Lawsuit against supervisor preempted by LMRA

A supervisor who allegedly retaliated against an employee who reported misconduct by the supervisor’s daughter could not be held liable for tortious interference with contractual relations, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
The supervisor argued that the tortious interference claim was preempted by section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act.
The 1st Circuit agreed, finding that the claim would require judicial construing of the management rights clause of a collective bargaining agreement and thus was preempted.
“[The] claim cannot be resolved without deciding, at a minimum, whether [the supervisor’s] conduct constituted — in the language of the management rights clause — ‘action which the [employer] deems desirable to the conduct of its business,’” Judge Michael Boudin wrote for a unanimous 1st Circuit panel.
The 13-page decision is O’Donnell v. Boggs, et al.
Scott E. Adams of Groveland, Mass., argued for the plaintiff employee. He was opposed by Boston attorney Elizabeth A. Houlding.
Campaign of retaliation alleged
Plaintiff Paula O’Donnell began working at the Boston Globe Employees Credit Union as a teller in 1974. Her employment was governed by a collective bargaining agreement between the credit union and the Office and Professional Employees International Union, Local 6, of which she was a member.
According to the plaintiff, as head teller in 1998 she reported fraud and embezzlement by Gene Farrell, then manager/CEO of the credit union, which “engendered hostility and antagonism from certain Board members.”
Farrell was replaced later that year by defendant Marion Doucette. Within the next year or so, the plaintiff was promoted to bookkeeper and then systems manager, positions in which she had some auditing and oversight functions.
In November 2000, Doucette’s daughter Linda was hired as bookkeeper. When the plaintiff complained to Doucette and the board of directors that Linda was not qualified and was being paid more than the CBA schedule provided, Doucette allegedly began a course of retaliation, including “verbally harass[ing] and intimidat[ing] Mrs. O’Donnell, obstruct[ing] performance of her duties, and prevent[ing] her from fully participating in managerial tasks that would allow her to maintain or advance her position in the Credit Union.”
The behavior, the plaintiff claimed, worsened when she reported serious misconduct by Linda, who was finally terminated in February 2003. The plaintiff also claimed that two board members, defendants William Francis and Donna Boggs, “hostile[ly] and antagonistic[ally] … retaliated by obstructing the performance of her duties” once the plaintiff reported the most serious charges of wrongdoing by Linda to the state banking commission.
The plaintiff eventually stopped working, citing stress-related reasons. After being warned that she had to return to work or face termination, the plaintiff was fired. Her union filed a grievance on her behalf but later withdrew it, stating that the case lacked merit and that the employer had not violated the CBA.
The plaintiff later brought suit against the defendant supervisor and co-defendant board members, Francis, Boggs, Brendan Hall and Mary Lou Meighan.
The case was removed to U.S. District Court, where the tortious interference claims against the supervisor and the board members were dismissed.
Centrality of CBA
The U.S. Supreme Court, Boudin said, declared that state law claims are preempted under section 301 if they “require construing the collective-bargaining agreement” because of the congressional interest in uniform interpretation of collective bargaining agreements.
“No Supreme Court decision has addressed directly preemption of tortious interference claims under section 301,” he said.
The plaintiff’s argument was that the actions of the defendants were sufficiently hostile and disruptive that they made her unable to carry out her own duties, caused her need for medical leave, and made it impossible for her to return to work in accordance with her contractual obligations.
“The question remains whether such a claim would require interpreting the CBA, and the answer is not straightforward,” Boudin said.
“On the one hand, O’Donnell has alleged as facts classic abusive treatment by Doucette motivated purely by personal resentment for the unmasking of misconduct by Doucette’s daughter,” the judge wrote.
“On the other hand, the claim asserted is that the conduct involved improper interference by a supervisor and Board members with an employee’s performance of her duties,” he continued. “It is not easy to see how one could avoid considering the collective bargaining agreement.”
Crucial to the 1st Circuit’s decisionmaking was the broadly worded management rights clause in the CBA, which reserved for the employer “all management rights, powers, authority and functions” and “the sole and exclusive right to manage its business in every respect and to take any other action” the employer may deem desirable to the conduct of its business.
“O’Donnell’s claim cannot be resolved without deciding, at a minimum, whether Doucette’s and the Board members’ conduct constituted — in the language of the management rights clause — ‘action which the Credit Union deems desirable to the conduct of its business,” Boudin concluded.
“This is so even if Doucette (or, less plausibly, the other defendants) had personal motives,” he added. “O’Donnell and the defendants disagree about whether the clause encompasses that conduct; thus there is a ‘real interpretive dispute’ implicating the CBA.”