Wiley v. United Parcel Service, Inc.

227 F.Supp.2d 480

Turner O. WILEY, Plaintiff, v. UNITED PARCEL SERVICE, INC., Defendant.

No. 1:01CV00359.

United States District Court, M.D. North Carolina.

October 16, 2002.

Kathleen G. Sumner, Jeanette L. Foust, Law Offices of Kathleen G. Sumner, Greensboro, NC, for Plaintiff.

Meredith West Holler, Brian D. Edwards, Alston & Bird, LLP, Charlotte, NC, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

OSTEEN, District Judge.

As an initial matter, this case is before the court on Plaintiff's timely Motion to Remand to Guilford County Superior Court. After review of both the original submissions and the supplemental briefs of the parties with regard to this motion, the court finds that the instant case is subject to federal jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, but barred from removal by 28 U.S.C. § 1445(c). For the reasons discussed herein, Plaintiff's Motion to Remand will be granted, and Plaintiff's Motion for Attorneys' Fees and Costs associated with his motion for remand will be denied. The court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to rule on Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment and Defendant's Motion for Sanctions. Therefore, both Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment and Motion for Sanctions will be dismissed.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Turner O. Wiley ("Plaintiff") began working for Defendant United Parcel Service, Inc. ("UPS") in the Greensboro, North Carolina, facility on June 27, 1975, as a part-time employee in a preloader capacity. In 1979, Plaintiff gained full-time employee status as a package driver until he was medically incapable of continuing his driving duties in March 1985. Despite his medical restrictions due to a seizure, two back injuries, and an apparent need to use the restroom frequently, Plaintiff continued to be employed by UPS in several non-driving capacities from 1985 until 1997. Plaintiff was terminated in April 1997 but was rehired by UPS in a newly created position as a car wash fueler in February 1999.

Plaintiff's medical condition worsened, however, on August 30, 2000, when he suffered a seizure on the job which caused a fuel spill. UPS sent Plaintiff to his medical doctor, Dr. Hill, immediately after the incident. Dr. Hill released Plaintiff to return to work and Plaintiff continued working for the remainder of the day. On August 31, 2000, UPS would not allow Plaintiff to return to work until he had been examined by UPS's medical doctor, Dr. Wittenberg. An appointment was not scheduled for Dr. Wittenberg to examine Plaintiff until September 8, 2000. At that time, Dr. Wittenberg imposed a thirty-pound lifting restriction on Plaintiff and prohibited him from working around hazardous materials but did not release him to return to work.¹ To resolve the discrepancy between the two doctors' opinions, UPS and Plaintiffs union agreed that a third medical doctor should examine Plaintiff.² On October 4, 2000, the third medical doctor, Dr. Yuson, agreed with Dr. Wittenberg's recommendations and did not release Plaintiff to return to work. Based on Dr. Yuson's medical opinion, UPS decided to remove Plaintiff from his fueler position for fear that he might have a seizure, spill fuel, and create a worse accident than the previous one.

Two days after Dr. Yuson's examination, Plaintiff filed a workers' compensation claim with the North Carolina Department of Labor, and he subsequently amended the claim on November 8, 2000.³ The Commissioner of the North Carolina Department of Labor issued Plaintiff a right-to-sue letter on December 8, 2000. Subsequent to two medical doctors' restrictions on Plaintiff's ability to work, and UPS's continued efforts to accommodate Plaintiff in all available positions, UPS was unable to return Plaintiff to work in a position that both satisfied his medical restrictions and that he was willing to accept. Despite UPS's repeated attempts to relocate Plaintiff in a mutually satisfactory position, Plaintiff showed up for work on April 24, 2002, and began fueling a truck without prior permission from a UPS supervisor. Since this incident, UPS has worked with Plaintiff to determine whether a reasonable accommodation exists that will enable him to return to work in a manner consistent with his medical restrictions. Both parties have been unsuccessful in finding such a position for Plaintiff at UPS's Greensboro facility.

