Associated Builders & Contractors v. Providence

• Decision Date: 16 August 2000
• Docket Number: No. C.A.98-598-L.,C.A.98-598-L.
• Citation: 108 F.Supp.2d 73
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island
• Parties: ASSOCIATED BUILDERS & CONTRACTORS OF RHODE ISLAND, INC., Robert F. Audet, Inc., Delta Mechanical of New England, Inc., Regan Engineering & Service, Inc., Ralph Adamo, James Rezendes, and Michael Babbitt, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF PROVIDENCE, Defendant, Union Station Plaza Associates, L.P., Intervenor, Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council, Intervenor.

108 F.Supp.2d 73

ASSOCIATED BUILDERS & CONTRACTORS OF RHODE ISLAND, INC., Robert F. Audet, Inc., Delta Mechanical of New England, Inc., Regan Engineering & Service, Inc., Ralph Adamo, James Rezendes, and Michael Babbitt, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF PROVIDENCE, Defendant Union Station Plaza Associates, L.P., Intervenor Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council, Intervenor.

No. C.A.98-598-L.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

August 16, 2000.

William E. O'Gara, McGovern, Noel & Benik, Providence, RI, Robert E. Flaherty, Warwick, RI, for Plaintiffs.

Kevin P. McHugh, City of Providence Law Dept., Providence, RI, for City of Providence.

Girard R. Visconti, Visconti & Boren, Providence, RI, for Intervenor-Defendant Union Station Plaza Associates.

Marc Gursky, Providence, RI, for Intervenor-Defendant R.I. Building and Construction Trades Council.

DECISION AND ORDER

LAGUEUX, District Judge.

This case is before the Court on cross-motions for summary judgment filed by plaintiffs, defendant City of Providence ("the City") and intervenor Rhode Island Building and Construction Trade Council ("intervenor RIBCTC"). In addition, the City and intervenor RIBCTC have each filed a motion, in the alternative, to dismiss because plaintiffs lack standing to bring the suit and on mootness grounds. Because this Court concludes that plaintiffs have brought a justiciable action under Article III of the Constitution and that the City's action is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. (1994), ("NLRA"), plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment is granted and the motions of the City and intervenor RIBCTC are denied.

I. Background

Plaintiff Associated Builders and Contractors of Rhode Island is a trade organization that represents approximately ninety contractors that employ more than two thousand Rhode Island residents. Plaintiffs Robert F. Audet, Inc., Delta Mechanical of New England, Inc., and Regan Engineering & Service, Inc. are contractors with their principal place of business in Rhode Island. Plaintiffs Ralph Adamo, James Rezendes, and Michael Babbitt are construction workers employed by the plaintiff contractors. The contractor plaintiffs do not have contractual relationships with any labor organizations and operate as "open-shop" contractors that employ their own workers. The employee plaintiffs do not wish to join or be represented by a labor organization.¹

Intervenor Union Station Plaza Associates, L.P. ("intervenor Union Station"), a Rhode Island limited partnership, is a developer that is currently constructing a $15,650,000 hotel in downtown Providence ("the Union Station Project"), which is expected to be completed in July, 2000. It is unclear from the record exactly when construction on the Union Station Project began.

On November 23, 1998, the Providence City Council enacted Ordinance 1998-54 ("the tax treaty"), which establishes a tax stabilization plan for the Union Station Project, pursuant to R.I. Gen. Laws § 44-3-9. That section provides that the City Council "may vote to ... exempt from payment, in whole or in part, real and personal property used for manufacturing, commercial, or residential purposes, or to determine a stabilized amount of taxes to be paid on account of the property, notwithstanding the valuation of the property or the rate of tax[,]" provided that the City Council determines that the exemption or stabilization "will inure to the benefit of the town" by one of several stated reasons. R.I. Gen. Laws § 44-3-9(a)(1)(1999).

Pursuant to the tax treaty, the property taxes owed by intervenor Union Station are stabilized over a period of 12 years. In exchange, intervenor Union Station agrees to certain conditions. The condition at issue, contained in § 5 of the tax treaty, requires intervenor Union Station to execute and abide by a Project Labor Agreement ("PLA") with intervenor RIBCTC, an affiliation of local unions. The PLA required by § 5 of the tax treaty, like other PLAs typically used in the construction industry, establishes intervenor RIBCTC as the collective bargaining representative for all workers on the project and provides that only contractors and subcontractors who sign a pre-negotiated agreement with intervenor RIBCTC can perform work on the project. The PLA also prohibits intervenor RIBCTC or any of its affiliates from striking, picketing or boycotting throughout the life of the Project.

