English v. General Electric Co.

Facts

Vera English (Plaintiff) was a laboratory technician at a nuclear plant managed by General Electric Company (GE) (Defendant).  She brought a complaint to the management of GE (Defendant) and to the federal government regarding her co-workers failure to clean up radioactive spills in the laboratory.  In response to Defendant’s failure to address the issue, Plaintiff intentionally did not clean a work area contaminated with uranium during an earlier shift.  She outlined the contaminated areas with red tape to make the spills obvious.  A few days passed, and she called her supervisor’s attention to the fact that the areas still had not been cleaned.  Defendant stopped work in order to inspect and clean the laboratory, and then charged Plaintiff with a knowing failure to clean up radioactive contamination.  Plaintiff was reassigned and eventually fired.  She filed a complaint with the Labor Department, charging Defendant with violation of § 210(a) of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, which makes it unlawful for a nuclear industry employer to retaliate against an employee for reporting safety violations.  An administrative law judge found a § 210(a) violation, but the Labor Department dismissed the complaint as untimely.  Plaintiff then filed a diversity action in district court, seeking compensatory and punitive damages from Defendant, raising a state-law claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other things.  The court dismissed the claim on the ground that it conflicted with three aspects of § 210 and was therefore preempted.  The court of appeals affirmed.