Air Transport Association of America v. Blissenbach

Background

Air Transport Association of America, Inc., doing business as Airlines for America (A4A), challenged the application of Minnesota’s Earned Sick and Safe Time Law to its member airlines. A4A claimed that the Minnesota law was preempted—displaced by federal law—under the Airline Deregulation Act and the Railway Labor Act. Judge Jerry W. Blackwell had previously denied the Commissioner’s motion to dismiss A4A’s claims and allowed focused discovery about the law’s effects on airline operations and collective bargaining.

A4A later served a subpoena on the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), a nonparty. Request No. 8 sought documents and communications concerning negotiations between ALPA and Delta Air Lines about sick leave, time off, attendance, reliability, and employee availability. The request covered approximately eight years and included internal bargaining strategies and related discussions. ALPA objected that the request was overly broad, unduly burdensome, and sought confidential information. A4A then moved to compel production.

Court’s Analysis

The court agreed that information about what ALPA and Delta had actually negotiated could be relevant to A4A’s theory that Minnesota law provided benefits that unions had been unable or unwilling to obtain through collective bargaining. But the court found that A4A already had substantial information through Delta, which had participated in the negotiations. The court determined that ALPA’s internal discussions and strategies were less important and less probative than the information available from Delta.

The court also found that ALPA had shown reasonable efforts to keep its internal bargaining information secret. It treated the potential harm from disclosing confidential bargaining strategy as a cognizable burden under the federal discovery rules, even apart from the time and expense of document production. Because ALPA continued to negotiate with airlines, the court concluded that disclosure could impair its ability to negotiate effectively in the future.

The court considered whether an “Attorneys’ Eyes Only” restriction could protect the information, but it was not persuaded that such a restriction would adequately address the risk that the information could later be used in court filings. The court expressly declined to decide whether a separate labor-relations privilege exists.

Ruling

Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright denied A4A’s motion to compel under the court’s order. The court granted ALPA’s request for a protective order under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 37(a)(5)(B) and 26(c)(1)(A), (D), and (G), insofar as ALPA need not disclose information responsive to Request No. 8 and A4A is prohibited from seeking that discovery.