Whether the Railway Labor Act preempts state-law tort claims brought by a labor union against a third party that require interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement

No question identified. : markets, Congress enacted the Railway Labor Act (RLA) to govern “all disputes” arising out of “the interpretation or application of’ CBAs in the railroad and airline industries. 45 U.S.C. §151a. This Court has long held that “where the resolution of a state-law claim depends on an interpretation of [a] CBA, the claim is preempted” by the RLA. Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. v. Norris, 512 U.S. 246, 261 (1994). 2. SWAPA is a labor organization and employee association that engages in collective bargaining on behalf of its members, who are pilots for Southwest Airlines. In 2006, SWAPA entered a CBA with Southwest that governed rates of pay, rules, and working conditions for all pilots flying airplane models in the Boeing 737 line. Five years later, Boeing announced a new 737 model, the 737 MAX. SWAPA and Southwest disagreed over whether their 2006 CBA obligated Southwest pilots to fly the 737 MAX, and SWAPA sued Southwest to vindicate its view of the CBA. See Sw. Airlines Pilots Ass’n v. Sw. Airlines Co., No. 3:16-cv-01346 (N.D. Tex. May 19, 2016), ECF 6. Rather than see the litigation through, the parties negotiated a new CBA in 2016 that expressly required Southwest’s pilots to fly the 737 MAX. 3. In 2018 and 2019, two 737 MAX planes tragically crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia, leading the Federal Aviation Administration to ground the 737 MAX— and Southwest to accordingly reduce some of its pilot hours. SWAPA sued Boeing in Texas court to recover allegedly lost wages for its members (and union fees for itself). SWAPA brought claims on behalf of thousands of pilots for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, negligence, and tortious interference, alleging that Boeing wrongly induced SWAPA to agree to allow pilots to fly the 737 MAX in the 2016 CBA. 4. Boeing removed the case to the Northern District of Texas, arguing that that SWAPA’s claims were completely preempted because they required interpretation of a CBA. The district court indicated that SWAPA’s claims likely are preempted because “the Court believe[d] that it would have to determine whether the 2006 CBA required SWAPA pilots to fly the 737 MAX.” Sw. Airlines Pilots Ass’n v. Boeing Co., 613 F. Supp. 3d 975, 981 (N.D. Tex. 2020); see Kollar v. United Transp. Union, 83 F.3d 124, 126 (5th Cir. 1996). But because preemption is “a defense, which does not appear on the face of a well-pleaded complaint,” the court concluded it “does not provide a basis for removal” and remanded the case back to Texas state court. Sw. Airlines Pilots Ass’n, 613 F. Supp. 3d at 979. On remand, the Texas trial court agreed that SWAPA’s claims are preempted. It granted Boeing’s plea to the jurisdiction and dismissed the case with prejudice. 5. The Texas Fifth District Court of Appeals reversed. It acknowledged that the RLA preempts state-law claims requiring courts to interpret CBAs. Sw. Airlines Pilots Ass’n v. Boeing Co., 704 S.W.3d 832, 850 (Tex. App. 2022) (citing Norris, 512 U.S. at 252-53). But it refused to apply preemption here because it reasoned that RLA preemption applies only to claims between signatories to CBAs, not those involving third parties such as Boeing. Jd. at 853. The court of appeals thereafter declined to reconsider the case en banc, over a forceful dissent highlighting how the panel opinion “conflict[ed] with federal decisional authority from the U.S. Supreme Court and circuit courts of appeal” and ignored the text of the RLA. Jd. at 857 (Schenck, J., dissenting from denial of en banc reconsideration). 6. The court of appeals’ decision conflicts with uniform precedent holding that RLA preemption is not limited to suits between signatories to a CBA. See, e.g., Baylis v. Marriott Corp., 906 F.2d 874, 877 (2d Cir. 1990); Bensel v. Allied Pilots Ass’n, 387 F.3d 298, 320-23 (3d Cir. 2004); Intl Union, United Mine Workers of Am. v. Covenant Coal Corp., 977 F.2d 895 (4th Cir. 1992); Beard v. Carrollton R.R., 893 F.2d 117, 122 (6th Cir. 1989); Kimbro v. Pepsico,