On November 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal with prejudice of a complaint against FCA US brought by 47 current and former FCA employees who work or worked as powertrain engineers. This marks the fifth dismissal S&C has obtained and the third affirmed by the Sixth Circuit in civil actions filed by current or former FCA employees arising from the theft of funds from the FCA-UAW National Training Center by certain former FCA employees and certain former employees of the United Auto Workers, which constituted “prohibited payments” under federal labor laws.
In this action, plaintiffs alleged that in 2011, FCA transferred their work location in violation of a collective bargaining agreement. Plaintiffs further alleged the UAW did not sufficiently object to the transfer, supposedly as a result of the “prohibited payments.”
Plaintiffs asserted claims for breach of their collective bargaining agreement and violation of civil RICO. In March 2023, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan granted FCA’s motion to dismiss, agreeing that the claims were time-barred. Following oral argument in July, the Sixth Circuit affirmed.
The team representing FCA was Steve Holley, Julie Jordan (who argued the appeal), Jacob Cohen and Justin Zaretzky.