O'Brien v. City of Springfield

• Decision Date: 12 August 2003
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A. 02-30041-FHF.,CIV.A. 02-30041-FHF.
• Parties: Gerard C. O'BRIEN, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF SPRINGFIELD, Springfield Education Association, Massachusetts Teachers Association, and National Education Association, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

319 F.Supp.2d 90

Gerard C. O'BRIEN, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF SPRINGFIELD, Springfield Education Association, Massachusetts Teachers Association, and National Education Association, Defendants.

No. CIV.A. 02-30041-FHF.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

August 12, 2003.

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COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Gregory A. Hession, Springfield, MA, for Plaintiff.

Edward M. Pikula, Law Department, City of Springfield, Peter P. Fenton, Fenton & Fenton, Peter M. Murphy, City of Springfield, Associate City Solicitor, Springfield, MA, Amy Laura Davidson, Sandulli Grace, PC, Boston, MA, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

FREEDMAN, Senior District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

The plaintiff, Gerard C. O'Brien, a teacher in the Springfield public schools, brings suit for religious employment discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) against the City of Springfield and three affiliated teachers unions, the local Springfield Education Association (the "SEA"), the state level Massachusetts Teachers Association (the "MTA"), and the national level National Education Association (the "NEA").¹ The defendants now move for summary judgment on numerous grounds.² See Defs.' Mot. for Summ. J. (Doc. No. 16); Defs.' Mem. In Supp. of Mot. for Summ. J.(Doc. No. 17) ("Mem. In Supp."). The plaintiff opposes the defendants' motion for summary judgment. See Pl.'s Opp'n to Defs.' Mot. for Summ. J. (Doc. No. 23) ("Opp'n").

II. BACKGROUND

A. The Agency Service Fee

O'Brien teaches physical education in the Springfield public schools. While public school teachers cannot be compelled to join a teacher's union, Massachusetts law provides that a teacher's union may charge non-union teachers what is referred to as either an "agency service fee" or a "fair share fee" ("fee"). See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 150E, § 12. This fee ensures that every teacher covers their proportional share of the costs of collective bargaining and contract administration. Excluded from the agency service fee, however, are non-chargeable expenses, such as political expenditures, see Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 150E, § 12(1)-(2), and "contributions to charitable, religious or ideological causes not germane to [the union's] duties as the exclusive bargaining agent," see id. at § 12(4).

Teachers may challenge the validity or amount of an agency service fee by filing charges with the Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission ("MLRC"), see MASS. REGS. CODE tit. 456, § 17.06(1), and by simultaneously placing the disputed portion of the fee into an escrow account, see id. at § 17.07(1)-(2). Teachers bringing charges cannot be sanctioned for nonpayment of the fee while those charges are pending. See id. at § 17.16(2).

B. O'Brien's Request for Religious Accommodation

For more than fifteen years O'Brien has maintained that — and the specific articulation proves to be important in this case — his Roman Catholic beliefs have prevented him from financially supporting any organization that advocates abortion or promotes condom distribution to children in public schools.³ See Opp'n (Doc. No. 23), O'Brien Aff., ¶ 1 ("O'Brien Aff."). It was in April of 1987 that O'Brien first became aware that the SEA was officially affiliated with the MTA and the NEA, both of which directly promote condom distribution and pro-choice policies that conflict with O'Brien's Roman Catholic beliefs.⁴ See id. at ¶ 2. As a result, each year that the SEA has assessed a fair share fee, O'Brien has formally requested that he be allowed to make a "charitable substitution" in lieu of paying the fair share fee to the SEA. See, e.g., id. at ¶ 5. Each time, the SEA has refused to accommodate O'Brien's request, and with each denial, O'Brien has paid his fee into an escrow account rather than directly to the SEA. See id.

C. The SEA's Denials and Offers of Accommodation

O'Brien first appeared before the SEA Executive Committee to request a religious accommodation, along with fellow teacher and Roman Catholic, Edward Lundrigan, in September 1987. See id. at ¶ 3. The SEA voted unanimously to refuse their request. See Collins Aff. (Doc. No. 19), Exh. A (Letter from SEA President Meline Kasparian to O'Brien of 9/22/87). O'Brien maintains that the SEA also untruthfully denied that it was providing a religious accommodation to anyone else. See O'Brien Aff. at ¶ 4. After many years of requesting an accommodation and being denied, O'Brien eventually filed charges with the MLRC and joined In the Matter of Springfield Educ. Ass'n, Massachusetts Teachers Ass'n, Nat'l Educ. Ass'n et al. and Belhumeur, et al., No. ASF-2143, a case tried before that agency. Although O'Brien hoped to address his religious objections to paying the fee to the SEA, see O'Brien Aff. at ¶ 5, the case was eventually appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ("SJC") and decided on other grounds, see Belhumeur v. Labor Relations Comm'n, 432 Mass. 458, 735 N.E.2d 860 (2000), cert, denied 532 U.S. 904, 121 S.Ct. 1227, 149 L.Ed.2d 137 (2001) (finding some of the contested expenses to be non-chargeable) ("Belhumeur II").

