Brookens v. Gamble
| Decision Date | 19 October 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 20-cv-1740 (CRC) |
| Parties | BENOIT BROOKENS, Plaintiff, v. LARHONDA GAMBLE, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
This case arises from a dispute about union membership. Plaintiff Benoit Brookens considers himself a retired member of the American Federation of Government Employees ("AFGE") Local 12. Local 12 says he is not eligible for membership. Consistent with that position, Local 12 stopped accepting Mr. Brookens's dues, enlisted help from the U.S. Department of Labor ("DOL") to prevent him from attending membership meetings, and denied him the right to vote on a recent collective bargaining agreement ("CBA"). Brookens, proceeding pro se, sued Local 12, its president LaRhonda Gamble, Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia, and DOL security officer Timothy Deane. In his Complaint and accompanying Motion for Preliminary Injunction, he asks the Court to stay the effect of the new CBA on which he was not allowed to vote. The defendants move to dismiss the Complaint.
The Court concludes that Brookens's claims must be dismissed. Brookens principally claims the defendants committed unfair labor practices under the Civil Service Reform Act ("CSRA") and violated the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act ("LMRDA"). But the Court cannot hear unfair labor practice claims involving the federal government's workforce, nor can it rule on LMRDA claims regarding the conduct of unions that exclusively represent government workers, such as Local 12. Brookens's claim that the defendants violated his constitutional rights similarly fails because he has not exhausted his administrative remedies—a failure that both deprives the Court of subject matter jurisdiction and prevents Brookens from stating a claim upon which relief can be granted. The Court will therefore grant the pending motions to dismiss and decline to issue a preliminary injunction.
The following facts are alleged in the Complaint or drawn from the declaration of AFGE Local 12 President LaRhonda Gamble, the accuracy of which Brookens does not dispute in relevant part.
Local 12's membership consists entirely of current DOL employees, former employees who retired from DOL, and former employees who were terminated by DOL without cause. Gamble Decl. ¶ 3. Local 12's bargaining team is authorized to engage in collective bargaining with DOL. Compl. ¶ 32. According to Brookens, members of the bargaining team must be elected by Local 12's membership. Id. ¶ 31.
Brookens became a member of Local 12 around January 1990. Id. ¶ 5. In his telling, he has been a "retired" member of Local 12 since approximately August 2007. Id.1 Since he stopped working for DOL, Brookens has continued to send checks to Local 12 for his union dues, although Local 12 has rejected at least some of those checks. Id. ¶ 18. Local 12 permitted Brookens to participate in union activities until 2018. Gamble Decl. ¶ 10.
In 2017, the national AFGE placed Local 12 into trusteeship although, according to Brookens, there was "no valid legal reason" to do so. Compl. ¶ 16. Brookens took "legal action" in response. Id. ¶ 17. Brookens alleges that because of his legal action, Local 12 elections were held in 2018, and the trusteeship was vacated shortly thereafter. Id.
Local 12 subsequently concluded that Brookens was no longer entitled to membership in the union. Gamble Decl. ¶ 12. Around the same time, Local 12 began excluding Brookens from membership activities and enlisting the help of DOL security officers to keep him out of union meetings held in the DOL building. According to the Complaint and attached exhibits, Brookens has been ejected from union meetings or prevented from entering the DOL building on at least five occasions. See Compl. Ex. 3 (); Compl. ¶ 20-21 (); Compl. Ex. 4 (); Compl. ¶ 10 (); id. ¶¶ 18-19 (). As a result, Brookens cannot participate in Local 12 meetings, nor can he attend events at the DOL building or access the building's facilities, including the labor law library, the post office, and exhibit spaces. Id. ¶¶ 35-37.
In March and June 2019, Brookens submitted administrative charges to the Federal Labor Relations Authority ("FLRA"), complaining of his exclusion from Local 12 meetings by Local 12 and DOL officials. Compl. Exs. 3, 4. The FLRA dismissed those charges, and Brookensappealed those dismissals to the FLRA's Office of General Counsel. Compl. ¶ 26. At the time of the Complaint, the Office of General Counsel had not ruled on the appeals. Id. ¶ 27.
