Aliser v. SEIU Cal., Case No. 19-cv-00426-VC

• Decision Date: 10 December 2019
• Docket Number: Case No. 19-cv-00426-VC
• Citation: 419 F.Supp.3d 1161
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California
• Parties: Ruth ALISER, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SEIU CALIFORNIA, et al., Defendants.

419 F.Supp.3d 1161

Ruth ALISER, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.SEIU CALIFORNIA, et al., Defendants.

Case No. 19-cv-00426-VC

United States District Court, N.D. California.

Signed December 10, 2019

Bradley A. Benbrook, Stephen Duvernay, Benbrook Law Group, Sacramento, CA, Jonathan Franklin Mitchell, Mitchell Law PLLC, Austin, TX, Talcott Jay Franklin, Talcott Franklin P.C., Dallas, TX, for Plaintiffs.

Jeffrey B. Demain, Patrick Casey Pitts, Rebecca C. Lee, Scott A. Kronland, Stacey M. Leyton, Zoe Louise Palitz, Altshuler Berzon LLP, San Francisco, CA, Caren P. Sencer, Kerianne Ruth Steele, Eric Jason Wiesner, Weinberg, Roger & Rosenfeld A Professional Corporation, Alameda, CA, William Ross Warne, Annie Smith Amaral, Downey Brand LLP, Anthony Paul O'Brien, Office of the Attorney General Government Law Section, Sacramento, CA, for Defendants.

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART MOTIONS TO DISMISS

Re: Dkt. Nos. 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 114, 118

VINCE CHHABRIA, United States District Judge

This lawsuit is one of many that have been filed in the wake of Janus v. American Federation of State, County, & Municipal Employees, Council 31 , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 2448, 201 L.Ed.2d 924 (2018). It is brought by 20 named plaintiffs who seek to represent multiple classes. It asserts ten "counts," and names 16 defendants. But many of the ten "counts" jumble together multiple disparate allegations or legal arguments, specifying neither the claim being asserted nor the particular defendant (or defendants) against whom the claim is made. Several of the counts are written in a largely incomprehensible fashion. It's obvious that many of the plaintiffs have been improperly joined in the same lawsuit, making it even more difficult to sift through the allegations. And in many respects the complaint fails to put the defendants on notice of the conduct for which they must defend themselves.

Despite all this, the defendants have made their best efforts to decipher the allegations in the complaint, and they have filed motions to dismiss. The motions are granted in part and denied in part.

1. Count 1 seeks a refund of payments made to public-sector unions prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Janus. Contrary to the characterization in the SEIU defendants' motion to dismiss, this count seeks reimbursement of payments by both plaintiffs who paid fair-share fees and plaintiffs who joined unions and paid membership dues. As to both groups of plaintiffs, these claims are dismissed with prejudice as against all defendants. The section 1983 claims by plaintiffs who paid only fair-share fees are dismissed because Janus does not entitle them to a refund of fair-share fees for the reasons stated in the following cases: Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 , 942 F.3d 352, 367 (7th Cir. 2019) ; Carey v. Inslee , 364 F. Supp. 3d 1220, 1233 (W.D. Wash. 2019) ; Danielson v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 28 , 340 F. Supp. 3d 1083, 1087 (W.D. Wash. 2018) ; Cook v. Brown , 364 F. Supp. 3d 1184, 1192-93 (D. Or. 2019) ; Hough v. SEIU Local 521 , 2019 WL 1785414, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 16, 2019) (Chhabria, J.).¹ The claims by plaintiffs who paid membership dues and seek reimbursement equal to the amount of fair-share fees are dismissed for the reasons explained in the following cases: Bermudez v. SEIU Local 521 , 2019 WL 1615414 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 16, 2019) (Chhabria, J.); Crockett v. NEA-Alaska , 367 F. Supp. 3d 996, 1008 (D. Alaska 2019) ; Babb , 378 F. Supp. 3d at 876-77.²

2. Count 2 alleges that certain union defendants did not promptly accept certain plaintiffs' resignations from union membership. The SEIU defendants do not move to dismiss these claims, but the California State Employees Association (CSEA) and California State Retirees (CSR) do. The complaint alleges that CSEA and CSR "violated Mariam Noujaim's constitutional rights by failing to promptly accept her resignations from membership, and by forcing her to take the needlessly burdensome step of submitting her resignation by mail or fax." ¶ 282. This claim fails because neither Janus nor any other case creates a right to resign from union membership in any manner that one pleases. Cf. Babb , 378 F. Supp. 3d at 886 ("Janus does not hold that employees have the right to resign from a union however they want, regardless of state laws that provide clear, common sense procedures for doing so."). This is so at the very least where the union's rules (or contract provisions) governing resignation are reasonable, and the alleged rules here – requiring resignations to be communicated by mail or fax – are reasonable. Cf. id. ("Submitting a writing to the Union Defendants to halt payroll deductions is not a burdensome requirement."). The claims against CSEA and CSR under Count 2 are dismissed with prejudice.

