State Supreme Court rules that SeaTac’s Good Jobs Proposition applies to airport workers

Work­ers at Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port must be paid a min­i­mum wage of $15/hour in accor­dance with the City of SeaT­ac’s Good Jobs law (Propo­si­tion #1, enact­ed by vot­ers in 2013) the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court ruled today.

In a 5–4 deci­sion authored by Jus­tice Susan Owens, the Court held the air­port is not exempt from the law, even though it is admin­is­tered by the Port of Seattle.

Owens was joined by fel­low asso­ciate Jus­tices Charles John­son, Steven González, Sheryl Gor­don McCloud, and Mary Yu.

Jus­tices Debra Stephens, Bar­bara Mad­sen (the chief jus­tice), Mary Fairhurst, and Char­lie Wig­gins dis­sent­ed in part, with Stephens writ­ing the dis­sent­ing opinion.

The case, No. 89723–9, involves four dif­fer­ent par­ties. The respon­dents and cross-appel­lants are sev­er­al busi­ness­es: Filo Foods LLC, BF Foods, LLC, Alas­ka Air­lines, Inc. and the Wash­ing­ton Restau­rant Asso­ci­a­tion. As Filo Foods is the lead respon­dent, its name appears through­out the text of the Court’s opinion.

Sum­ma­riz­ing the case and the major­i­ty oin­ion, Jus­tice Owens writes, “Filo Foods chal­lenges the valid­i­ty of Propo­si­tion 1 on sev­er­al grounds. First, Filo Foods argues that Propo­si­tion 1 is pro­ce­du­ral­ly invalid in its entire­ty because it vio­lates the sin­gle-sub­ject rule. We hold that Propo­si­tion 1 does not vio­late the sin­gle-sub­ject rule.”

“Sec­ond, Filo Foods con­tends that under state law, Propo­si­tion 1 may not be applied at the Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Airport.”

“We con­clude that Propo­si­tion 1 can be applied at the air­port because there is no indi­ca­tion that it will inter­fere with air­port operations.

“Third, Filo Foods argues that fed­er­al law pre­empts Propo­si­tion 1, in whole or, alter­na­tive­ly, in part. We con­clude fed­er­al law does not pre­empt Propo­si­tion 1 in whole or in part. Final­ly, Filo Foods argues that Propo­si­tion 1 vio­lates the dor­mant com­merce clause; we con­clude that it does not.”

“Thus, we find Propo­si­tion 1 valid in its entirety.”

The Court’s deci­sion — a remark­able dis­missal of all the issues raised by the busi­ness groups opposed to the law — is a sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry for Wash­ing­ton State’s labor move­ment and will result in many more work­ers receiv­ing bad­ly need­ed wage increase and addi­tion­al pro­tec­tions while on the job.

Up until now, the SeaT­ac Good Jobs ini­tia­tive has only been enforced in the City of SeaT­ac out­side of the air­port, due to low­er courts hav­ing ruled that the City did not have the author­i­ty to set wages inside the airport.

Now that the Supreme Court has found oth­er­wise, the Good Jobs ini­tia­tive can take full effect and work the way that it was sup­posed to.

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son released a state­ment prais­ing the rul­ing and not­ing his office’s involve­ment in the case, which reads in part:

In hold­ing that the City’s ordi­nance pro­tects air­port work­ers, the Court relied in part on the AG’s argu­ment about how to inter­pret the state min­i­mum wage law:  “This argu­ment regard­ing the Wash­ing­ton Min­i­mum Wage Act was first advanced by the Wash­ing­ton State Attor­ney Gen­er­al.” (Filo Foods, LLC v. City of SeaT­ac, page 19.)

“I’m pleased the Court adopt­ed my office’s pro­posed approach as a key part of its 5–4 deci­sion,” Fer­gu­son said.

“This impor­tant rul­ing helps pro­tect the rights of work­ers at SeaT­ac Air­port and rec­og­nizes the broad author­i­ty state and local gov­ern­ments have to sup­port their hard-work­ing residents.”

The appeal hinged on what inter­pre­ta­tion of state law gov­ern­ing ports was cor­rect: the City of SeaT­ac’s or the Port of Seat­tle’s. The Court decid­ed that the City’s inter­pre­ta­tion of the law was cor­rect. Jus­tice Owens writes:

The city of SeaT­ac con­tends that the leg­is­la­ture intend­ed to give the Port of Seat­tle juris­dic­tion over only air­port oper­a­tions, where­as the Port of Seat­tle con­tends that the leg­is­la­ture intend­ed to pro­hib­it any city of SeaT­ac law or reg­u­la­tion from apply­ing at the Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. As described below, we reject the Port of Seat­tle’s inter­pre­ta­tion because we find it, among oth­er things, incom­pat­i­ble with a spe­cial pur­pose dis­tric­t’s lim­it­ed powers.