On December 16, 1998, plaintiffs filed a Verified Complaint and Request for Injunctive Relief. The Complaint alleges that the City intends to establish similar tax treaties, in which tax stabilization is conditioned upon an agreement by the developer to execute and enforce a PLA with intervenor RIBCTC, on several proposed construction projects in the City of Providence with total contract costs that exceed $100 million. The Complaint, in addition to alleging state law violations, alleges that such a policy is preempted by the NLRA. Plaintiffs seek injunctive and/or declaratory relief prohibiting the City from including a PLA requirement in future tax treaties. Plaintiffs also seek damages and attorneys' fees under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988.

Upon filing the Complaint, plaintiffs moved for a temporary restraining order ("TRO") enjoining the City from conditioning tax stabilization on execution and enforcement of a PLA on any private construction project, including the Union Station Project. On December 22, 1998, that motion was denied.

This writer permitted intervenors Union Station and RIBCTC to intervene in the litigation on March 16, 1999 and April 13, 1999, respectively.

On June 11, 1999 plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment, alleging that the City's actions were preempted by the NLRA as a matter of law. On July 26, 1999, the City objected to plaintiffs' motion and filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, alleging that its actions were not, as a matter of law, preempted by the NLRA, and filed, in the alternative, a motion to dismiss, alleging that plaintiffs lack standing to bring suit and that the action is moot. Putting forth these same arguments, intervenors Union Station and RIBCTC subsequently joined in the City's objection to plaintiffs' summary judgment motion and RIBCTC filed its own cross-motions for summary judgment and, in the alternative, dismissal. On November 11, 1999, this Court heard oral arguments and took the matter under advisement. The case is now ready for disposition.

The Court will first address the City's and intervenor RIBCTC's motions to dismiss for lack of standing and mootness, as these are threshold issues. The Court will then address the cross-motions for summary judgment on the merits.

II. Motion to Dismiss

A. Legal Standard

In ruling on a motion to dismiss, the Court construes the complaint in the light most favorable to plaintiff, taking all well-pleaded allegations as true and giving plaintiff the benefit of all reasonable inferences. See Figueroa v. Rivera, 147 F.3d 77, 80 (1st Cir.1998). Dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is appropriate only if "it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957).

B. Discussion

The City and intervenor RIBCTC argue first that plaintiffs lack standing to bring suit. "The doctrine of standing is `an essential and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III'" of the Constitution. Northeastern Fla. Chapter of The Associated Gen. Contractors of Am. v. City of Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656, 663, 113 S.Ct. 2297, 124 L.Ed.2d 586 (1993)(citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992)).

A party seeking to invoke a federal court's jurisdiction must demonstrate three things to establish standing:

(1) `injury in fact,' by which [is meant] an invasion of a legally protected interest that is `(a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical,'... (2) a causal relationship between the injury and the challenged conduct, by which [is meant] that the injury `fairly can be traced to the challenged action of the defendant,' and has not resulted `from the independent action of some third party not before the court,'... and (3) a likelihood that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision, by which [is meant] that the `prospect of obtaining relief from the injury as a result of a favorable ruling' is not `too speculative[.]'

Id. at 663-664, 113 S.Ct. 2297 (citations omitted). These elements are the "`irreducible minimum'... required by the Constitution." Id. at 664, 113 S.Ct. 2297 (citation omitted).

The City and intervenor RIBCTC argue that because the plaintiff contractors did not bid on the Union Station Project and have not bid on any pending projects allegedly affected by the City's policy of requiring developers to implement PLAs, and because the plaintiff employees did not work and have not attempted to work on those projects, plaintiffs cannot establish an injury in fact suffered as a result of the tax treaty, such as the loss of work or a contract. Furthermore, the City and intervenor RIBCTC argue, plaintiffs were not and are not even prevented by the City's policy from bidding or working on the Union Station Project and other projects.

It is undisputed that the plaintiff contractors did not bid on the Union Station Project and have not bid on any pending projects affected by the City's policy and that the plaintiff employees did not work and have not attempted to work on those projects. It is also undisputed that the policy does not technically prevent plaintiffs from bidding or working on affected projects—non-union contractors and employees can work on the projects as long as they agree to abide by the terms of the PLA for the length of the project. However, plaintiffs rely on the Supreme...