18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 717 Labor-Management Relations Act (“LMRA”); (ii) state law claims for unjust enrichment; (iii) claims of discrimination in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination ("NJLAD"); and (iv) a claim for failure to account against the Pension Fund. Defendants moved to dismiss all four claims, and the Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss as to Plaintiffs’ LMRA claims on the grounds that the claims were time-barred. Additionally, the Court dismissed the unjust enrichment claim, and the single preempted NJLAD claim and remanded Plaintiffs’ remaining state law claims to state court. As to Plaintiffs’ hybrid § 301 claim, Plaintiffs maintained that Atlantic breached the CBA, and also alleged that that the Union breached its duty of fair representation by failing to press Plaintiffs’ grievance. The Court agreed with Defendants that Plaintiffs’ hybrid LMRA claims were time-barred by the six-month statute of limitations. The Court reasoned that Plaintiffs had simply not alleged any actions related to their hybrid claim that took place within the six-month period before they filed their complaint on September 14, 2020. The Court concluded that Plaintiffs could not simultaneously allege both that: (i) they hired counsel to address the Union’s representation of them regarding the underlying issues with Atlantic and through that counsel raised their concerns with a Union lawyer, which subsequently resulted in Plaintiffs being denied access to a January 2019 Union meeting, and; (ii) they were unaware that the Union was not going to represent them regarding their grievances against their employer until after March 14, 2020. As such, the Court found that Plaintiffs were aware in early 2019 that the Union’s actions might constitute violations that could sustain a valid hybrid § 301 claim, and that the six-month statute of limitations for their claims therefore started running at that time. With Plaintiffs’ federal claims under the LMRA being dismissed, the only remaining claims were brought pursuant to state common law and state anti-discrimination law. As a result, the Court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ remaining state law claims, and remanded Plaintiffs’ remaining state law claims. Roeder, et al. v. JP Morgan Chase & Co., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36643 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 26, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of hostages from the Iranian Hostage Crisis, filed a class action alleging that Defendants Chase Bank, former Chase President David Rockefeller, and other individual officers and agents of Chase Bank engaged in a conspiracy to impair Plaintiffs’ rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(1). Plaintiffs also asserted a number of state law claims, including causes of action for negligence, negligence per se , gross negligence, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Plaintiffs’ action concerned the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979, in which Iranian militants stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and took 63 American citizens as hostages. According to Plaintiffs, Defendants fomented the seizure of American hostages and then sabotaged the subsequent negotiations in an effort to protect their alliance with the Shah of Iran. Specifically, Plaintiffs claimed that Defendants facilitated the Shah’s arrival in the United States (which initiated the overtaking of the American Embassy in Tehran) because they had shared business interests with the Shah and handled the Shah’s family fortune. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that Plaintiffs’ complaint was not filed within the applicable statute of limitations, and the Court granted the motion. As an initial matter, the Court noted that Plaintiffs’ state law claims were time-barred because “under New York law, the time of injury, not discovery, governs accrual.” Id. at *16. Regarding Plaintiffs’ federal conspiracy claim, Defendants contended that, because this claim sounded in state tort law, it also started to accrue when the injury occurred, i.e. , in this case, when the imprisonment ended in 1981. In response, Plaintiffs relied on the discovery rule to argue that their claims actually started to accrue once the New York Times published an article in December 2019 revealing Chase Bank’s role in the Iranian Hostage Crisis. The Court reasoned, however, that Plaintiffs’ interpretation of the discovery rule was a misreading of U.S. Supreme Court precedent on the topic. To that end, the Court stated that “the ‘critical fact’ for purposes of the discovery rule is ‘discovery of the injury, not discovery of the other elements of the claim.’” Id. at *20. The Court also referenced Second Circuit case law maintaining that the statute of limitations does not restart whenever a Plaintiff discovers the involvement of a new Defendant. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the statute of limitations began to ran in 1981, thereby rendering Plaintiffs’ claims time-barred. Plaintiffs alternatively contended that Defendants were equitably estopped from asserting the statute of limitations defense because they prevented the timely filing of this lawsuit through misrepresentations on which Plaintiffs relied. Id. at *26-27. However, the Court opined that the alleged misrepresentations identified by Plaintiffs either occurred after the expiration of the statute of limitations or involved Defendants’ alleged failure to confess, which could not be the basis for equitable estoppel because Plaintiffs typically do not gain access to such private information until after filing the lawsuit anyway. Additionally, the Court held that Plaintiffs’ failed to establish the aspect of reasonable