Marshall v. Stevens People and Friends for Freedom, ALF-CI
| Decision Date | 04 August 1981 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 80-1490,A,80-1715 and 80-1716,ALF-CI,CL,s. 80-1490 |
| Citation | 108 LRRM 2024,669 F.2d 171 |
| Parties | 108 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2024, 92 Lab.Cas. P 12,944 Ray MARSHALL, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Appellant, v. STEVENS PEOPLE AND FRIENDS FOR FREEDOM and E. C. (Mildred) Ramsey, Appellees. Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union,micus Curiae. Ray MARSHALL, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Appellant, v. John G. HUTCHENS, Appellee. Ray MARSHALL, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Appellant, v. J. P. STEVENS EMPLOYEES EDUCATION COMMITTEE, Eugene Ray Patterson, Wilson Lambert, Robert A. Valois, and Robert T. Click, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Marleigh Dover Lang, Atty., Civ. Div., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Alice Daniel, Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D.C., Thomas E. Lydon, U.S. Atty., Columbia, S.C., and James L. Blackburn, U.S. Atty., Raleigh, N.C., William Kanter, Atty., Civ. Div., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., on brief), for appellant.
Michael Ernest Avakian, North Springfield, Va. (Baker Armstrong Smith, Atlanta, Ga., Albert Q. Taylor, Jr., Leatherwood, Walker, Todd & Mann, Greenville, S.C., on brief), for appellees Stevens People and Friends for Freedom.
John V. Hunter, III, Raleigh, N.C. (Hunter, Wharton & Howell, Raleigh, N.C., on brief), for appellees John G. Hutchens and J. P. Stevens Emp. Ed. Committee.
Johnathan R. Harkavy, Smith, Patterson, Follin, Curtis, James & Harkavy, Greensboro, N.C., Arthur M. Goldberg, Gen. Counsel, Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, AFL-CIO, CLC, Washington, D.C., amicus curiae.
Before BUTZNER, PHILLIPS and MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judges.
In these consolidated cases, the Secretary of Labor seeks to enforce subpoenas issued to several individuals and two committees of the J. P. Stevens Co., Inc., which were formed to oppose unionization of Stevens' textile mills. The Secretary issued the subpoenas as part of an investigation concerning possible violations of § 203 of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. § 433. This section, among other things, requires disclosure of information about activities undertaken to persuade employees with respect to the exercise of their collective bargaining rights.
The district courts quashed the subpoenas in their entirety on the ground that enforcement would have a chilling effect on the first amendment rights of the committees, their members, and contributors. We believe that disclosure of information identifying Stevens' non-supervisory employees is unwarranted. We conclude, however, that the district courts should have enforced the subpoenas with respect to the other information the Secretary sought.
Appellees in 80-1490 are Stevens People and Friends for Freedom and one of its officers. The Secretary issued a subpoena to the committee requesting lists of contributors, records of receipts and disbursements, bank statements, cancelled checks, correspondence records, minutes of meetings, and any agreements to assist Stevens, the Stevens Employees Education Committee, or the North Carolina Fund for Individual Rights. The subpoena served on the officer required her to testify concerning possible violations of the LMRDA.
Upon the Secretary's petition for enforcement, pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 521, the district court quashed the administrative subpoenas in their entirety because they would have a chilling effect on appellees' first amendment rights. While acknowledging that the Secretary is required to investigate violations of the Act, the court held that the Secretary could not obtain any information from the committee or its officer until he filed a suit to require a report of persuader activities as provided by the Act. At that time, the court noted, the government could rely on "those sanctions that the law normally places upon those who file deliberately falsified reports to the government."
Appeals 80-1715 and 80-1716 were consolidated in the District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. 1 Appellees are the J. P. Stevens Employees Education Committee, 2 an anti-union association of employees at a Stevens mill, several persons associated with the committee, and a solicitor of funds for the committee.
The Secretary issued subpoenas to the committee and the individuals requesting information similar to that requested from Stevens People and its officers. After the appellees refused to respond, the Secretary filed suit seeking enforcement of the subpoenas.