In or around May 2020, then-President of Local 12 Jeffrey Wheeler resigned under what Brookens describes, without elaboration, as "highly irregular and questionable circumstances." Id. ¶ 7. Gamble then assumed the presidency of Local 12. Id. Also in May 2020, Local 12 presented its membership with a new CBA, which was set to take effect on July 1, 2020. Id. ¶¶ 13, 33. The CBA was subject to ratification by a vote of Local 12 members. Id. ¶ 13. Brookens, however, was denied the right to vote on the CBA. Id. ¶ 15.
Brookens filed this action in June 2020, days before the new CBA was to take effect. The five-count Complaint cites two federal statutes—the CSRA, 5 U.S.C. § 7116 et seq., and the LMRDA, 29 U.S.C. § 411 et seq.—as bases for jurisdiction, but it does not clearly state which claims arise under which statute. Compl. ¶ 3. Brookens also alleges that certain actions by Deane and Gamble violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Id. ¶ 29. The Complaint requests "injunctive relief, staying the effect of . . . the now allegedly member ratified CBA." Id. ¶ 38 (capitalization altered). Brookens immediately moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent the CBA from taking effect "on the grounds that [the] Ratification vote for the contract is obviously highly irregular and biased." Mot. for Prelim. Injunction.
The case was initially assigned to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan but was reassigned to this Court in August 2020 because a separate case brought by Brookens was pending before the undersigned. After the case was reassigned, the Court entered an order noting that no proof of service had been filed and advising the parties that the Court would not take up the preliminary injunction motion until the Complaint was properly served. Minute Order (Aug. 12, 2020).
Local 12 and Gamble (together "Union Defendants") moved to dismiss the Complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and for failure to effect service of process. Union Defs.' Mem. 1. Deane and Secretary Scalia (together "Federal Defendants") then filed a separate motion to dismiss, arguing that the Complaint fails to state a claim because it admits that Brookens did not exhaust his administrative remedies before filing suit. Federal Defs.' Mem. 5-6.
Brookens responded to both motions with a combined filing styled "Motion to Strike Defendant Union's Motion to Dismiss and Response to Federal Defendant's Motion" ("Opp."). He argues, without citing authority, that the Union Defendants waived their arguments for dismissal by failing to raise them in their Notice of Related Cases. Opp. 2. He also argues on the merits that the Court has jurisdiction over the Complaint, that the Complaint states a cognizable claim, and that the exhaustion arguments raised by both groups of defendants should be rejected. Opp. 3-8.2
Both groups of defendants subsequently filed replies in support of their motions to dismiss, and Brookens filed a reply in support of his request to strike the Union Defendants' motion. The motions to dismiss and the motion to strike are now fully briefed.
The Court must dismiss any claim over which it lacks subject matter jurisdiction. Auster v. Ghana Airways Ltd., 514 F.3d 44, 48 (D.C. Cir. 2008). The plaintiff bears the burden of establishing jurisdiction. Knapp Med. Ctr. v. Hargan, 875 F.3d 1125, 1128 (D.C. Cir. 2017). On a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), the Court must "accept all well-pleaded factual allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences from those allegations in the plaintiff's favor," but need not "assume the truth of legal conclusions" in the complaint. Williams v. Lew, 819 F.3d 466, 472 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court also "may consider materials outside the pleadings in deciding whether to grant a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction." Jerome Stevens Pharm., Inc. v. FDA, 402 F.3d 1249, 1253 (D.C. Cir. 2005).
On its face, Rule 12(b) directs a defendant to file a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction within any applicable time limit for a responsive pleading. However, "[i]t is axiomatic that subject matter jurisdiction may not be waived." Athens Cmty. Hosp., Inc. v. Schweiker, 686 F.2d 989, 992 (D.C. Cir. 1982); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3) ().3 A court should therefore consider the arguments made in a Rule 12(b)(1) motion,even if the motion is technically untimely. See Casanova v. Marathon Corp., 256 F.R.D. 11, 12 (D.D.C. 2009). The Court will therefore bypass Brookens's suggestion that the Union Defendants'...
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