Feygenberg v. McRoskey Mattress Company

Background

Mikhail Feygenberg filed a first amended complaint in San Francisco County Superior Court on June 14, 2019. He asserted state-law claims for age discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, wrongful termination in violation of public policy, and retaliation.

According to the complaint, Feygenberg worked for McRoskey in a union position beginning around 1995 and later became a non-union senior engineer. In 2017, McRoskey told him that the senior-engineer position was being eliminated. He was demoted to a production position, losing seniority, compensation, and benefits, and then rejoined the union. Feygenberg alleged that McRoskey later required him to perform engineering work and train a younger employee, despite telling him that engineering work was outside his production job. He objected that the work was non-union work, was placed on warning, and was terminated on June 30, 2017, shortly before his union probationary period ended. He was 62 at the time.

McRoskey removed the case to federal court on February 4, 2020. It argued that the wrongful-termination and retaliation claims were connected to the collective bargaining agreement between McRoskey and Carpenter’s Union Local 2236. Feygenberg moved to remand the case to state court, and McRoskey moved to dismiss. The court granted McRoskey’s request to take judicial notice of the collective bargaining agreement.

Federal labor-law preemption

The court first considered whether federal law displaced the wrongful-termination and retaliation claims, which would give the federal court jurisdiction to decide the motion to dismiss. Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act governs lawsuits alleging violations of contracts between employers and labor organizations. The court explained that a state-law claim is displaced when the asserted right exists only because of a collective bargaining agreement or when resolving the claim requires interpreting that agreement.

The court held that both claims were displaced. Feygenberg alleged that he was terminated and retaliated against for asserting that he had to follow union policies, rules, and procedures. He did not identify an independent state-law basis for those claims, and he did not dispute that the policies underlying them came from the collective bargaining agreement.

The court also concluded that resolving the claims would require interpreting the agreement. The relevant questions included whether union employees could perform non-union work, whether McRoskey could assign that work to union employees, which employees were probationary, and how the agreement applied to probationary employees.

Feygenberg argued that he was a temporary employee on probation and therefore was not covered by the agreement. The court rejected that argument, reasoning that determining whether he was a temporary worker exempt from the agreement’s grievance and arbitration procedures itself required interpreting the agreement. The court also stated that, even if some disciplinary procedures did not apply, his claims still placed portions of the agreement at issue.

Motion to dismiss

Because the claims were displaced under section 301, the court treated them as section 301 claims. Such claims have a six-month filing deadline. Feygenberg alleged that the retaliation and wrongful termination occurred on June 30, 2017, but he filed his complaint on June 14, 2019. The court therefore found both claims untimely and concluded that amendment would be futile.

The court granted McRoskey’s motion to dismiss the wrongful-termination and retaliation claims with prejudice.

Remand of remaining claims

McRoskey had removed the case based only on the wrongful-termination and retaliation claims and had relied on federal supplemental jurisdiction for the remaining age-discrimination and intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claims. After dismissing the claims that supplied federal jurisdiction, the court considered whether to keep the remaining state-law claims.

The court declined to do so. It noted that the federal court had had limited involvement beyond the motions before it and that considerations of respect for state courts favored allowing a state court to apply state law. The court therefore remanded the remaining claims to San Francisco County Superior Court and directed the clerk to remand the case and close the federal file. The order terminated Docket Numbers 9 and 21.