Hays v. Spirit Airlines, Inc.

CARI HAYS, Plaintiff, v. SPIRIT AIRLINES, INC., a foreign corporation, GREGORY MANNY,in his corporate and individual capacities, BRIAN DAVIS,in his corporate and individual capacities, MICHAEL ANDERSON,in his corporate and individual capacities, TONY LEFEVBRE,in his corporate and individual capacities, and KIM ARCHAMBEAU,in her corporate and individual capacities, Defendants.

No. 13-cv-11478

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION

Dated: January 22, 2014

Hon. Gerald E. Rosen

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT SPIRIT AIRLINES'

FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6) MOTION TO DISMISS AND DISMISSING

PLAINTIFF'S COMPLAINT, IN ITS ENTIRETY

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Cari Hays commenced this wrongful discharge/retaliation action against her former employer, Spirit Airlines, and several Spirit Airlines supervisory employees¹ in Wayne County Circuit Court. In her two-count Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that in terminating her employment, Defendants violated Michigan public policy and the Michigan Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. Spirit Airlines timely removed the action to this court on diversity grounds and, and thereafter moved to dismiss Plaintiff's Complaintpursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. Plaintiff filed a response to Defendant's motion and Defendant has replied.

Having reviewed and considered the parties' briefs and the entire record of this action, the Court has determined that oral argument would not aid in the decisional process. Therefore, pursuant to Eastern District of Michigan Local Rule 7.1(f)(2), the Court will decide this matter "on the briefs." This Opinion and Order sets forth the Court's ruling.

II. PERTINENT FACTS

Plaintiff Cari Hays is a former employee of Spirit Airlines, Inc. ("Spirit") who worked in Spirit's Detroit Metropolitan Airport operations department. Ms. Hays began her employment with Spirit in 1999 as a part-time employee. Shortly thereafter, she was promoted to a full-time position. She was subsequently promoted several times to the positions of Lead Agent, Supervisor, and Customer Service Manager. In 2008, she was promoted to the position of General Manager of Airport Operations.

Plaintiff claims that at the beginning of 2010, she became concerned with "staffing shortages" at Spirit's Metro Detroit operations, which she claims "caused flight delays" and "resulted in numerous safety issues and violations of state and/or federal laws." [See Complaint, ¶¶ 19-20.] According to Plaintiff, when she reported her concerns to her immediate supervisors, Defendants Gregory Manny and Brian Davis, they acknowledged that Spirit's Metro Detroit operations were understaffed. Id. at ¶ 22. She further claims that Manny and Davis acknowledged that the understaffing of Spirit's Metro Detroitoperations was causing unsafe flight and working conditions. Id. at ¶ 23. Plaintiff states that she "repeatedly requested from Defendants that they provide her with the necessary staffing so that she could run the Metro Detroit operations in a safe manner and in compliance with state and federal laws," id. at ¶ 25, but Spirit failed to provide her with the requested staffing. Id. at ¶ 26. Plaintiff alleges that thereafter she continued to object and refused to be complicit in what she believed to be Spirit's unlawful directives to manage the operations in violation of the law. Id. at ¶ 27.

In June 2010, Plaintiff was issued what she calls a "bogus" performance write-up, after which she continued to voice her objections and maintained her repeated requests to Defendants that they provide her with the necessary staffing so that she could run Spirit's Metro Detroit operations in a safe manner. Id. at ¶ 29. Plaintiff further alleges that around November 2010, Defendant Michael Anderson, the airline's Director of Safety, became aware of staffing shortages and unsafe/unlawful working conditions through communications with Plaintiff and Spirit pilots, but Anderson also failed to take any action. Id. at ¶¶ 33-34.

