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CS de­feats mo­tion to dis­miss in Rail­way Labor Act ac­tion against South­w­est Air­lines Pi­lots' As­so­ci­ation (SWAPA)

October 1, 2009

The United States Dis­trict Court for the North­ern Dis­trict of Texas (Judge Bar­bara M.G. Lynn) today denied a mo­tion to dis­miss in an ac­tion brought by First Of­ficer Janice Mc­Call against South­w­est Air­lines and South­w­est Air­lines Pi­lots As­so­ci­ation, the uni­on that rep­res­ents South­w­est’s pi­lots.

First Of­ficer Mc­Call al­leges that South­w­est and SWAPA at­temp­ted to rail­road her in­to ly­ing in an FAA safety in­vest­ig­a­tion to fa­cil­it­ate their ef­forts to ter­min­ate an­oth­er South­w­est Cap­tain, Cap­tain Jim Aus­tin. South­w­est and SWAPA then re­tali­ated against Mc­Call by im­prop­erly hand­ling her griev­ance against South­w­est and, ul­ti­mately, im­pos­ing an on-the-re­cord sus­pen­sion far in ex­cess of any sus­pen­sion pre­vi­ously im­posed on a South­w­est pi­lot for sim­il­ar con­duct.

Judge Lynn held that the facts pled in Mc­Call’s com­plaint “cre­ate a plaus­ible in­fer­ence their either or both SWAPA’s re­fus­al to present Mc­Call’s case to the Board and its ac­cept­ance of the set­tle­ment agree­ment was ar­bit­rary or ir­ra­tion­al” and that these facts “cu­mu­lat­ively cre­ate a plaus­ible in­fer­ence that SWAPA breached its duty of fair rep­res­ent­a­tion by act­ing in both an ar­bit­rary and a dis­crim­in­at­ory man­ner.”

Kent Rad­ford and Noah Rad­b­il handled the brief­ing on the mo­tion to dis­miss. For a copy of the or­der, click here.