New Jersey Appellate Division Declines To Find Section 301 Pre-Emption Of Discrimination And Retaliation Claims

Seyfarth Synopsis: The New Jersey Appellate Division reinstated plaintiff's state law discrimination and retaliation claims, finding the claims were not pre-empted by Section 301 of the LMRA.

In a published opinion issued on May 9, 2017, the three-judge panel of the New Jersey Appellate Division held that a union member's Law Against Discrimination ("LAD") and Workers' Compensation Law ("WCL") claims were not preempted by Section 301 of the Labor Management and Relations Act ("LMRA"), despite the presence of an applicable collective bargaining agreement ("CBA") and potential CBA-based defenses available to the employer.

The plaintiff was employed as a commercial truck driver, and was a member of Teamsters Local Union No. 813. Following a workplace injury, he was cleared for light duty work, so long as it did not involve commercial driving. The plaintiff then filed a workers' compensation claim with the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Division of Workers' Compensation.

Three months after filing the workers' compensation claim, the company asked plaintiff to leave work, and by letter to the union, indicated that plaintiff would need to be recertified for duty as required by Department of Transportation ("DOT") regulations before returning to work. The company scheduled an independent medical examination, but the plaintiff declined to undergo the exam, and therefore, was not returned to work.

The union filed a grievance challenging the company's failure to reinstate the plaintiff. The grievance proceeded to arbitration, and was denied by the arbitrator who concluded that reinstatement would require examination and recertification pursuant to the DOT regulations.

The plaintiff then sued in New Jersey Superior Court alleging unlawful discrimination under the LAD and retaliation under the WCL. Concluding that the claims were pre-empted, the trial judge dismissed the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The plaintiff appealed.

The question before the Appellate Division was whether the trial judge correctly concluded that the LAD and WCL claims were pre-empted under Section 301 of the LMRA, which pre-empts claims that require an interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement.

The court first looked to the elements of the plaintiff's claim that the company retaliated against him based on his workers' compensation claim, which required showing that (i) he made, or attempted to make, a claim for workers'...