United Mine Workers of America, AFL-CIO v. Peabody Coal Co.

• Decision Date: 14 December 1994
• Docket Number: P,AFL-CI,No. 93-6020,93-6020
• Citation: 38 F.3d 850
• Parties: , 129 Lab.Cas. P 11,212, 9 IER Cases 1793 UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA,laintiff-Appellant, v. PEABODY COAL COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 850

38 F.3d 850

63 USLW 2282, 129 Lab.Cas. P 11,212,

9 IER Cases 1793

UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PEABODY COAL COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 93-6020.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued Aug. 5, 1994.

Decided Oct. 31, 1994.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing

En Banc Denied Dec. 14, 1994.

Christy Hoffman (briefed), Robert H. Stropp, United Mine Workers of America, Washington, DC, George N. Davies (argued), Robert M. Weaver (briefed), Longshore, Nakamura & Quinn, Birmingham, AL, Jerry P. Rhoads (briefed), Rhoads & Rhoads, Madisonville, KY, for United Mine Workers of America AFL-CIO.

Winfrey P. Blackburn, Stites & Harbison, Frankfort, KY, James D. Moyer, Michael D. Risley (argued and briefed), Stites & Harbison, Louisville, KY, for Peabody Coal Co.

Julie H. Hurwitz, Kary L. Moss (briefed), the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, Detroit, MI, for amicus curiae International Union, United Auto., Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Intern. Union (OCAWIU); Auto. Mechanics Local 701, Intern. Ass'n of Machinists, Guild/Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice.

Mona C. Zeiberg (briefed), National Chamber Litigation Center, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae The Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.

Before KENNEDY, RYAN, and NORRIS, Circuit Judges.

RYAN, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff, United Mine Workers of America, appeals the district court's order dismissing on summary judgment the plaintiff's complaint that the defendant, Peabody Coal Company, violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), 29 U.S.C. Secs. 2101 et seq., by closing a mining facility without providing employees with the statutorily mandated 60 days notice. Applying the six-month statute of limitations applicable to unfair labor practice charges under section 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. Sec. 160(b), the district court held that the plaintiff's claim was time-barred.

The sole question on appeal is whether the district court erred in borrowing the section 10(b) limitations period rather than the state statute of limitations identified by the plaintiff. We conclude that the district court did not err in borrowing the limitations period from section 10(b), and affirm the district court's order.

I.

The defendant operated a coal mining facility, the River Queen Mine, near Greenville, Kentucky. On June 3, 1991, the Kentucky Department of Natural Resources ordered the defendant to stop all blasting at the mine. The defendant obeyed the DNR's order and, as a consequence, layoffs began June 5, 1991. By June 28, 1991, the defendant had laid off 82 mine employees.

Almost one year later, on May 15, 1992, the plaintiff filed suit in district court for the Western District of Kentucky, alleging that the defendant had violated WARN by failing to provide laid off employees with 60 days advance notice. The defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, claiming that the plaintiff's complaint was untimely under section 10(b) of the NLRA. In a summary order, the district court agreed that the claims were time-barred. This appeal followed.

II.

We review a district court's award of summary judgment de novo. Pinney Dock & Transp. Co. v. Penn Cent. Corp., 838 F.2d 1445, 1472 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 880, 109 S.Ct. 196, 102 L.Ed.2d 166 (1988). The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require that summary judgment,

be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.

Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c).

III.

A.

The plaintiff argues that the district court should have applied Kentucky's five-year limitations period for "[a]n action upon a liability created by statute," Ky.Rev.Stat. Ann. Sec. 413.120, rather than section 10(b). According to the plaintiff, it is well settled that the court must borrow from state law when Congress, in creating a cause of action, has failed to identify a limitations period. Only when a federal limitations period both provides the closer analogy and directly implicates important federal policy are courts authorized to depart from the state-borrowing rule. WARN, the plaintiff argues, implicates neither of the federal policies--workforce stability and protection of the integrity of collective bargaining--that section 10(b) was designated to promote.

