Hospital Employees' Division of Local 79, Service Employees International Union, Afl-Cio v. Mercy-Memorial Hospital Corporation

862 F.2d 606, 130 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2022, 1988 U.S. App. LEXIS 16351, 1988 WL 128760
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedDecember 6, 1988
Docket88-1041
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 862 F.2d 606 (Hospital Employees' Division of Local 79, Service Employees International Union, Afl-Cio v. Mercy-Memorial Hospital Corporation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Hospital Employees' Division of Local 79, Service Employees International Union, Afl-Cio v. Mercy-Memorial Hospital Corporation, 862 F.2d 606, 130 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2022, 1988 U.S. App. LEXIS 16351, 1988 WL 128760 (6th Cir. 1988).

Opinion

MERRITT, Circuit Judge.

The parties present two issues on appeal. First, whether a cause of action alleging management bribery of a union employee under section 302 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C. § 186 (making it illegal for an “employer to pay ... any money or other thing of value ... to any employee ... in excess of [his] normal compensation for the purpose of causing such employee ... to influence any other employees in the exercise of the right to organize and bargain collectively”), is “preempted” by a section 8 NLRB unfair labor practice proceeding under the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158. Second, whether the Union as plaintiff has sufficiently alleged in its complaint two predicate offenses to support a claim under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1961, et seq.

The District Court dismissed the Union’s section 302 claim under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1). The court concluded that the Union attempted to circumvent the exclusive jurisdiction of the NLRB by bringing this section 302 action alleging management payments to employees to rid the company of the Union. The District Court dismissed the Union’s RICO claim under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), holding that the predicate acts as alleged were committed during the course of a single scheme and did not constitute a “pattern” of racketeering.

The plaintiffs-appellants are a labor union, Hospital Division of Local 79 of the Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, and some of its members. Local 79 is the certified exclusive bargaining representative of the employees of the defendant-appellee Mercy-Memorial Hospital, a privately owned, non-profit hospital in Monroe, Michigan. Defendant Richard Hiltz is the administrator of Mercy.

In September 1985, Susan Dorsey, an employee of Mercy, filed a decertification petition that the Union now alleges was the result of illegal payments made by Mercy in violation of section 302 of LMRA. The Union filed a complaint with the NLRB, alleging that Mercy violated section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA by providing more than “ministerial aid” to a decertification petitioner. The NLRB investigated the complaint. In his summary report, the Regional Director, in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, concluded that the section 8(a)(1) charge should not be brought because Mercy and its attorneys did not improperly interfere with or restrain the employees in the free exercise of their labor rights. The Director believed that the employees had already freely decided to seek a decertification election and that any aid given by Mercy’s lawyers to Dorsey in the form of assistance in the brief writing process would not interfere with the employees’ free exercise of their section 7 rights. The NLRB’s Office of Appeals approved this dismissal at the end of December 1986.

On December 4,1986, the Union filed the complaint in this case. Count I alleges that Mercy violated section 302(a)(3) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 186(a)(3); Counts II and III alleged violations of RICO, 18 U.S.C. § 1961, by virtue of two separate violations of LMRA; Count IY alleged tortious interference with economic relations, a claim which is not a subject of this appeal.

The Union alleges that Mercy “has provided and is providing financial assistance and/or other things of value to Susan Dorsey in excess of her normal compensation in support of her efforts to decertify Local 79.” Plaintiffs’ Complaint, paragraph 48. The Union also alleges that “Mercy-Memorial provided financial assistance and/or other things of value to Nolan Smallwood in support of his efforts to de- *608 certify Local 79.” Plaintiffs’ Complaint, paragraph 34. This last allegation refers to a decertification petition filed with the NLRB in January 1983 by Nolan Small-wood, an employee of Mercy. The Small-wood petition was allegedly filed two years before the Dorsey petition. The District Court agreed with Mercy in characterizing the allegations in the Union’s complaint as claims of unfair labor practices, claims the court held were subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the NLRB.

The fundamental flaw in the District Court’s analysis is its application of the preemption doctrine to the facts of this case. Congress created the NLRB to administer the new regulatory structure established in the National Labor Relations Act. The federal scheme was designed to achieve uniformity in our national labor policy. See San Diego Bldg. Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 242-43, 79 S.Ct. 773, 778-79, 3 L.Ed.2d 775 (1959); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U.S. 724, 748-49, 105 S.Ct. 2380, 2393-94, 85 L.Ed.2d 728 (1985). The need for a centralized administrative agency to enforce the Act was seen as crucial to achieving the desired national uniformity. 359 U.S. at 242, 79 S.Ct. at 778. The Supreme Court fashioned a special preemption doctrine to protect the centralization of administration envisioned by Congress. In Garmon, the Court held that “[w]hen an activity is arguably subject to § 7 or § 8 of the Act [NLRA], the States as well as the federal court, must defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board if the danger of state interference with national policy is to be averted.” Id. 359 U.S. at 245, 79 S.Ct. at 779 (emphasis added). The Garmon and other doctrines are not designed to preempt other independent rights created by Congress, and we find no case authority holding that the doctrine preempts section 302.

Preemption is not a problem in the present case because section 302 is an independent liability-creating statute enacted by Congress to provide additional judicial remedies for certain wrongful conduct. See Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, Inc., — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 1877, 1884, 100 L.Ed.2d 410 (1988) (claims “based on rights arising out of a [federal] statute designed to provide minimum substantive guarantees to individual workers” are normally characterized as independent and not preempted by other federal labor statutes). For more comprehensive descriptions of the four preemption doctrines developed by the federal courts in the labor field, see McCall v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., 844 F.2d 294, 299-301 (6th Cir.1988); Jones v. Truck Drivers Local Union No. 299, 838 F.2d 856

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862 F.2d 606, 130 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2022, 1988 U.S. App. LEXIS 16351, 1988 WL 128760, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hospital-employees-division-of-local-79-service-employees-international-ca6-1988.