Cite as: 512 U. S. 246 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
of contract, it would be inconsistent with congressional intent under that section to pre-empt state rules that proscribe conduct, or establish rights and obligations, independent of a labor contract." Id., at 211-212.8
In a case remarkably similar to the case before us now, this Court made clear that the existence of a potential CBA-based remedy did not deprive an employee of independent remedies available under state law. In Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, Inc., 486 U. S. 399 (1988), an employee covered by a labor agreement was fired for filing an allegedly false worker's compensation claim. After filing a grievance pursuant to her CBA, which protected employees against discharge except for "proper" or "just" cause, she filed a complaint in state court, alleging that she had been discharged for exercising her rights under Illinois worker's compensation laws. The state court had held her state-law claim preempted because "the same analysis of the facts" was required in both the grievance proceeding and the state-court action. This Court reversed.
It recognized that where the resolution of a state-law claim depends on an interpretation of the CBA, the claim is preempted. Id., at 405-406, citing Lueck, supra; Teamsters v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U. S. 95 (1962). It observed, however, that "purely factual questions" about an employee's conduct or an employer's conduct and motives do not "requir[e] a court to interpret any term of a collective-bargaining agreement."
8 The Court applies these principles in Livadas v. Bradshaw, in which we reject the claim that an employee's state-law right to receive a penalty payment from her employer was pre-empted under § 301 because the penalty was pegged to her wages, which were determined by the governing CBA. The Court states that "when the meaning of contract terms is not the subject of dispute, the bare fact that a collective-bargaining agreement will be consulted in the course of state-law litigation plainly does not require the claim to be extinguished." Ante, at 124, citing Lingle v. Norge Div. of Magic Chef, Inc., 486 U. S., at 413, n. 12. In addition, it reaffirms that "§ 301 cannot be read broadly to pre-empt nonnegotiable rights conferred on individual employees as a matter of state law." Ante, at 123.
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