Doyle v. Brock
| Decision Date | 26 June 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-5608,86-5608 |
| Citation | 821 F.2d 778 |
| Parties | 125 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2875, 261 U.S.App.D.C. 290, 56 USLW 2043, 106 Lab.Cas. P 12,430 Thomas DOYLE v. William BROCK, Secretary, Department of Labor, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Michael J. Ryan, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Joseph E. diGenova, U.S. Atty., Royce C. Lamberth and R. Craig Lawrence, Asst. U.S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellant. Jeffrey Moon, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., also entered an appearance.
Paul Alan Levy, with whom Alan B. Morrison, Washington, D.C., was on the brief, for appellee.
Before EDWARDS and SILBERMAN, Circuit Judges, and KAUFMAN, * Senior District Judge for the District of Maryland.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HARRY T. EDWARDS.
This action was instituted by Thomas Doyle, a member of Local 6, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ("Local 6" or the "Union"), after the Secretary of Labor (the "Secretary") declined to file a suit to set aside a Union election. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of Doyle, finding that the Secretary's Statement of Reasons justifying his decision not to sue was inadequate. The trial court directed the Secretary either to initiate suit or to provide a Supplemental Statement of Reasons explaining his decision not to sue. Doyle v. Brock, 632 F.Supp. 256, 263 (D.D.C.1986) ("Doyle I ") .
The Secretary issued a Supplemental Statement of Reasons for not initiating a suit against the Union on April 7, 1986. The District Court again found that, given that the Secretary had determined that the Union had an attendance requirement that precluded 97% of the membership from running for Union office, the Secretary had not adequately justified his decision not to sue to invalidate the election. The trial judge ordered the Secretary either to appeal the judgment or to file suit to set aside the election. Doyle v. Brock, 641 F.Supp. 223 (D.D.C.1986) ("Doyle II "). The Secretary has chosen to appeal the decision of the District Court.
We affirm the judgment of the District Court. The Secretary's decision not to sue is clearly at odds both with established legal precedent and with the Secretary's established litigation position with respect to the legality of union attendance requirements. As such, the Secretary's decision not to sue is arbitrary and capricious.
In May, 1984, Doyle was nominated to be a candidate for the Executive Board of Local 6. The Union ruled that he was ineligible, however, because it determined that he had not attended at least one-half of the regular monthly meetings held by Local 6 in the year preceding the nominations. Doyle appealed the ruling using internal Union procedures, but the Union stood by its determination. Local 6 held its election on June 20, 1984.
Section 9(f) of Local 6's bylaws provides that a candidate must "attend at least one-half of the regular meetings of the Local Union for the twelve month period immediately preceding the month in which nominations are held." Under the Union's practices, a member receives credit for attending a meeting only if he or she signs an attendance register at the meeting. Doyle maintained that, although he signed the register at only two meetings during the year prior to his nomination, he was present at other meetings at which he had failed to sign the register. 1
Doyle filed a complaint with the Department of Labor seeking to have the Secretary sue to invalidate the election. Doyle contended that the attendance requirement was not a "reasonable qualification[ ] uniformly imposed," and thus violated section 401(e) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act ("LMRDA"), 29 U.S.C. Sec. 481(e) (1982). Doyle also claimed that the Union's practice of relying solely on the attendance register to establish attendance at Union meetings was not set forth in Local 6's constitution or bylaws, and that the membership therefore did not have "adequate notice ... of the precise terms of the requirement" as mandated by 29 C.F.R. Sec. 452.53 (1986). In December 1984, the Secretary provided Doyle with a Statement of Reasons for not filing suit; subsequently, in February 1985, Doyle received a letter from the Secretary expanding on the Statement of Reasons.
The Statement of Reasons disclosed the Secretary's view that "[t]he local's meeting attendance rule is reasonable on its face, particularly in view of the liberality of the excuse provisions." Statement of Reasons at 2, reprinted in Doyle I, 632 F.Supp. at 265. With respect to Doyle's second ground, although the Secretary's "investigation established some evidence, by no means conclusive, that [Doyle] attended ... six meetings in the year prior to nominations," the Secretary found that "the local did not violate its own constitution and bylaws or the [LMRDA]" by basing attendance at meetings solely on whether a member had signed the attendance register. Id.
