K.V. Mart Co. v. United Food & Commercial Workers International Union, Local 324

A labor union argues that a recent Supreme Court ease requires us to reject forty years of case law interpreting § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. § 185 , 1 and reinterpret *1223 the section to confer federal subject matter jurisdiction over all suits by or against a union covered by the Act. We decline to do so.

From December 1996 to February 1997, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 324 (Union), picketed a store operated by Plaintiff K.V. Mart Co. and located in a shopping center owned by Plaintiff Market Venture, L.L.C. Plaintiffs filed three successive suits in state court to enjoin or restrict the picketing. The Union removed each action to federal district court, on the novel legal theory that the “sue and be sued” clause in LMRA § 301(b) confers federal subject matter jurisdiction over any suit by or against a union covered by the LMRA. The district court concluded that § 301 confers jurisdiction only over suits for breach of contract identified in § 301(a), and remanded the cases to state court. In this, the third remand order, the district court awarded Plaintiffs attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1447…