Ventress III Provides Another Tool For Airlines: Ninth Circuit Says Federal Aviation Act Preempts Pilot’s State Law Employment Claims

On March 28, 2014, the Ninth Circuit strengthened its Federal Aviation Act (the "Act") preemption jurisprudence, holding that state law claims for retaliation and constructive termination are preempted under the Act when they require "the fact finder to intrude upon the federally occupied field of aviation safety[.]" Ventress v. Japan Airlines, No. 12-15066 (9th Cir. 2014). Ventress thus provides another useful tool for airlines defending state-law tort claims that touch upon aviation safety.

BACKGROUND

Pro se plaintiff Martin Ventress, a former flight engineer, brought statutory and common law retaliation and constructive discharge claims against defendant Japan Airlines (JAL) after Japanese psychiatrists deemed him "medically disqualified" to fly. Ventress alleged that JAL retaliated against him for reporting safety concerns, and constructively terminated him for reasons related to his medical and mental fitness.1 Specifically, he alleged that JAL subjected him to unnecessary psychiatric evaluations and prevented him from working after he raised safety concerns regarding a specific pilot's medical fitness to operate an aircraft during a June 2001 flight. One of JAL's defenses to Ventress's claims was that JAL had a legitimate business reason for suspending Ventress's ability to fly: Ventress was medically disqualified under applicable regulations.

The district court held that the Act preempted Ventress's state law claims because ruling on the claims would necessarily require the finder of fact to consider whether or not Ventress was medically fit to carry out his duties as flight engineer. Specifically, the district court held that "[d]etermining whether Ventress was medically qualified to work as a flight engineer would intrude in the area of airmen medical standards, which Congress intended to occupy exclusively." After his motion for reconsideration was denied by the district court, Ventress appealed.

NINTH CIRCUIT'S PREEMPTION ANALYSIS

After repeating the oft-noted principles that the Act does not contain an express preemption clause and that any preemption under the Act must be implied in the form of conflict or field preemption, the opinion focused on field preemption, which "can be inferred either where there is a regulatory framework so pervasive . . . that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it [] or where the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state...