Nor, according to the plaintiff, is the NLRA a proper analogy to WARN. The plaintiff claims that section 10(b) contemplates an administrative process that requires minimal effort by an aggrieved employee, whereas an employee can pursue his rights under WARN only through the judicial process. Based on the need to retain counsel alone, the plaintiff maintains that the court should reject the relatively short section 10(b) limitations period.

Several labor organizations and the NLG/Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, in amicus curiae, ¹ offer the additional argument that a short limitations period is incompatible with class-action litigation, which WARN encourages.

In response, the defendant, and the United States Chamber of Commerce in amicus curiae, argue that section 10(b) both furnishes the most analogous limitations period and far better serves the federal policies implicated by WARN, than does reference to state law.

The defendant claims that federal law provides the better analogy because claims arising under WARN are inherently uniform and uniquely federal, warranting a uniform statute of limitations. According to the defendant, section 10(b) provides the obvious choice for this uniform standard because of similarities between the NLRA and WARN. In contrast, the defendant contends, Kentucky law contains no cause of action analogous to WARN, leaving a catchall limitations period as the only state law choice.

In arguing that section 10(b) far better effectuates the federal policies underlying WARN, the defendant contends that the policies implicated by both WARN and section 10(b) are the expeditious resolution of labor disputes and uniformity throughout federal labor legislation. According to the defendant, WARN's purpose, immediate retraining and adjustment, and the limited nature of the WARN remedy, 60 days pay, both demonstrate that Congress intended these claims to receive speedy handling. As to the need for uniformity, the defendant argues that, because a single decision by an employer often creates WARN liability in several states, a uniform limitations period is needed to prevent forum shopping.

B.

WARN requires large employers to provide 60-days advance notice of plant closings or mass layoffs. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 2102(a). Absent extenuating circumstances, notice must be given "to each representative of the affected employees ... or, if there is no such representative at that time, to each affected employee," as well as to designated state and municipal representatives. Id. WARN further provides that an employer that violates these strictures will be liable to each affected employee for back pay and benefits for up to 60 days, the length of the required notice. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 2104(a)(1). The employer may also be liable to the municipality in which the layoff occurred, at a maximum penalty of $500 per day. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 2104(a)(3). Affected employees or their representative, or the impacted municipality, may enforce these penalties by bringing suit "in any district court of the United States for any district in which the violation is alleged to have occurred, or in which the employer transacts business." 29 U.S.C. Sec. 2104(a)(5).

While neither WARN itself nor its limited legislative history articulate the purpose of the legislation, federal regulations define WARN's purpose as follows:

(a) Purpose of WARN. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act ... provides protection to workers, their families and communities by requiring employers to provide notification 60 calendar days in advance of plant closings and mass layoffs. Advance notice provides workers and their families some transition time to adjust to the prospective loss of employment, to seek and obtain alternative jobs and, if necessary, to enter skill training or retraining that will allow these workers to successfully compete in the job market. WARN also provides for notice to State dislocated worker units so that dislocated worker assistance can be promptly provided.

20 C.F.R. Sec. 639.1.

WARN cross-references the NLRA in several respects. For example, WARN incorporates the NLRA's definition of "exclusive representative." 29 U.S.C. Sec. 2101(a)(4). In addition, WARN clarifies that its notice requirements do not apply when employees lose active employment status, in conformity with the NLRA, because of their participation in an economic strike. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 2103(2). While not specifically referencing the NLRA, WARN accommodates collectively bargained contract provisions by specifying that the WARN notice period "shall run concurrently with any period of notification required by contract." 29 U.S.C. Sec. 2105. WARN regulations provide further insight, observing that "[c]ollective bargaining agreements may be used to clarify or amplify the terms and conditions of WARN, but may not reduce WARN rights." 20 C.F.R. Sec. 639.1(g). Finally, in order to avoid unfair labor practice allegations that an employer failed to bargain, WARN specifies that "[t]he giving of notice pursuant to this chapter, if done in good faith compliance with this chapter, shall not constitute a violation of the National Labor Relations Act or the Railway Labor Act." 29 U.S.C. Sec. 2108. Given this interrelationship, it is not surprising that we previously have relied on NLRA case law in interpreting WARN. See Damron...