The district court rejected the appellees' statutory contention that since they have no disclosure duties under the LMRDA, they cannot be investigated by the Secretary. It ruled that "(e)ven if the respondents had no duty to disclose, the Secretary still may subpoena and investigate them under his broad powers to ferret out relevant information wherever it may be found." Further, the court held that the Secretary's investigative powers are so broad "that he need not first establish that a contribution or agreement (between the committee and Stevens) in fact exists before he investigates it." 495 F.Supp. at 558.
The court next addressed the appellees' claim that enforcement of the subpoenas would infringe their first amendment rights. It found that the appellees "have shown a 'reasonable probability' that economic and physical reprisals will occur upon disclosure of membership and contributors list to the Secretary." 495 F.Supp. at 561. 3 It also ruled that "(t)he information sought by the Secretary is strictly tailored to the purpose of determining whether violations of the LMRDA have occurred." 495 F.Supp. at 562.
The court then balanced the appellees' "freedom to come together in privacy for the purpose of developing their ideas and to receive confidential contributions" against "(t)he government interest in fairness and above-board dealings during a labor conflict." 495 F.Supp. at 564. It held that "(t)he rough equivalence in weight of the competing interests when balanced against each other leads the court to conclude that the (appellees') First Amendment interests must prevail." 495 F.Supp. at 565. Consequently, the court granted the motion to quash the subpoenas in their entirety.
At the outset, we address the appellees' contention that even if the subpoenas were properly issued, their enforcement is now a moot issue. The Secretary recently informed the J. P. Stevens Employees Education Committee that it is required to file a report under the LMRDA. This request for a report, the committee contends, is an admission that no further investigation is required. Further, the committee maintains that this case is moot because the Secretary has already obtained information from its bank account that discloses the identity of some committee contributors.
We cannot agree that these developments render the enforcement issue moot. While the bank records have provided the Secretary with some of the information requested in the subpoenas, he continues to seek information about contributions not disclosed by these records. The Secretary's determination, based on the bank records, that the committee is required to disclose its persuader activities does not end his investigation of possible violations of the Act by Stevens or other persons who also may be required to file reports.
Closely related to the appellees' contention that enforcement has been mooted is their assertion that enforcement of the subpoenas is unnecessary. The Secretary acknowledged in his brief that Stevens should be able to provide copies of its agreements, if any, with the committees. Therefore, the appellees contend that enforcement should be denied because the Secretary has other sources for the information he seeks. In support of their position, they rely on International Union, UAW v. National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation, Inc., 590 F.2d 1139 (D.C.Cir.1978).
In International Union, UAW, the court vacated discovery sanctions imposed under Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and remanded the case for determination of whether the union, which was seeking the names of contributors to the foundation, had other reasonable sources of information. The court did not decide whether the information ultimately would be subject to discovery. 590 F.2d at 1152-53 and n.19. Also, the court held that there was no private right of action under § 203 of the LMRDA, noting that Congress had conferred exclusive enforcement authority on the Secretary of Labor. Here, in contrast, we are not reviewing the scope of the Rules' discovery provisions or the right of a private litigant to enforce § 203. The Secretary's investigatory powers are conferred by § 601 of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 521, and are not circumscribed by the Civil Rules. Moreover, unlike a union, the Secretary is authorized to institute necessary suits to enforce the Act. Therefore, International Union, UAW, is not persuasive precedent.
We conclude that because the information sought by the Secretary is relevant to his continuing investigation, the issue of enforcement is neither moot nor unnecessary.
Before considering the appellees' constitutional challenge to the subpoenas, we must first address their statutory challenge. See Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 347, 56 S.Ct. 466, 483, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1936) (Brandeis, J.). The appellees claim that associations of employees cannot be required under § 203(b) of the Act to disclose their persuader activities and that therefore they have no duty to disclose the subpoenaed information. Section 203(b), 29 U.S.C. § 433(b), requires, in part:
Every person who pursuant to any agreement or arrangement with an employer undertakes activities...
(1) to persuade employees to exercise or not to exercise ... the right to organize and bargain...
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