Takeaway: While UtiliQuest's legal counsel didn't invent the pre-emption doctrine or pioneer its application in an employment case, it was definitely an outside-the-box strategy that paid off.
An employee's state law claims against his employer were so closely related to claims that could have been brought before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that the state law claims were pre-empted, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held.
The plaintiff was a lead field technician for UtiliQuest. According to his suit, in 2017, UtiliQuest asked him to convince his fellow workers to "release their [union] rights" in exchange for a 10 percent raise. The plaintiff did that and received a 10 percent raise, but his co-workers did not. After he complained that the company hadn't upheld its end of the bargain, he was terminated under what he alleged were false pretenses.
Two years later, the plaintiff sued UtiliQuest, contending his termination was a result of fraud, whistleblower retaliation and was a wrongful termination under California law. The appeals court affirmed the decision of the lower court that the plaintiff's claims were all pre-empted by federal labor law. The general doctrine of federal pre-emption means that certain types of state action (whether a statute by a state legislature or a specific instance of litigation) are pre-empted by existing federal law that actually regulates the specific conduct at issue, or pre-emption can exist where it's clear that Congress...
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