The opinion of the court was delivered by: RONALD GUZMAN, District Judge
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiffs Mike Shales, John Bryan, Sr., Al Orosz, Joseph Mann,
Toby Koth, and Gordon Anderson as Trustees of The Fox Valley
Laborers' Health and Welfare Fund and, including Dan Brejc, as
Trustees of The Fox Valley Laborers' Pension Fund (collectively
"the Funds") have sued defendants Asphalt Maintenance, Inc.,
d/b/a Johnson Blacktop, Inc. ("Asphalt"), and Dan Johnson,
individually, for failure to properly deduct, remit, and report
wages, or to make necessary contributions to the Funds. Count I
alleges violations of the Employment Retirement Income Security
Act, 29 U.S.C. § 1145 ("ERISA") and the Labor Management
Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185 ("LMRA"). Count II alleges a violation of the Illinois Wage
Payment and Collection Act, 820 ILL.COMP. STAT. § 115/1 et seq.
("IWPCA"), and Count III alleges the common law tort of
conversion.
On March 30, 2004, a default judgment was granted against
defendant Asphalt. Defendant Johnson now brings this motion to
dismiss all three counts of the complaint pursuant to Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure ("Rule") 12(b)(6), arguing that he cannot
be personally liable under Count I, and Counts II and III are
preempted by the LMRA.*fn1 For the reasons provided in this
Memorandum Opinion and Order, the motion is granted.
The following facts from the complaint are assumed to be true
for the purposes of this motion to dismiss. See Conley v.
Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957). Johnson is the owner and an
officer of Asphalt. (Compl. ¶ 3.) The Construction and General
Laborers' District Council of Chicago and Vicinity ("District
Council"), Johnson, and Asphalt have been parties to successive
collective bargaining agreements ("CBA"), which obligate
Defendants to make monthly contributions to the Funds on behalf
of their employees covered by the CBA for health, welfare,
pension benefits and for deductions and contributions to various
affiliated organizations. (Id. ¶¶ 1, 6.) The CBA also requires
Defendants to submit monthly remittance reports in which Asphalt
was to identify the employees covered under the CBA and the amount of contributions
to be remitted to the Funds and the affiliated organizations on
behalf of each employee. (Id. ¶ 6.)
On November 18, 2003, Plaintiffs filed a three-count Complaint
alleging that Defendants had failed to correctly report and pay
contributions owed to the Funds and the affiliated organizations
from April 1, 1998 through the present. (Id. ¶¶ 10-13.) Count I
of the Complaint alleges that Defendants' delinquency in
reporting and paying these contributions violates ERISA, the
LMRA, and the CBA. (Id. ¶¶ 11-16.) Count II alleges that
Johnson failed to properly withhold employee's wages for payment
of union dues and failed to remit those wages to the Funds,
violating the IWPCA. (Id. ¶¶ 42-49.) Count III alleges Johnson
failed to remit wages to the Funds and therefore wrongfully
converted their property. (Id. ¶¶ 105-08.)
The purpose of a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) is
to examine the adequacy of the complaint, not to decide the
merits of the case. See Gibson v. City of Chi., 910 F.2d 1520,
1520 (7th Cir. 1990). In ruling on a motion to dismiss, the Court
must construe all reasonable inferences drawn from the facts of
the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, and
all well-pleaded facts and allegations in the complaint must be
taken as true. See Roots P'ship v. Land's End, Inc.,
965 F.2d 1411, 1416 (7th Cir. 1992). The allegations of a complaint should
not be dismissed unless it appears beyond a doubt that the
plaintiff cannot prove any set of facts in support of its claim
entitling it to relief. Conley, 355 U.S. at 45-46; Ledford v.
Sullivan, 105 F.3d 354, 356 (7th Cir. 1997). I. Count I
Johnson first argues that Count I should be dismissed because
he cannot be held personally liable for ERISA and LMRA violations
committed by the corporate defendant. In their response,
Plaintiffs concede that only Counts II and III are directed
against Johnson personally. (Pls.' Resp. Mot. Dismiss at 2.)
Therefore, to the extent that Count I may allege a claim against
Johnson, it is dismissed.
Johnson next contends that Counts II and III should be
dismissed because the LMRA preempts Plaintiffs' state claims of
an IWPCA violation and the tort of conversion. The Supremacy
Clause of Article VI of the United States Constitution grants
Congress the power to preempt state law. Kohl's Food Stores,
Inc. v. Hyland,
32 F.3d 1075, 1077 (7th Cir. 1994). In enacting
§ 301 of the LMRA, which authorizes suits for breach of
collective bargaining agreements between employers and unions,
Congress exercised this power. Tifft v. Commonwealth Edison,
No. 02 C 4110, 2003 WL 187409, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 27, 2003).
Section 301 provides:
Suits for violation of contracts between an employer
and a labor organization representing employees in an
industry affecting commerce . . . 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).
This section confers federal court jurisdiction over disputes
that arise out of collective bargaining agreements and also
`"authorizes federal courts to fashion a body of federal law for
the enforcement of these agreements.'" Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic
Chef, Inc., 486 U.S. 399, 403 (1988) (quoting Textile Workers
v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S. 448, 451 (1957)). To ensure the
uniform interpretation of collective bargaining agreements,
"`issues raised in suits of a kind covered by § 301 [are] to be
decided according to the precepts of federal labor policy.'"
Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 209 (1985)
(quoting Teamsters v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U.S. 95 (1962)).
Section 301 thus preempts a state law claim where the claim "is
`founded directly on rights created by collective bargaining
agreements' . . . and when the resolution of a state law claim
`depends on the meaning of, or requires the interpretation of, a
collective bargaining agreement.'" Gonzalez v. Farmington Foods,
Inc., 296 F. Supp. 2d 912, 934 (N.D. Ill. 2003) (quoting
Caterpillar, Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 394 (1987) and
Loewen Group Int'l, Inc. v. Haberichter, 65 F.3d 1417, 1421
(7th Cir. 1995)); see also Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 210 ("A
state rule that purports to define the meaning or scope of a term
in a contract suit . . . is preempted by federal labor law.").
However, "not every dispute . . . tangentially involving a
provision of a collective-bargaining agreement . . . is
pre-empted by § 301 or other provisions of the federal labor
law." Allis-Chalmers, 471 U.S. at 211. For example, "if a
dispute merely requires reference to, or consultation of," the
CBA, the preemptive force of § 301 will not be triggered. See
Lopez v. Smurfit-Stone Container Co., No. 02 C 7347, 2003 WL
297533, *2 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 10, 2003); see also Livadas v.
Bradshaw, 512 U.S. 107, 124 (1994) ("[T]he bare fact that a
collective-bargaining agreement will be consulted in the course
of state-law litigation plainly does not require the claim to be
extinguished. . . ."). Moreover, in a case where a "particular
contractual provision is so clear as to preclude all possible
dispute over its meaning," there may be no need to interpret the
CBA. Nat'l Metalcrafters v. McNeil, 784 F.2d ...