Frye v. United Steelworkers of America

• Decision Date: 11 July 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-1772,84-1772
• Citation: 767 F.2d 1216
• Parties: 119 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3542, 103 Lab.Cas. P 11,563 Bernard FRYE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, Harry Mayfield, Robert Johns, Joseph Coyle, William Moller, and Local Union 3489, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1216

767 F.2d 1216

119 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3542, 103 Lab.Cas. P 11,563

Bernard FRYE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, Harry Mayfield, Robert Johns, Joseph Coyle, William Moller, and Local Union 3489, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 84-1772.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Feb. 27, 1985.

Decided July 11, 1985.

Laurence Englestein, Depres, Schwartz & Geohegan, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.

James B. Robinson, United Steelworkers of America Legal Dept., Pittsburgh, Pa., for defendants-appellees.

Before ESCHBACH and FLAUM, Circuit Judges, and DOYLE, Senior District Judge. ^*

FLAUM, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Bernard Frye brought suit under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) against the International Union of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) and Local Union 3489, as well as officials of both bodies, alleging that discipline imposed on him for incidents that occurred while Frye was president of the local union had been imposed in violation of sections 101(a)(2), 101(a)(5), and 609 of the LMRDA, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 411(a)(2), 411(a)(5), & 529 (1982). The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants. For the reasons set out below, we affirm.

I.

Frye was elected to a three-year term as president of Local 3489, USWA, in 1973. ¹ During 1975, internal union charges were filed against Frye and others by James Stivertson and Morey Swanders, members of the Local. ² Early in 1976, the Local's Trial Committee heard the charges separately and ruled, in both cases, that Frye was not guilty. The Local's membership accepted the Trial Committee's report; Stivertson and Swanders then appealed to the International's Executive Board. Several months later, in April 1976, Frye lost a bid for reelection as president of the Local. For reasons not disclosed in the record, the International put Local 3489 into an administratorship from July to December 1976. During this administratorship, another member of the Local, Robert Mix, who was the recording secretary during Frye's presidency, filed certain "requests" with the International; these documents contained additional charges against Frye. ³

Under procedures established by the International, the Stivertson and Swanders appeals were delegated to the Appeal Panel, a subcommittee of the Executive Board that designated a Commission to investigate the appeals. When the International received the Mix charges, those charges were referred to the same Commission. After some delay caused by postponed hearing dates and a change in the membership of the Commission, hearings were held on November 16, 1976 (Swanders appeal) and December 15, 1976 (Stivertson appeal and Mix charges); neither of these proceedings was transcribed into a written record.

The Commission issued separate opinions on each of the matters in April 1977. In these opinions, the Commission recommended that Frye be found guilty on both the Stivertson and Swanders complaints and on two of the Mix charges. As punishment, the Commission recommended that Frye be suspended from holding local union office for three years; other defendants were to be reprimanded. The Commission noted that the recommended discipline was based only on the Stivertson and Swanders charges. The Appeal Panel, acting for the Executive Board, adopted these recommendations and held, in addition, that the two Mix charges could also provide grounds for Frye's discipline; the penalty, however, was not changed. Frye appealed the Board's decision to the International Convention, and the Convention affirmed the decision on September 22, 1978.

Immediately after the Commission issued its report, Frye filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The charge filed with the NLRB alleged that the International had violated section 8(b)(1)(A) of the National Labor Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. Sec. 158(b)(1)(A) (1982), by imposing the discipline described above. The General Counsel issued a complaint, and there was a hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ). The ALJ dismissed the complaint, finding that there was "more than ample evidence" to support the findings and recommendations of the Commission and that the Commission had had "reasonable" grounds for imposing the penalty. The ALJ's decision was then affirmed by the NLRB, United Steelworkers of America (Frye ), 239 N.L.R.B. 374 (1978). Frye did not appeal the NLRB decision.

In the civil action now on appeal to this court, both parties filed motions for summary judgment in the district court. As set out by the district judge, the three issues raised were the following:

1. Whether Frye was disciplined for exercising rights of free speech and assembly, in violation of sections 101(a)(2) and 609 of the LMRDA.

2. Whether Frye was disciplined without being served with written specific charges, in violation of section 101(a)(5) of the LMRDA.

3. Whether Frye was disciplined without being afforded a full and fair hearing, in violation of section 101(a)(5) of the LMRDA.