Plaintiff further alleges that in July 2010, she complained to Kim Archambeau, Spirit's Director of Inflight Services, about "safety issues and violations of law," as well as her concerns about unfair and allegedly unlawful "favoritism" that existed due to personal relationships between members of Spirit Senior Management and other Spirit employees. Id. at ¶ 46. At the time she reported her concerns to Archambeau, Ms. Haysalso believed that Defendant Archambeau herself was involved in a personal relationship with Defendant Tony Lefevbre, Spirit's Vice President of Customer Service. Id. at ¶ 47.

Ms. Hays's employment with Spirit Airlines was terminated on November 23, 2010. Hays claims that she was terminated in retaliation for her objections to perceived safety violations and for refusing to follow the directives of her supervisors that she believed to be in violation of the law. She also asserts that she was retaliated against, in part, for opposing violations of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.

III. MOTION TO DISMISS STANDARD

Defendant seeks dismissal of Plaintiff's entire complaint pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) contending that Plaintiff's claim for wrongful discharge is expressly preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, 49 U.S.C. § 41713(b)(1), and even if Plaintiff's claim is not deemed to be preempted, her Complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) authorizes the court to dismiss a complaint if it "fail[s] to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. . . ." In deciding a motion brought under Rule 12(b)(6), the court must construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and accept all well-pleaded factual allegations as true. League of United Latin American Citizens v. Bredesen, 500 F.3d 523,527 (6th Cir. 2007). Yet, "the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009). Moreover, "[w]hile a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does notneed detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff's obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S. Ct 1955, 1964-65 (2007) (internal quotation marks, alteration, and citations omitted). Rather, to withstand a motion to dismiss, the complaint's factual allegations, accepted as true, "must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level," and to "state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 570, 127 S. Ct at 1965, 1974. "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949. The plausibility standard, however, "asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully." Id. "Where a complaint pleads facts that are 'merely consistent with' a defendant' liability, it 'stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of entitlement to relief.'" Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557, 127 S.Ct. 1955). Applying the foregoing standards, the Court concludes that Defendant's Motion to Dismiss in this case should be granted.

IV. DISCUSSION

A. PREEMPTION UNDER THE ADA

In 1978, Congress enacted the Airline Deregulation Act (the "ADA") to deregulate the airline industry so as to promote "maximum reliance on competitive market forces," as well as "to provide efficiency, innovation, and low prices; and to decide on the variety and quality of, and determine prices for, air transportation services." Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U.S. 374, 378 (1992). Congress included in the Act an express preemption provision: "A State...may not enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of an air carrier that may provide air transportation." 49 U.S.C. § 41713(b)(1). This preemption provision was included in the Act to "ensure that the States would not undo federal deregulation with regulation of their own." Morales, 504 U.S at 378. See also American Airlines v. Wolens, 513 U.S. 219, 115 S.Ct. 817 (1995).

In Morales, the Supreme Court construed the words "relating to" contained in the preemption clause as "express[ing] a broad pre-emptive purpose." Morales, 504 U.S. at 383. To be "related to" under the ADA's preemption provision, a state law must simply have "a connection with, or reference to, airline 'rates, routes, or services.'" Id. at 384. At the same time, however, the Court also warned that some state actions may affect airlines in "too tenuous, remote, or peripheral a manner to be preempted." Id. at 390.

The scope of the preemption provision has been the subject of debate in the federal courts, particularly with respect to state law labor-related claims. The conflict in thecircuits primarily relates to the interpretation of the word "service" within the preemption provision. Compare, e.g., Air Transp. Ass'n of Am. v. Cuomo, 520 F.3d 218, 222 (2d Cir.2008) (per curiam) (defining "service" for purposes of the preemption clause to "encompass[ ] matters such as boarding procedures, baggage handling, and food and drink—matters incidental to and distinct from the actual transportation of passengers"), with Charas v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 160 F.3d 1259, 1261 (9th Cir.1998) (en banc) (defining "service" as "the prices, schedules, origins and destinations of the point-to-point transportation of passengers, cargo, or mail" but not "an airline's provision of in-flight beverages, personal assistance to passengers, the handling of luggage, and similar...