Davenport v. Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. et al

Filing 14

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER remanding case to Madison County, Illinois for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.Signed by Judge J. Phil Gilbert on 1/9/2012. (dka, )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
THOMAS L. DAVENPORT,
Plaintiff,
Case No. 11-cv-1108-JPG-DGW

v.
TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, USA, INC.;
TOYOTA LOGISTICS SERVICES, INC.;
COTTRELL, INC.; CASSENS
CORPORATION; LISA SHASHEK;
UNKNOWN RIG DISTRIBUTORS/
MANUFACTURERS; CASSENS
TRANSPORT COMPANY; JEFF CASSENS;
ALLEN CASSENS; A.C. LEASING, INC.;
KSC LEASING; J.C. LEASING; F.T.L.
LEASING; and ALBERT CASSENS TRUST,
Defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
In light of Seventh Circuit admonitions, see, e.g., America’s Best Inns, Inc. v. Best Inns of
Abilene, L.P., 980 F.2d 1072 (7th Cir. 1992), the Court has undertaken a rigorous initial review
of pleadings to ensure that jurisdiction has been properly pled. The Court has noted the
following defect in the jurisdictional allegations of the Notice of Removal (Doc. 2) filed by
defendant Cottrell, Inc.:
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Failure to allege a federal question under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. The Complaint does not
allege any cause of action arising under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United
States.
This case arose after plaintiff Thomas L. Davenport, an employee of Cassens Transport

Company (“CTC”), was injured while using a tie-down system on a car-hauling trailer designed
and manufactured by defendant Cottrell. The complaint in this case alleges state law causes of
action under theories of products liability, negligence, piercing the corporate veil, partnership

liability, breach of contract, consumer fraud, equitable estoppel, and/or spoliation of evidence.1
Cottrell argues that these claims are, in reality, claims under § 301 of the Labor-Management
Relations Act (“LMRA”), 29 U.S.C. § 185(a). This is so, Cottrell argues, because Davenport
alleges his injuries stemmed from the defendants’ conduct in relation to an area covered
generally by the collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) between Davenport’s union and CTC
– the equipment an employer will provide for its employees. Apparently, the CBA did not
mandate an employer to provide the equipment with characteristics Davenport says the
equipment should have possessed, although the requirement was considered by the negotiators.
It is true that a state law claim is preempted and may be removed to federal court where:
a federal statute wholly displaces the state-law cause of action through complete
pre-emption. When the federal statute completely pre-empts the state-law cause
of action, a claim which comes within the scope of that cause of action, even if
pleaded in terms of state law, is in reality based on federal law. This claim is then
removable under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b), which authorizes any claim that “arises
under” federal law to be removed to federal court.
Beneficial Nat’l Bank v. Anderson, 539 U.S. 1, 8 (2003) (footnote omitted). However, where a
state law claim does not come within the scope of the federal cause of action, there is no
complete preemption.
In this case, the state law claims pled by the plaintiff are not completely preempted by §
301 of the LMRA, 29 U.S.C. § 185(a). That statute provides:

1

The theories set forth in this order are those pled in Davenport’s original complaint. The
Court has been unable to locate any more recent pleading in the 2,262 pages Cottrell has dumped
into the Court’s file as Exhibit A to its notice of removal. Rather than attaching “a copy of all
process, pleadings, and orders,” 28 U.S.C. § 1446(a) (emphasis added), with which it has been
served, Cottrell appears to have attached the entire case file, in no particular order, with no index
and with multiple duplicate documents. The Court is not obligated to “try to fish a gold coin
from a bucket of mud.” United States ex rel. Garst v. Lockheed-Martin Corp., 328 F.3d 374,
378 (7th Cir. 2003).
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Suits for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization
representing employees in an industry affecting commerce as defined in this
chapter, or between any such labor organizations, may be brought in any district
court of the United States having jurisdiction of the parties, without respect to the
amount in controversy or without regard to the citizenship of the parties.
29 U.S.C. § 185(a). It has long been established that state law causes of action that involve
interpretation of a CBA are completely preempted by § 301 of the LMRA. United Steelworkers
of Am. v. Rawson, 495 U.S. 362, 368-69 (1990). A state law cause of action completely
preempted by § 301 of the LMRA need not be for breach of contract, but it must be “inextricably
intertwined with consideration of the terms of the labor contract.” Allis-Chalmers Corp. v.
Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 213 (1985). A claim is not completely preempted if it simply “relates in
some way to a provision in a collective-bargaining agreement, or more generally to the parties to
such an agreement.” Id. at 220.
Adjudication of the plaintiff’s claims in this case does not require interpretation of the
CBA between Davenport’s union and CTC. The CBA specifies what equipment CTC is
obligated to provide to Davenport; Cottrell is not a party to the CBA and therefore has no
obligations under it. It designs and manufactures equipment irrespective of any CBA terms,
albeit likely with an eye to being marketable to entities bound by CBAs.2 It is CTC that makes
the independent decision whether to provide Cottrell equipment to its employees. However,
what CTC’s duty under the CBA was and whether it complied with that duty are not questions in
this case. In fact, CTC is only involved in this case as a defendant in a spoliation of evidence

2

The defendants’ citation of Boyle v. United Technologies Corp., 487 U.S. 500 (1988), is
inapposite. That case involved the Federal Tort Claims Act and an independent contractor’s
liability for products manufactured to government specifications. The “uniquely federal
concerns” present in that case – “obligations to and rights of the United States under its
contracts,” id. at 504, and “the civil liability of federal officials for actions taken in the course of
their duty,” id. at 505 – are not present in this case, which involves only private entities.
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claim, which has nothing to do with the CBA. The other aspects of this case focus on the duty to
produce a safe product that any product designer and manufacturer owes any member of the
public as a matter of state law. The terms of the CBA have nothing to do with resolving those
issues.
For the foregoing reasons, the Court REMANDS this case to the Circuit Court for the
Third Judicial Circuit, Madison County, Illinois, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: January 9, 2012
s/ J. Phil Gilbert
J. PHIL GILBERT
DISTRICT JUDGE

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