Plaintiff Eva Ayalla sued defendants National American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO and Kansas Kaw Valley APWU, Local 238 in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas raising claims of age discrimination and breach of the duty of fair representation. Defendant National American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO (National APWU) moved to dismiss plaintiff’s claims under Rule 12(b)(6).
Factual Overview
Plaintiff was a union shop steward who filed and administered grievances on behalf of union members for the Shawnee Mission Post Office. On July 7, 2022, both the National APWU and the local union decertified Plaintiff as a union steward and replaced her with a younger steward. Plaintiff believed she was replaced because of her age and because she had been a witness in an age discrimination case involving the same younger woman who replaced her.
After being decertified, Plaintiff sought assurances that the grievances she had filed during her four years as a steward would still be handled properly. National Business Agent Jeffrey Beaton assured her in late July 2022 that her remaining grievances would be handled the same as any other steward’s grievances. However, Plaintiff heard rumors that her class action grievances would be dropped, so she made multiple inquiries about their status.
Plaintiff retired on November 30, 2022, at age 70. She intended to maintain her union membership during retirement to oversee the grievances she had filed, but despite repeatedly asking about dues payments, she was unable to rejoin the union for more than a year after retiring. Meanwhile, the National APWU failed to provide her with updates about the status of her grievances despite her numerous inquiries through January 2023 and beyond.
On July 18, 2023, Plaintiff filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against National APWU, alleging failure to provide information on the status of grievances she had filed. In March 2023, Plaintiff filed an EEOC charge for age discrimination against her local union and expressed a desire to amend it to include National APWU in April 2023, but never did so. Plaintiff finally filed an EEOC charge against National APWU on March 13, 2024.
Legal Analysis
Administrative Exhaustion of Age-Discrimination Claim:
The court first addressed whether Plaintiff timely exhausted her administrative remedies for her age discrimination claim. Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, a plaintiff must file a charge of discrimination within 300 days of the unlawful act. Since Plaintiff was removed from her steward position on July 7, 2022, she had until May 3, 2023, to file an age-discrimination charge against National APWU with the EEOC. Although she filed a charge against the local union on March 13, 2023, and wanted to amend it to include National APWU, she never did so. Instead, she filed a separate charge against National APWU on March 13, 2024, which exceeded the deadline by more than ten months. Therefore, the court found that Plaintiff’s age-based claim against National APWU was time-barred.
Duty of Fair Representation (DFR) Claim for Failure to Provide Information:
The court next addressed Plaintiff’s DFR claim based on National APWU’s failure to provide information on the status of grievances she had filed as a steward. DFR claims have a six-month statute of limitations. Plaintiff filed a charge with the NLRB in July 2023 regarding this same conduct, but did not file her complaint in this case until August 2024, well after the six-month period. The court rejected Plaintiff’s argument that fraudulent concealment tolled the statute of limitations because: (1) her claim was for failure to update, not for concealing outcomes; (2) she was aware of this claim by at least July 2023 when she complained to the NLRB; and (3) she did not allege how her FOIA request was material to her DFR claim for failure to update. The court also rejected Plaintiff’s continuing violation theory because her claim accrued no later than July 2023 when she filed her NLRB charge.
DFR Claim for Grievance Handling:
Finally, the court addressed Plaintiff’s claim that National APWU mishandled the grievances she filed as a steward. The court found that Plaintiff lacked standing to pursue this claim because she filed the grievances in her capacity as a steward on behalf of others, not for herself, and she identified no injury she directly incurred as a result of how the grievances were handled. Additionally, even if she had standing, Plaintiff failed to allege facts sufficient to meet the high standard for reviewing a union’s actions. Courts are highly deferential to unions, and a plaintiff seeking to establish a DFR claim must show that the union’s conduct was arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith. Plaintiff’s allegations did not plausibly state a claim that National APWU acted irrationally or engaged in deceitful, fraudulent, or dishonest conduct in resolving the grievances.
The court granted National APWU’s motion to dismiss and dismissed all of Plaintiff’s claims against National APWU with prejudice.
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