In the February 1985 letter, the Secretary emphasized that, "if the Department concludes that [a] rule is reasonable, it will not initiate litigation solely because the rule's effect is to disqualify a vast percentage of the membership from running for union office." Letter from Richard G. Hunsucker to Paul Alan Levy (Feb. 15, 1985), reprinted in Doyle I, 632 F.Supp. at 266. The letter also stated that "the existence of a liberal excuse provision is often cited by the Department as a basis for concluding that a meeting attendance requirement is reasonable." Id.
Doyle then filed a suit in the District Court under the authority of Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U.S. 560, 95 S.Ct. 1851, 44 L.Ed.2d 377 (1975), seeking judicial review of the Secretary's decision. The court granted summary judgment in favor of Doyle. The trial judge viewed the relevant issue as being whether the Secretary adequately explained why "the meeting attendance requirement, when viewed together with the 'liberal' excuse provision, [was] a 'reasonable qualification' for union office under section 401(e) of the LMRDA, when it [had] the effect of excluding 97 percent of the members from pursuing a candidacy." Doyle I, 632 F.Supp. at 260. The judge found that, "[g]iven that every recorded court decision in cases involving the exclusion of that high a percentage of members points in only one direction, and that the statement of reasons offer[s] no rational explanation for why this case is any different, the Secretary's decision not to move to overturn the election can only be viewed as so irrational as to be arbitrary and capricious." Id. at 262.
The trial judge pointed to language in Local 3489, United Steelworkers v. Usery, 429 U.S. 305, 310, 97 S.Ct. 611, 615, 50 L.Ed.2d 502 (1977), in which the Supreme Court held that "an attendance requirement that results in the exclusion of 96.5% of the members from the candidacy for union office hardly seems to be a 'reasonable qualification' consistent with the goal of free and democratic elections." He then pointed out that "[t]he courts ... have never accepted the argument that liberal excuse provisions can save requirements that exclude the greater part of a union's membership." Doyle I, 632 F.Supp. at 261. The judge noted that, although the Steelworkers Court endorsed the Secretary's practice of taking a flexible case-by-case approach in assessing attendance requirements, "[t]he Secretary's 'flexibility' ... does not extend to ignoring applicable caselaw." Id. at 262 n. 8.
The trial judge also found that the Secretary had failed to explain why he was not filing suit based on the Union's practice of basing attendance at meetings solely on the attendance register. According to the Secretary's regulations, the Union must provide members with "adequate advance notice ... of the precise terms of the requirement." 29 C.F.R. Sec. 452.53 (1986). Absent a finding that adequate notice of the practice was given, the judge held that the Secretary could not, in accordance with his own regulations, decline to sue. Doyle I, 632 F.Supp. at 263.
The District Court directed the Secretary either to initiate suit against the Union or to provide a Supplemental Statement of Reasons for not doing so. Id. The Secretary pursued the latter option. In the Secretary's Supplemental Statement of Reasons, he found that, although only fifty-six members of Local 6 (3%) were qualified to run for office as a result of the application of the attendance rule, "the requirement does not violate section 401(e) of the LMRDA, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 481(e), solely because a substantial number of the Local's members elected not to meet the requirements." Supplemental Statement of Reasons at 15, reprinted in Appendix for Appellant ("Appellant App.") 65. The Secretary stated that "[w]here ... no objective reason is found that any aspect of the qualification requirement, as applied, precluded members from qualifying," the impact of the requirement "is not in itself a sufficient reason for finding the rule unreasonable." Id. at 13, reprinted in Appellant App. 63.
Thus, the Secretary appeared to take the position that the effect of the requirement--precluding 97% of the membership of the Union from running for office--was a relevant but not a sufficient basis for challenging the requirement. The Secretary also suggested that the requirement was not unlawful because "it [could] be viewed as encouraging participation in union affairs by potential candidates in the period immediately prior to the election." Id. at 9, reprinted in Appellant App. 59.
Turning to the Union's practice of relying on the attendance register to establish attendance at meetings, the Secretary explained that, because this "was a well-established practice, known to the membership," id. at 3, reprinted in Appellant App. 53, the members had "adequate notice ... of the precise terms of...
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