Bachowski v. Brennan

• Citation: 405 F. Supp. 1227
• Decision Date: 19 December 1975
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 73-0954.
• Parties: Walter BACHOWSKI, Plaintiff, v. Peter BRENNAN, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, and United Steelworkers of America, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

405 F. Supp. 1227

Walter BACHOWSKI, Plaintiff, v. Peter BRENNAN, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, and United Steelworkers of America, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 73-0954.

United States District Court, W. D. Pennsylvania

December 19, 1975.

Kenneth Y. Jablonski, Washington, Pa., for plaintiff.

James D. English, Pittsburgh, Pa., Beate Bloch, Associate Sol., U. S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, D. C., Stephen Ernst, Philadelphia, Pa., Robert Weinberg, Bredhoff, Cushman, Gottesman & Cohen, Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Washington, D. C., for defendants.

OPINION

DUMBAULD, District Judge.

In response to revelations regarding unsavory practices in the management of labor unions, Congress enacted the "Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959",¹ commonly known as LMRDA or the Landrum-Griffin Act, to purify the process of collective bargaining by ensuring that unions were genuinely representative of the interests of their membership, and not exploited for the private advantage of corrupt labor tycoons. The original bill dealing with this subject was introduced on January 20, 1959, by Senator John F. Kennedy to "protect workers, employers, honest unions, and the general public from the unscrupulous or dictatorial tactics of the few rackateers."² Even in this first draft of the legislation there was contained a provision practically identical with Section 402 as enacted (29 U.S.C.A. § 482) providing for enforcement of the statutory provisions to ensure honest democratic elections by means of a suit brought by the Secretary of Labor, and a new election under his supervision if violations are proved.³

The House passed a bill authorizing suit by individual union members rather than by the Secretary.⁴ In conference the Senate version was accepted.⁵

Section 402 of Title IV of the Act (73 Stat. 534, 29 U.S.C.A. § 482) provides:

Sec. 402(a) A member of a labor organization —

(1) who has exhausted the remedies available under the constitution and bylaws of such organization and of any parent body, or

(2) who has invoked such available remedies without obtaining a final decision within three calendar months after their invocation,

may file a complaint with the Secretary within one calendar month thereafter alleging the violation of any provision of section 401 (including violation of the constitution and bylaws of the labor organization pertaining to the election and removal of officers). The challenged election shall be presumed valid pending a final decision thereon (as hereinafter provided) and in the interim the affairs of the organization shall be conducted by the officers elected or in such other manner as its constitution and bylaws may provide.

(b) The Secretary shall investigate such complaint and, if he finds probable cause to believe that a violation of this title has occurred and has not been remedied, he shall, within sixty days after the filing of such complaint, bring a civil action against the labor organization as an entity in the district court of the United States in which such labor organization maintains its principal office to set aside the invalid election, if any, and to direct the conduct of an election or hearing and vote upon the removal of officers under the supervision of the Secretary and in accordance with the provisions of this title and such rules and regulations as the Secretary may prescribe. The court shall have power to take such action as it deems proper to preserve the assets of the labor organization.

(c) If, upon a preponderance of the evidence after a trial upon the merits, the court finds —

(1) that an election has not been held within the time prescribed by section 401, or

(2) that the violation of section 401 may have affected the outcome of an election,

the court shall declare the election, if any, to be void and direct the conduct of a new election under supervision of the Secretary and, so far as lawful and practicable, in conformity with the constitution and bylaws of the labor organization. The Secretary shall promptly certify to the court the names of the persons elected, and the court shall thereupon enter a decree declaring such persons to be the officers of the labor organization. If the proceeding is for the removal of officers pursuant to subsection (h) of section 401, the Secretary shall certify the results of the vote and the court shall enter a decree declaring whether such persons have been removed as officers of the labor organization.