Unlike cities, which are grant­ed “the broad­est pow­ers of local self-gov­ern­ment,” RCW 35A.01.010, a port dis­trict is a spe­cial pur­pose dis­trict, which “is lim­it­ed in its pow­ers to those nec­es­sar­i­ly or fair­ly implied in or inci­dent to the pow­ers express­ly grant­ed, and also those essen­tial to the declared objects and pur­pos­es of the corporation.”

She goes on to note:

The leg­is­la­ture express­ly instruct­ed that the pur­pose of the statu­to­ry scheme is to ensure uni­for­mi­ty in the laws regard­ing aero­nau­tics. RCW 14.08.340. Addi­tion­al­ly, the law detail­ing the spe­cif­ic pow­ers of munic­i­pal­i­ties oper­at­ing air­ports, RCW 14.08.120(1), pro­vides that a munic­i­pal­i­ty may estab­lish a board respon­si­ble for “the con­struc­tion, enlarge­ment, improve­ment, main­te­nance, equip­ment, oper­a­tion, and reg­u­la­tion [of the air­port or oth­er air nav­i­ga­tion facility].”

These aspects of the statu­to­ry scheme lead us to con­clude that the leg­is­la­ture intend­ed to vest author­i­ty for the oper­a­tion of the air­port exclu­sive­ly with the Port of Seat­tle, but not to pro­hib­it a local munic­i­pal­i­ty like the city of SeaT­ac from reg­u­lat­ing for the gen­er­al wel­fare in a man­ner unre­lat­ed to air­port operations.

And con­cludes:

Absent a fac­tu­al show­ing that Propo­si­tion 1 would inter­fere with air­port oper­a­tions, the propo­si­tion does not con­flict with the Port of Seat­tle’s juris­dic­tion or abil­i­ty to oper­ate the Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. There­fore, Propo­si­tion 1 can be valid­ly enforced at the Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Airport.

Four of Owens’ col­leagues took issue with this ratio­nale and signed a dis­sent­ing opin­ion hold­ing that the state’s Revised Air­ports Act does pre­vent the City from being able to enforce the Good Jobs Ini­tia­tive at the air­port. (The dis­sent­ing opin­ion is con­cerned with this issue alone; the jus­tices were all in agree­ment that fed­er­al labor law does not pre­empt the SeaT­ac Good Jobs initiative).

“I dis­agree with the major­i­ty’s con­clu­sion that Propo­si­tion 1 may be applied at the Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port con­sis­tent with the Revised Air­ports Act, RCW 14.08.330,” Jus­tice Debra Stephens writes, begin­ning her dissent.

She goes on to say: “In my view, the major­i­ty’s result offends the statute’s plain lan­guage, which pro­vides that ‘[e]very air­port’ shall be under ‘the exclu­sive juris­dic­tion and con­trol’ of the ‘munic­i­pal­i­ty…  con­trol­ling and oper­at­ing it.’ ”

“Here, it is undis­put­ed that the Port of Seat­tle con­trols and oper­ates the Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. Its juris­dic­tion is there­fore exclu­sive. Fur­ther, the statute pro­vides ‘[n]o oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ty in which the air­port… is locat­ed shall have any police juris­dic­tion of the [air­port].’ ”

“It is undis­put­ed that the city of SeaT­ac is the munic­i­pal­i­ty in which the air­port is locat­ed. The city of SeaT­ac thus has no police juris­dic­tion at the air­port. A straight­for­ward appli­ca­tion of RCW 14.08.330 should end the matter.”

Stephens goes on to argue:

The major­i­ty’s dis­tinc­tion, between the air­port as a geo­graph­ic area and as a set of func­tion­al activ­i­ties (“air­port oper­a­tions or the sub­ject of aero­nau­tics,” id.), is nowhere to be found in the statute. The sub­ject of the statute is sim­ply “[e]very air­port.” RCW 14.08.330.

The statute does not slice and dice an “air­port” to reveal some sort of “core air­port func­tion” judi­cial test. Instead the statute con­cerns, as its lan­guage says it does, the airport.

