Page 74 - RICHERT VS. SORKIN THEFT OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT AND THE WEST WING

tort claims as alternative remedies. The Supreme Coufi has repeatedly made this poi[t in discussing thc preemptive effect of $ 301:
"Congress may so completely pre-empt a particular area, that any civil complaint raisirlg this select group ofclaims is necessarily federal in character . . . 'The necessary ground of decision was that the preemptive force of $ 301 is so powedul as to displace entirely any state cause of action for violation of contract between an employet and a labor organization. Any such suit is purely a creaturc of federal law, notwithstanding the fact lhat state law would provide a cause of action in the absence of $ 301."
Metropolitu Life Ins. Co. v. Taybr,481LJ.S.58,64, (1987 ), quoting Franchise Ta-t Board v, Construction Laborers Vdcation Trusl,463 U.S. 1, 23 (1983). As noted in our moving papers. the courts have construcd $ 301 to preempt every imaginable state law cause oI action, including the fraud and conspiracy claims of the typc plaintiffs have asserted herc [WGA Mot. at 10-11].
h seeking to avoid prcemption, plaintiffs either ignore peltinent precedent or rely on empty factual distinctions. They omit any discussion of the preemption analysis in Stote l,. Wite$ GuiA ofAheri(:a, west, Inc., 101 F.3d 1312 (9th Cir. 1996), where the Ninth Circuit held that a writer could not bring a state law challenge to the Guild's administation ofthe credit determination procedures in the MBA. Id. at 1314. Since the preemption holding in Srone is squarely on point here, plaintiffs simply ignore it, confining their treatment of the case to its discussion of the statute of limitations issue [see Opp. at 18]
Elsewherc, plaintiffs offer up factual distinctions that simply make no differeoce. In Doughefty r. Aherican Telephone &Telegraph Co' 902 F.2d201, 203 (2d Cir. 1990), the colrt, invoking familiar $ 301 preemption principles, dismissed a state fraud claim where it was "not
independent ol the collective bargaiuirg agreement." Plaintiffs pay lip seNice to the holding, but then pose a question: "These wete torts by the company against the employee. But what about torts by union against employee?" [Opp. at 21].
None of these statements have to do with the truth of the theft by the Guild and the Studio of the original writer's property.