In December 1994, SEA Treasurer Al Fabbre revealed to O'Brien that Frank Savoy, a Springfield school counselor, was allowed to pay his fees directly to charity since October 1985 because of his religious objection. See O'Brien Aff. at ¶ 6. Letters written by various SEA treasurers to Mr. Savoy reveal that the SEA instructed him to forward payment for the "full equivalent of dues" to the SEA made out to an acceptable charity.⁵ See Opp'n (Doc. No. 23), Exh. A (Letters from SEA Treasurer to Frank Savoy of 11/19/85, 12/23/87, 11/2/88, 10/17/89, 7/11/90, 2/6/91, 12/2/92, 11/2/93, 11/4/94, 11/7/95, 12/19/96, 10/17/97, 11/18/98, and 10/18/99) ("Savoy Letters"). The SEA granted this accommodation to Mr. Savoy because of his objections as a Seventh Day Adventist. See id."[T]he religious foundation of the Seventh Day Adventist faith's opposition to union membership has long been [judicially] recognized." See Equal Employment Opportunity Comm'n v. Union Independiente De La Autoridad De Acueductos Y Alcantarillados De Puerto, 279 F.3d 49, 56 (1st Cir.2002) (citing cases).

Within a month of learning that the SEA was granting someone a religious accommodation, O'Brien met with SEA President Linda C. Wilson, hoping to obtain a religious accommodation similar to that granted to Mr. Savoy. See O'Brien Aff. at ¶ 8. Wilson denied O'Brien's request, flatly refusing even to discuss Mr. Savoy's situation. See id. A month later, in January of 1995, the SEA threatened to suspend O'Brien and six other teachers for five days without pay if they continued to refuse to pay agency service fees for the 1993-94 school year. See Collins. Aff. (Doc. No. 19), Exhs. C (from SEA President Linda C. Wilson to O'Brien of 1/17/95) (urging O'Brien to pay agency service fee or face five day suspension without pay) and E (Letter from SEA President Linda C. Wilson to Superintendent Peter Negroni of 1/26/95) (requesting superintendent to suspend for five days without pay six teachers for their failure to either join union or pay agency service fee). O'Brien sent yet another request to Brian J. McCook, the attorney for the Springfield School Department, for an accommodation similar to that granted to Mr. Savoy. See Collins. Aff. (Doc. No. 19), Exh. F (Letter from O'Brien to Springfield School Department Attorney Brian J. McCook of 3/8/95). The SEA responded with the first of three offers of accommodation, see Collins. Aff. (Doc. No. 19), Exh. G (Letter from SEA President Linda C. Wilson to O'Brien of 5/12/95) (first proposed accommodation), and postponed O'Brien's imminent suspension, see Opp'n (Doc. No. 23), Exh. B (Letter from Springfield School Department Attorney Brian J. McCook to O'Brien of 3/16/95) (informing O'Brien that his suspension was "put on hold"); O'Brien Aff. at ¶ 10. Because the parties contest the reasonableness of each of these three offers, the Court will elaborate on them.

1. The First Proposed Accommodation

The SEA's first offer would have allowed O'Brien to pay an amount equivalent to full union dues to the local SEA only. See Collins. Aff. (Doc. No. 19), Exh. G (Letter from SEA President Linda C. Wilson to O'Brien of 5/12/95). The SEA promised not to allocate any of O'Brien's funds to the MTA or the NEA as it normally would. See id. The letter justified this proposed accommodation by stating that the SEA took no position regarding abortion or condom distribution and that this was the same accommodation adopted in Equal Employment Opportunity Comm'n v. Univ. of Detroit, 904 F.2d 331 (6th Cir.1990). See id. O'Brien states further that at the time the SEA made the offer, it denied that a large portion of its budget went to the MTA and the NEA when, as O'Brien alleges, such a representation was untrue. See O'Brien Aff. at ¶ 12.

O'Brien declined this first offer because the SEA was affiliated with and contributed money to the MTA and NEA, both of which are pro-abortion and expend money they receive from the SEA to further their ideological causes. See id. at ¶ 13. O'Brien believed this offer would induce him to support the causes to which he religiously opposed, and requested that he be allowed to pay his agency fee directly to charity as he believed Mr. Savoy was allowed to do. See id.

On June 15, 1995, after O'Brien refused to accept the accommodation, the SEA reinstated its request to suspend him for five days without pay. See Collins. Aff. (Doc. No. 19), Exh. H (Letter from SEA President Linda C. Wilson to Superintendent Peter Negroni of 6/15/95).

2. O'Brien's Suspension

In October 1995, after proceedings before the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination ("MCAD"), the SEA decided to allow Mr. Lundrigan to release all of the money that he paid into escrow as service agency fees pursuant to Belhumeur II directly to a charity. See Opp'n (Doc. No. 23), Exh. C (Letter from Mr. Lundrigan's Attorney, John C. Scully, to MTA...