Retirement – Package delivery company drivers

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Where plaintiff current and former drivers for a package delivery company have filed suit, alleging in Count I of their complaint that they should be held to be "employees" entitled to participate in an ERISA plan, I hold that Count I must be dismissed because the plaintiffs have not identified any ERISA plan in which they are plausibly participants.

Other counts

"In Count II, the plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that they are employees of [defendant] FedEx [Ground Package System, Inc.] and thus ‘entitled to all the rights and benefits of employment pursuant to the laws of the United States.' … To the extent this claim is for a declaration of rights under ERISA, it must be dismissed for the same reasons Count I is dismissed. To the extent Count II seeks a declaration of the plaintiffs'

rights under ‘laws of the United States,' other than ERISA, it fails ‘to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.' … In addition, such vague pleading is not adequate

to show that, as to any laws other than ERISA, ‘there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.' …

"Even if Count II could be thought to overcome those two hurdles, the Declaratory Judgment Act created an opportunity, not a duty, to resolve some legal disputes other than in a coercive action. … District courts have the discretion to decline

to entertain a declaratory judgment claim when ‘considerations of practicality and wise judicial administration' counsel that course. … Those principles amply support a discretionary decision not to entertain a declaratory judgment claim that couches the right to prevail in ‘the laws of the United States' without elaboration or differentiation. Count II will also be dismissed.

"Counts III through IX are founded in state law and are within this Court's jurisdiction only by reason of 28 U.S.C. §1367. Because the only potential federal claims are being dismissed, there is no reason to retain jurisdiction over the state claims. … They are dismissed as well."

Curran, et al. v. FedEx Ground Package System, Inc., et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 02-013-09) (8 pages) (O'Toole, J.) (Civil Action No. 08-10282-GAO) (Jan. 21, 2009).