The statute’s struc­ture con­firms this. The statute fol­lows a gen­er­al rule/exception struc­ture. Its gen­er­al rule is that the munic­i­pal­i­ty con­trol­ling and oper­at­ing the air­port (the Port of Seat­tle) shall have exclu­sive juris­dic­tion and con­trol over the air­port, and that no oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ty in which the air­port is locat­ed (the city of SeaT­ac) shall have any police juris­dic­tion of the air­port. RCW 14.08.330.

The statute then has one excep­tion to that rule. The excep­tion pro­vides “How­ev­er, … a munic­i­pal­i­ty in which an air­port… is locat­ed may be respon­si­ble for the admin­is­tra­tion and enforce­ment of the uni­form fire code… on that por­tion of any air­port… locat­ed with its juris­dic­tion­al bound­aries,” so long as it does this “by agree­ment with the munic­i­pal­i­ty oper­at­ing and con­trol­ling the air­port,” (the Port of Seat­tle). Id. Thus, a fire code is the sin­gle cir­cum­stance in which the city of SeaT­ac can enforce its laws with­in the airport.

The major­i­ty opin­ion con­tains a response to this argument:

The dis­sent asserts that the pro­vi­sion of RCW 14.08.330 relat­ed to the admin­is­tra­tion and enforce­ment of local fire codes “dis­proves” our inter­pre­ta­tion of the statute. Dis­sent at 6.

It asserts that “[i]f the leg­is­la­ture intend­ed the oper­at­ing munic­i­pal­i­ty’s exclu­sive juris­dic­tion to be over only [air­port oper­a­tions], why would the leg­is­la­ture spec­i­fy an excep­tion from the oper­at­ing munic­i­pal­i­ty’s exclu­sive juris­dic­tion to allow the munic­i­pal­i­ty in which the air­port sits to enforce afire code at the air­port?” Id. at 6–7. The leg­isla­tive his­to­ry of the fire code amend­ment answers the dis­sent’s question.

The house com­mit­tee in sup­port of the bill tes­ti­fied, “Seat­tle has been enforc­ing its uni­form fire code on the por­tion of the King Coun­ty air­port locat­ed with­in its bound­aries, but their attor­ney feels they may not have this author­i­ty… This bill clar­i­fies an ambi­gu­i­ty in cur­rent law.” H.B. REPORT ON H.B. 139, 49th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Wash. 1985).

That lan­guage shows that the leg­is­la­ture added the fire code lan­guage because it rec­og­nized that the statute’s ambigu­ous lan­guage called into ques­tion Seat­tle’s abil­i­ty to enforce the uni­form fire code.

By adding in the lan­guage, it “clarifie[d] an ambi­gu­i­ty.” 5 Id. Rather than dis­prov­ing our inter­pre­ta­tion, the house bill rein­forces our con­clu­sion that the statute’s lan­guage is ambiguous.

The dis­sent­ing jus­tices feel that the Court’s hold­ing in this case sets an unwel­come prece­dent and will result in con­fu­sion going for­ward. They assert:

The leg­is­la­ture did not intend to fos­ter a cot­tage indus­try of lit­i­ga­tion over air­port oper­a­tions, where the courts arrive at case-by-case con­clu­so­ry deter­mi­na­tions under an impre­cise test. It chose to draw a clear line. It enact­ed a statute that gives exclu­sive juris­dic­tion and con­trol to the oper­at­ing munic­i­pal­i­ty. RCW 14.08.330.

And it specif­i­cal­ly said that “[n]o oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ty in which the air­port … is locat­ed shall have any police juris­dic­tion of the [air­port].” Id.

The leg­is­la­ture under­stood that because air­ports are unique, com­plex oper­a­tions, they should be gov­erned by one and only one local government—the one that spe­cial­izes in con­trol­ling and oper­at­ing them. This desire to have legal clar­i­ty at air­ports is espe­cial­ly under­stand­able con­sid­er­ing that air­ports can strad­dle mul­ti­ple munic­i­pal, coun­ty, or state lines.

Giv­en that a major­i­ty of our Supreme Court thinks the exist­ing statute is ambigu­ous, the Leg­is­la­ture may wish to amend the Revised Air­ports Act to more clear­ly define where a city’s author­i­ty ends and a port’s begins.

In the mean­time, because the City of SeaT­ac’s inter­pre­ta­tion of the state laws gov­ern­ing ports has pre­vailed, work­ers earn­ing the low­er min­i­mum wage set by the Port of Seat­tle will see their pay go up. That’s a vic­to­ry to be celebrated.