(d) An order directing an election, dismissing a complaint, or designating elected officers of a labor organization shall be appealable in the same manner as the final judgment in a civil action, but an order directing an election shall not be stayed pending appeal.⁶

Subsequent decisions by the Supreme Court interpreting the Act established that the remedy of suit by the Secretary is exclusive with respect to claims of violation after an election has been held, and that individual union members have no standing to sue in their own right.⁷ They may intervene in a suit brought by the Secretary but may not expand the scope of the issues involved by introducing new questions.⁸ Apparently the Secretary himself may broaden the issues if his investigation unearths additional violations.⁹

With these principles in mind, this Court summarily dismissed plaintiff's instant suit to compel the Secretary to bring an action which the Secretary had decided, after complaint and investigation, not to bring.

This Court was convinced that it had no more business to order the Secretary to file suit than it had to order Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski to indict Richard Milhous Nixon for Watergate transgressions, or to direct President Ford whether he should or should not appoint a particular individual as a Justice of the Supreme Court to fill a vacancy on that tribunal.

The subsequent course of the litigation (in which this Court's decision was reversed by the Court of Appeals,¹⁰ and the Court of Appeals decision was reversed by the Supreme Court)¹¹ disclosed that this simple-minded¹² view was too simplistic.

The Court of Appeals relied chiefly on the Administrative Procedure Act (APA),¹³ a legislative landmark enacted in 1946 after much endeavor on the part of the American Bar Association, to allay the spectre of "the rise of administrative absolutism" which haunted Dean Roscoe Pound during the later years of his life.¹⁴

Section 10(a) of the APA provided that "Except so far as (1) statutes preclude judicial review or (2) agency action is by law committed to agency discretion . . . any person . . . adversely affected . . . by agency action . . . shall be entitled to judicial review thereof."¹⁵ Section 10(c) proclaimed that "every final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in any court shall be subject to judicial review."¹⁶ The scope of such review is specified in Section 10(e).¹⁷

"Agency" is defined as "each authority . . . of the Government of the United States other than Congress, the courts, or the governments of the possessions, Territories, or the District of Columbia."¹⁸

No doubt the Secretary of Labor's decision not to bring suit to seek a new union election was an act done by authority of the United States government; and one that adversely affected the members who hoped for better results if a new election were held. But there remained the question whether the matter was "by law committed to agency discretion."¹⁹

Construing these words in accordance with notions of public policy, the Court of Appeals held that judicial review of the Secretary's decision not to bring suit "should extend at the very least to an inquiry into his reasons for that decision to ensure that he has not abused the discretion granted him . . .. Plaintiff is entitled to a sufficiently specific statement of the factors upon which the Secretary relied in reaching his decision not to file suit so that plaintiff may have information concerning the allegations contained in his complaint." 502 F.2d at 89-90.²⁰

In pursuance of the mandate of the Court of Appeals this Court entered an order requiring the Secretary "to furnish a statement of reasons."²¹

In pursuance of this order, the Secretary filed a statement, which appears as an appendix to the Supreme Court opinion, at 421 U.S. 578-90, 95 S.Ct. 1851.

The Supreme Court on June 2, 1975, reversing the Court of Appeals said:

"We hold . . . that the Court of Appeals erred insofar as its opinion construes 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A) to authorize a trial-type inquiry into the factual bases of the Secretary's conclusion that no violations occurred affecting the outcome of the election." 421 U.S. at 566, 95 S.Ct. at 1857.

The Supreme Court detected in LMRDA "a congressional purpose narrowly to limit the scope of judicial review of the Secretary's decision." 421 U.S. at 568, 95 S.Ct. at 1858.

The Court concluded that (1): "clearly the reviewing court is not authorized to substitute its judgment for the decision of the Secretary not to bring suit; (2) therefore to enable the reviewing court intelligently to review the Secretary's determination, the Secretary must provide the court and the complaining witness with copies of a statement of reasons supporting his determination." 421 U.S. at 571, 95 S.Ct. at 1860.

The Court went on to say that "Except in what must be the rare case,²² the court's review should be confined to examination of the reasons statement, and the determination whether the statement without more evinces that the Secretary's decision is so irrational as to constitute the decision arbitrary and capricious. . . . The statement of reasons must be adequate to enable the court to determine whether the Secretary's decision was reached for an impermissible reason or for no reason at all." Hence it "should inform the court and the complaining union member of both the grounds of decision and the essential facts upon which the Secretary's inferences are based." 421 U.S. at...