On March 2, 2001, Plaintiff filed this action in state court alleging that UPS refused to return him to work at any job position within his medical restrictions in retaliation for having filed a workers' compensation claim in violation of the North Carolina Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act ("REDA"), N.C. Gen.Stat. § 95-241 et seq. (2001).⁴ UPS removed the case to this court on the basis of diversity of citizenship on April 4, 2001. Plaintiff then moved to remand the case within the statutorily prescribed period on April 18, 2001. Following the close of discovery on May 14, 2002, UPS moved for summary judgment on July 13, 2002.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Motion to Remand — Applicability of 28 U.S.C. § 1445(c)

Before ruling on UPS's summary judgment motion, this court must address a significant removal issue underlying Plaintiff's Motion to Remand. This court must rule on Plaintiff's Motion of Remand prior to ruling on Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment because the court cannot adjudicate any matters if it does not have subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case. See Charles Alan Wright, Law of Federal Courts, § 41 (5th ed.1994) ("[a]n order of remand ends the jurisdiction of the federal court").

Plaintiff's Motion to Remand does not challenge the diverse citizenship of the parties or the amount in controversy requirement.⁵ Rather, Plaintiff's sole basis for challenging this court's subject matter jurisdiction is 28 U.S.C. § 1445(c), which states that "[a] civil action in any State court arising under the workmen's compensation laws of such State may not be removed to any district court of the United States."

Federal law governs whether section 1445(c) bars removal of Plaintiff's claim. Grubbs v. General Elec. Credit Corp., 405 U.S. 699, 705, 92 S.Ct. 1344, 1349, 31 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972). Section 1445(c) "must be construed as setting up its own criteria, irrespective of local law, for determining in what instances suits" are to be removed. Arthur v. E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Co., 58 F.3d 121, 125 (4th Cir.1995) (quoting Shamrock Oil & Gas Corp. v. Sheets, 313 U.S. 100, 104, 61 S.Ct. 868, 870, 85 L.Ed. 1214 (1941)). The "arising under" analysis applied by the federal courts in determining federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 is the appropriate analysis for 28 U.S.C. § 1445(c). The Supreme Court has described the standard:

How and when a case arises `under the Constitution or laws of the United States' has been much considered in the books. Some tests are well established. To bring a case within the statute, a right or immunity created by the Constitution or laws of the United States must be an element, and an essential one, of the plaintiff's cause of action. The right or immunity must be such that it will be supported if the Constitution or laws of the United States are given one construction or effect, and defeated if they receive another. A genuine and present controversy, not merely a possible or conjectural one, must exist with reference thereto, and the controversy must be disclosed upon the face of the complaint unaided by the answer or by the petition for removal. Indeed, the complaint itself will not avail as a basis of jurisdiction in so far as it goes beyond a statement of the plaintiff's cause of action and anticipates or replies to a probable defense.

Gully v. First Nat'l Bank, 299 U.S. 109, 112, 57 S.Ct. 96, 97, 81 L.Ed. 70 (1936) (internal citations omitted).

Whether REDA "arises under" the North Carolina Workers' Compensation Act ("N.C. Workers' Comp. Act") is an issue of first impression for this court and has not been decided by the Fourth Circuit.⁶ The Fourth Circuit has provided a framework to determine when a cause of action "arises under" the workers' compensation laws of a state, albeit not in the context of a retaliatory discharge statute, such as REDA. In Arthur, the Fourth Circuit held that the "deliberate intention" or Mandolidis claim did not "arise under" the West Virginia Workers' Compensation Act. Arthur, 58 F.3d at 128. Unlike REDA, which is a creature of statute, the "deliberate intention" claim is a creature of common law which provides an exception to the workers' compensation act's exclusive remedies when the employer's conduct is intentional or reckless. See id. at 127. In analyzing whether the "deliberate intention" claim arose under the workers' compensation laws of the state, the court identified several factors without singling out any particular factor as controlling: (1) employer's fault as material to recovery, (2) statutory limits on the types or amount of compensatory damages, (3) existence of an administrative agency operating the system, (4) ability to protect or enhance workers' receipt of compensation benefits, and (5) existence of a detailed statutory test for loss of immunity. Id. at 127. The court viewed these factors in light of the ordinary meaning of "worker's compensation laws" as it was understood in 1958, the year Congress passed section 1445(c). Id. at 125.

In dicta, the Arthur court noted a distinction between a "deliberate intention" claim and a retaliatory discharge claim. Id. at 128 ("The significant differences between a retaliatory discharge claim and the Mandolidis claim render the decisions remanding retaliatory discharge actions inapplicable here."). In general terms, the Fourth Circuit stated that

[t]he action for retaliatory discharge is integrally related to the just and smooth operation of the workers' compensation system; it insures that those seeking compensation benefits are not scared out of making claims ... [t]his cause of...