Sixth Circuit Side-Steps Federal Immigration Issue in Retaliatory Discharge Action
While hypothetical questions may have been the standard in law school courses taught via the Socratic Method, the Sixth Circuit recently held such questions are not to be considered by federal courts. Reversing a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, the Sixth Circuit said the district court’s decision holding that the retaliatory discharge provision of the Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Act was preempted by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (“IRCA”) “skipped past the question whether state law had been violated in the first place.” Accordingly, the district court’s judgment was vacated [Torres v. Precision Indus., 938 F.3d 752 (6th Cir. 2019)].
Background
Torres sued his former employer, alleging the company had fired him for seeking benefits under Tennessee’s Workers’ Compensation Law. Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-101 et seq. The district court held a bench trial, during which the employer argued that it had not retaliated against Torres and that, even if it had, IRCA preempted any remedy because Torres had not been authorized to work in the United States. At the end of trial, the district court granted judgment to the employer on the preemption ground without making any factual findings as to the state law claim. Torres appealed.
Judicial Restraint
The Sixth Circuit acknowledged that the U.S. Supreme Court had constructed “an elaborate preemption taxonomy” over the years, but first, the Court stressed, it had to consider several fundamental principles of judicial restraint. Federal courts have long refused to decide abstract, contingent, or hypothetical questions. The Court added that federal courts should not decide questions of a constitutional nature unless absolutely necessary to a decision of the case. Court should also refrain from formulating a rule of constitutional law broader than required by the precise facts to which it was to be applied. Such restraint applied to issues of preemption as well.
District Court Had Two Alternatives
The Sixth Circuit continued that the parties presented the district court with at least two grounds for resolving this case. The court could find that the employer had not retaliated against Torres in violation of Tennessee law. Or it could hold that federal law preempted state law. The district court chose the latter, constitutional ground. But in doing so, the district court erred.
On remand, the Sixth Circuit said the district court should decide whether the employer violated Tennessee law. If the answer was no, then neither the district court nor the Sixth Circuit would need to address the question presented by this appeal. Alternatively, if the answer was yes, however, then the district court would also have to determine the appropriate remedy. The Sixth Circuit stressed that the district court should decide what remedies are available under Tennessee law before resolving whether federal law preempts any of those remedies. That sequence would allow the district court to formulate a rule of constitutional law no broader than required by the precise facts to which it was to be applied.