETERS, J.

In Shortt v. New Milford Police Dept., 212 Conn. 294, 304, 562 A.2d 7 (1989), the Connecticut Supreme Court held that a trial court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to hear an employee's claim for wages under General Statutes § 31-72¹ until the employee has exhausted his or her administrative remedies by complying with the grievance procedure specified in an applicable collective bargaining agreement. The principal issue in this appeal is whether this jurisdictional barrier is overcome by an employer's partially affirmative response to an employee's informal grievance that does not comply with the procedures specified in a collective bargaining agreement. Despite such conduct by the employer, the trial court in this case concluded that the employee had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies and that the court therefore had no subject matter jurisdiction to proceed. We agree.

I PROCEDURAL AND FACTUAL HISTORY

The plaintiff, Raymond Tooley, filed a two count complaint in which he alleged that the defendant, Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company, by denying him access to overtime work, had violated its duties to pay him wages to which he was entitled. In count one, relying on a collective bargaining agreement between the defendant and the plaintiffs union, the plaintiff alleged that § 31-72 gave him a statutory right to receive the wages that he had lost for lack of overtime work. In count two, the plaintiff alleged that, apart from the collective bargaining agreement, he had a common-law right to recover lost wages as damages for breach of contract by the defendant. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss in which it claimed that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to entertain the plaintiffs complaint. According to the defendant, because the plaintiff had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies under the collective bargaining agreement as required both by the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.² and General Statutes § 31-72,³ federal law preempted the plaintiffs complaint and required its dismissal. The court held an evidentiary hearing on the merits of the defendant's motion.

The trial court's memorandum of decision and the record as a whole reveal the following facts. The plaintiff, a longtime employee of the defendant, held the position of assistant supervisor from 1993 to 1997.⁴ As a member of Local 1573 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (union), the plaintiffs employment was governed by a collective bargaining agreement (agreement). Section 4-M-1 (a) of the agreement provided: "A claim or grievance must be presented by an employee or on his behalf by his union representative to the employee's General Foreman or other designated official and the director-labor relations within thirty (30) days from the occurrence on which the claim is based." (Emphasis added.)

The plaintiff was an hourly employee of the defendant. He claimed that, because the defendant had deprived him of the opportunity to have a fair share of overtime work, he had been denied wages to which he was entitled.

On July 27, 1993, he first voiced his claim by submitting to his union representative a document entitled "Grievance." Although he sent copies of this document to several persons who qualified as "designated officials" under the agreement, he failed to send such a copy to the director-labor relations.⁵ On December 1, 1996, the plaintiff again complained to his union in writing about unfair distribution of access to overtime work. As had been the case with the earlier "Grievance," he sent copies to certain "designated officials" but not to the director-labor relations. Early the following year, a union representative asked the defendant's deputy chief engineer for a meeting to discuss the plaintiffs claim.

On March 1, 1997, the plaintiff wrote to Frank Torre, one of the defendant's assistant chief engineers, to request certain overtime assignments. Again, he failed to send a copy to the director-labor relations. Nevertheless, on March 17, 1997, Torre wrote a memorandum to Thomas Maroselli, senior engineer, and Joseph Cleary, general supervisor, directing them to involve the plaintiff in "catenary supervisor overtime rotation." The plaintiffs position as supervisor ended in June, 1997.⁶

The plaintiff testified that he had received oral assurances from the defendant that his claims for overtime compensation had been granted. Because this testimony was vague and lacked documentary support, the trial court declined to find it credible. It is not disputed, however, that the defendant never informed the plaintiff in writing that his claims had been denied.

Witnesses for both parties agreed that, despite the provisions of the agreement, the defendant had not always insisted on notice to the director-labor relations as a condition for acting on an otherwise meritorious employee complaint. The defendant's witness on this issue was its labor relations representative, who worked for the director. The plaintiff so testified on his own behalf. On this record, the trial court concluded that, because the plaintiff had never given proper notice of his claim for overtime wages to the director-labor relations, as required by the collective bargaining agreement, the plaintiff had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.⁷ The court further concluded that, in the absence of exhaustion of the plaintiffs administrative remedies, he could not prevail on either count of his complaint. Finally, the court concluded that the federal Railway Labor Act preempted the plaintiffs breach of contract claim, which raised issues closely related to those encompassed by the collective bargaining agreement. Accordingly, the court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss.

The plaintiff has appealed from the judgment of dismissal on three grounds. He maintains that the trial court improperly concluded that (1) he had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies and therefore could not prevail on his statutory claim for wages, (2) he had failed to demonstrate that his breach of contract claim was not inextricably intertwined with his rights under the collective bargaining agreement and therefore was preempted by the federal Railway Labor Act and (3) the defendant had responded appropriately to the plaintiffs requests for pretrial discovery. We are not persuaded by any of the plaintiffs claims.

II STANDARD OF REVIEW

In Taft v. Wheelabrator Putnam, Inc., 55 Conn. App. 359, 362, 742 A.2d 366 (1999), cert. granted on other grounds, 252 Conn. 918, 919, 744 A.2d 439, 440 (2000), we recently reviewed the well established rules that govern an appeal from a judgment dismissing a complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. "In ruling upon whether a complaint survives a motion to dismiss, a court must take the facts to be those alleged in the complaint, including those facts necessarily implied from the allegations, construing them in a manner most favorable to the pleader.... A motion to dismiss tests, inter alia, whether, on the face of the record, the court is without jurisdiction.... Because the exhaustion [of administrative remedies] doctrine implicates subject matter jurisdiction, [the court] must decide as a threshold matter whether that doctrine requires dismissal of the [plaintiffs'] claim.... [B]ecause [a] determination regarding a trial court's subject matter jurisdiction is a question of law, our review is plenary.... Lawrence Brunoli, Inc. v. Branford, 247 Conn. 407, 410, 722 A.2d 271 (1999)." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Taft v. Wheelabrator Putnam, Inc., supra, 362; see Pamela B. v. Ment, 244 Conn. 296, 308, 709 A.2d 1089 (1998); Johnson v. Dept. of Public Health, 48 Conn. App. 102, 107-108, 710 A.2d 176 (1998).

We adhere to these principles today. The plaintiff does not challenge the accuracy of the two principal factual findings made by the trial court in support of its dismissal of his complaint. He does not question the fact that, in his various communications with his employer, he never sent a copy of his alleged grievance to the director-labor relations. Similarly, he does not question the fact that, as a union member, he was bound by the terms of the agreement between the union and the defendant. Because the claims on appeal challenge principally the legal conclusions drawn by the trial court, we must undertake a plenary review of the basis for the trial court's judgment of dismissal.⁸

III THE STATUTORY WAGE CLAIM UNDER § 31-72

The plaintiffs appeal from the dismissal of his statutory cause of action under § 31-72⁹ does not dispute the basic proposition that a trial court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to hear his claim until he has exhausted the administrative remedies to which he has access. Shortt v. New Milford Police Dept., supra, 212 Conn. 304. Instead, he maintains that functionally, if not precisely, he did exhaust the administrative remedies afforded to him by the grievance procedures contained in the agreement between his union and the defendant. Specifically, he argues that the trial court improperly concluded that (1) his correspondence with the defendant did not constitute a grievance, (2) the defendant's response to that correspondence did not prevent him from further pursuit of the grievance process and (3) the defendant's conduct throughout did not obstruct his access to the grievance process. Before we address these specific claims, we must put them into context. "[J]...