3. Count 3 raises a panoply of jumbled claims and legal theories. Several of the claims seem redundant with those raised elsewhere in the complaint. Compare, e.g. , Count 1 ¶ 260 ("The plaintiffs who chose to join the union did not ‘consent’ to the payment of full membership dues ....") and Count 6 ¶ 310 ("[N]one of the plaintiffs in this case has ever provided legally valid consent to union membership ....") with Count 3 ¶ 287 ("[A]ny public employee that signed a pre-Janus union-membership contract was unconstitutionally coerced and did not provide legally valid consent."); compare, e.g. , Count 2 ¶ 268 ("Public employees have a constitutional right to terminate their union membership at any time ....) with Count 3 ¶ 286 ("A public employee has the constitutional right to revoke his or her union membership ... at any time ...."). Count 3 is not comprehensible enough to adjudicate, as the confused briefing on these motions to dismiss amply demonstrates. It is therefore dismissed. Leave to amend is granted, but only to the extent that Count 3 truly raises legal claims that are distinct from those asserted in, for example, Counts 1, 2, and 6.

4. In Count 4, six plaintiffs assert claims against their public employers under section 1983 for continuing to deduct union dues from their paychecks after the plaintiffs had communicated to their employers their desire to resign from union membership. As the plaintiffs acknowledge, the employers were acting pursuant to California Government Code section 1157.12(b), which requires public employers to direct all employee requests for changes in dues deductions to the unions, and to rely on the unions for information regarding which employees should have dues deducted from their paychecks.

Regardless of whether it violates the Constitution for public employers to rely on unions for information regarding dues deductions, the plaintiffs have not adequately alleged that the three county defendants (Riverside, Monterey, and Alameda) are liable for this conduct under Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York , 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). For municipal liability to attach under Monell , the constitutional violation must be caused by an official policy of the municipality. Sandoval v. County of Sonoma , 912 F.3d 509, 517 (9th Cir. 2018). Here, however, the plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged any county policy of relying on unions for dues deduction information – rather, it appears that the counties were simply complying with state law. See California Government Code § 1157.12. The state statute uses mandatory language, and the plaintiffs have not suggested that the counties had discretion under state law to act contrary to the statute's instructions. See id. ("Public employers ... shall ... [d]irect employee requests to cancel or change deductions for employee organizations to the employee organization, rather than to the public employer. The public employer shall rely on information provided by the employee organization regarding whether deductions for an employee organization were properly canceled or changed ...." (emphasis added)). When a municipality exercises no discretion and merely complies with a mandatory state law, the constitutional violation was not caused by an official policy of the municipality. See Vives v. City of New York , 524 F.3d 346, 353 (2d Cir. 2008) ; see also Evers v. County of Custer , 745 F.2d 1196, 1203 (9th Cir. 1984) ; Sandoval , 912 F.3d at 518 (citing Evers ). This requirement bars the plaintiffs' claims against the counties for both prospective and retrospective relief. See Los Angeles v. Humphries , 562 U.S. 29, 37, 131 S.Ct. 447, 178 L.Ed.2d 460 (2010).

The plaintiffs argue that Monell liability can be based on the counties' policies of "establish[ing] and enforc[ing] an agency shop," Dkt. 124 at 4. But that is wrong. The general decision to contract with unions using an agency shop arrangement did not "cause" the specific allegedly unconstitutional conduct that forms the basis of this claim. See Villegas v. Gilroy Garlic Festival Association , 541 F.3d 950, 957 (9th Cir. 2008) ("[T]here must be a direct causal link between a municipal policy or custom and the alleged constitutional deprivation.") (quoting City of Canton v. Harris , 489 U.S. 378, 385, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989) ). Count 4 is therefore dismissed with prejudice as to the counties.

Count 4 also alleges a claim against the California State University Board of Trustees. To the extent the plaintiffs seek prospective relief for this claim, it is moot for the reasons set forth in the next section regarding Count 5, and it is dismissed without leave to amend. To the extent it seeks retrospective relief, the California Attorney General states in his motion to dismiss that the Board of Trustees serves only an "administrative function[ ] in the processing of payroll deductions" and therefore "do[es] not take any position on the merits of these claims" and "will abide by the Court's orders." Dkt. 107-1 at 10.

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