Summary judgment was granted for the defendants on all issues. On appeal, Frye challenges all aspects of the district court's decision.

II.

With respect to the claims based on sections 101(a)(2) and 609, dealing with a union member's rights to freedom of speech and assembly, the district court held that in the NLRB action, based on the same issues in connection with the LMRA unfair labor practice charge, the parties had fully and fairly litigated the same facts and circumstances and that the findings of fact of the NLRB should be given preclusive res judicata or collateral estoppel effect, citing United States v. Utah Construction Co., 384 U.S. 394, 422, 86 S.Ct. 1545, 1560, 16 L.Ed.2d 642 (1966). In United States v. Utah Construction Co., the Supreme Court made the following statement:

When an administrative agency is acting in a judicial capacity and resolves disputed issues of fact properly before it which the parties have had an adequate opportunity to litigate, the courts have not hesitated to apply res judicata to enforce repose.

384 U.S. at 422, 86 S.Ct. at 1560.

This court has stated that administrative agency decisions may be made binding by the doctrines of collateral estoppel or res judicata when it is appropriate to do so in light of the underlying principles set forth in 1 Restatement (Second) of Judgments Secs. 27 & 28 (1982). ⁴ Porter & Dietsch, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission, 605 F.2d 294, 300 (7th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 950, 100 S.Ct. 1597, 63 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980); Bowen v. United States, 570 F.2d 1311, 1320-22 (7th Cir.1978). In Lightsey v. Harding, Dahm & Co., Inc., 623 F.2d 1219 (7th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1077, 101 S.Ct. 855, 66 L.Ed.2d 799 (1981), we reviewed the requirements that must be met for an agency decision to be given collateral estoppel effect. First, the original action must have been properly before the agency. If so, "the court must find that the same disputed issues of fact were before [the administrative agency] as are before the court, that the agency acted in a judicial capacity, and that the parties had an adequate opportunity to litigate the issues before the agency." Id. at 1221.

In the present case, it is conceded that Frye's case was properly before the NLRB and that the agency acted in a judicial capacity. There is also no dispute about the opportunity the parties had to litigate the issues. Instead, Frye disputes the propriety of applying collateral estoppel on three bases: 1) that the NLRB decision was based on the LMRA rather than the LMRDA; 2) that the LMRDA issue is outside the NLRB's area of traditional expertise; and 3) that the findings of the NLRB do not specifically address all the allegations in the present LMRDA charge.

Frye's first two arguments, based on the policy differences between the LMRDA and the LMRA, overlook an important aspect of collateral estoppel. Collateral estoppel is allowed to prevent the relitigation of any legal or factual issue that has been "actually litigated and determined by a valid and final judgment." 1 Restatement (Second) of Judgments Sec. 27 (1982), quoted in Grip-Pak, Inc. v. Illinois Tool Works, Inc., 694 F.2d 466, 469 (7th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 958, 103 S.Ct. 2430, 77 L.Ed.2d 1317 (1983). An express finding of fact or finding of law in the earlier judgment is sufficient to give it preclusive effect, id., if that finding was necessary and essential in the earlier judgment. See Wickham Contracting Co., Inc. v. Board of Education, 715 F.2d 21, 28 (2d Cir.1983) (collateral estoppel improper because the relevant factual finding had not been critical and essential in the earlier action and therefore the parties' incentive to litigate that fact would have been different); Nasem v. Brown, 595 F.2d 801, 804 (D.C.Cir.1979) (collateral estoppel could attach to a finding that had to be reached but not where a judgment could be based upon one of several alternative grounds and did not expressly state which one). Therefore, it is not the similarity between the types of litigation or actions involved but between the factual issues and their roles in the respective actions that is important.

At the heart of both the NLRB action and the first issue of the case before us is Frye's contention that the union's institution of charges against him and its application of discipline were motivated by a desire to retaliate against him for earlier actions that union leaders may have felt had adverse effects on the union. ⁵ As the district court noted and Frye concedes on appeal, the protection from restraint or coercion by a labor organization given to union members under section 8(b)(1)(A) of the LMRA has been recognized as extending to their rights under the LMRDA. Carpenters Local Union No. 22, 195 N.L.R.B. 1 (1972). Therefore, the identity of issues, and incentives to litigate the factual findings on...