Hudson v. Am. Fed'n of Gov't Emp's
| Decision Date | 30 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 22-289 (JEB) |
| Parties | EUGENE HUDSON, JR., Plaintiff, v. AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Perhaps taking The Terminator's famous vow as his personal mantra, Plaintiff Eugene Hudson, Jr. is back once more - this time in yet another suit against his former employer and national union, the American Federation of Government Employees. In a prior action, he accused AFGE and its leadership of violating a series of federal and state laws when they refused to recognize him as a member in good standing in relation to a dues dispute. This Court dismissed the case, holding that the Civil Service Reform Act preempted its jurisdiction, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Hudson has since received help from AFGE Local 3723, which voted to retroactively admit him as a member of its Local - thus ostensibly permitting him to run again for national office - but AFGE still refuses to recognize his membership in the union. That decision precipitated this suit, which once again asserts that AFGE's position violates, inter alia, various federal labor laws. AFGE now moves to dismiss. Finding that Hudson is precluded from reopening the issue of this Court's jurisdiction to consider almost all of the claims, the Court will grant the Motion in large part but not entirely.
A string of Opinions from this Court that would fill a substantial volume of the Federal Reporter memorializes the various disputes between Hudson and AFGE. See, e.g. Hudson v. AFGE, No. 22-289, 2022 WL 1165912 (D.D.C. Apr. 20, 2022) (Hudson PI); Hudson v. AFGE, No. 17-2094, 2021 WL 5083436 (D.D.C. Nov. 2, 2021); Hudson v. AFGE, No. 19-2738, 2020 WL 3035039 (D.D.C. June 5, 2020) (Hudson Membership); Hudson v. AFGE, No. 17-2094, 2020 WL 1275685 (D.D.C. Mar. 17, 2020); Hudson v. AFGE, 318 F.Supp.3d 7 (D.D.C. 2018). Rather than re-chronicling the details of this saga, the Court will lay out only the facts most relevant to this action, with a focus on factual developments that have occurred since this Court addressed Hudson's membership-related claims in Case No. 19-2738, Hudson Membership. As is required at this stage, the Court will draw the facts from the Complaint and from past related decisions referenced therein. Sparrow v. United Air Lines, Inc., 216 F.3d 1111, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2000).
Hudson has been an AFGE member for over four decades. See ECF No. 1 (Compl.), ¶¶ 6-7. When he joined the union, he was a federal-government employee at the Social Security Administration, but he resigned from that position in 1989. Id., ¶¶ 7, 51. Because he continued to pay annual dues to AFGE Local 2452 (based in Los Angeles, id., ¶ 6), however, he was able to remain an AFGE member pursuant to section 1(c) of the AFGE Constitution. Id., ¶¶ 56-57; id., ¶ 50 (). Since leaving federal employment, Hudson has held various positions in AFGE. Most recently, he served multiple terms as National SecretaryTreasurer and was the first Black person elected to that position. Id., ¶¶ 1-2. He was ousted in 2017 in relation to his campaign for President, a controversy that is the subject of Case No. 171867, which is still ongoing.
Hudson's membership woes began with a cross-country move. Plaintiff had spent most of his tenure as an AFGE member in California, but at some point in 2018, he decided to leave the West Coast for Maryland in order to run for a position in Baltimore-based Local 1923. Hudson Membership, 2020 WL 3035039, at *1. He accordingly transferred his AFGE membership from the L.A.-based Local 2452 to Local 1923. See Compl., ¶ 88. Hudson then sent his new Local $50, assuming that this would cover his dues for the period from September 2018 to September 2019. Id., ¶ 89.
Apparently not. Without acknowledging Hudson's $50 check, in January 2019 and then again in March, Anita Autrey (the president of Local 1923) sent Plaintiff and other AFGE members a letter informing them that they would have to pay their 2019 annual dues of $50 by April 15, 2019, to maintain their membership in Local 1923. Id., ¶ 92. Hudson alleges that he never received those letters. Id., ¶ 93. When he eventually attempted to pay his dues on April 23, 2019, he was told that it was too late; his membership had terminated on the fifteenth, and his relationship with Local 1923 had been “irretrievably severed.” Id., ¶¶ 94, 97. Hudson's subsequent attempts to pay his dues were rebuffed. Id., ¶¶ 98-101.
Plaintiff, for his part, insists that any requisite dues were paid in September 2018, and that he is therefore being unlawfully deprived of the benefits of membership. He emphasizes that as part of an investigation related to a separate action involving the same parties, the Department of Labor corroborated his assertion that he properly paid his dues for the year-long period between September 2018 and 2019. Id., ¶ 110. In June 2019, determined to have his membership recognized - in part because he wished to declare his candidacy in upcoming union elections - Hudson internally appealed Autrey's decision to “sever” his membership. Id., ¶ 105. AFGE National promptly denied that appeal. Id., ¶ 106. Given the amount of time and money AFGE has spent fighting this $50 issue, one wonders if discretion might have been the better part of valor here, yet it is not for the Court to reason why.
Having attained no relief from his Local or from AFGE National, Hudson eventually sought help from Local 3723, a California-based Local. Although Plaintiff's prior relationship with that Local is not clear from the Complaint, he alleges that on August 22, 2020, its members voted to admit him as an AFGE Retired Member in good standing with no break in membership and with all attendant rights and privileges, retroactive to April 2019 (the date Autrey severed his Local 1923 membership). Id., ¶ 163. Presumably seeking the parent union's recognition of that retroactive admission, the President of Local 3723 emailed George McCubbin, the National Vice President of District 12 (which covers AFGE Locals in California, among other states, see AFGE Districts, afge.org/districts), informing him of the vote. Id., ¶ 164. McCubbin ignored the email and apparently took no other action with respect to Hudson's membership. Id., ¶ 167.
In September 2020, Hudson was dealt another blow. At some point early that year, he had tried to run for AFGE office but was informed in March that he was ineligible. Id., ¶ 168. He appealed that decision to National Secretary-Treasurer Eric Bunn on September 8. Id. Ten days later, Bunn affirmed the March decision. As part of that affirmance, he reiterated that Hudson was ineligible for office because he was no longer a Local 1923 member, and he added that Local 3723's vote to admit Hudson was inconsequential because the AFGE Constitution makes no allowance for retroactive membership. Id., ¶¶ 121, 198.
As far as Plaintiff is directly concerned, those events form the timeline relevant to the questions now before this Court. Yet, given that he is asserting that race discrimination motivated some of these decisions, he introduces a new character: Barbara Galle, a “similarly situated Caucasian American AFGE member of Local 3669,” whom he alleges was treated differently under similar circumstances. Id., ¶ 125. The Court will briefly recount her story as relevant here.
In June 2019, Kanisha Cunningham, an AFGE staff member, noticed that Galle, then-president of Local 3669, was late in paying her AFGE dues. Id., ¶¶ 128-29. Cunningham accordingly “inactivated” Galle from her officer position and as an AFGE member, and so informed regional NVP Gregg James. Id., ¶ 130. James responded that Galle's membership should not have been inactivated. Id., ¶ 135. Cunningham thus “activate[d] Ms. Galle back into her position” and kept her on the AFGE member database. Id., ¶¶ 137, 139. Galle has since been permitted to run for various AFGE positions. Id., ¶¶ 141, 143-44. Notably, by the time she ran for and was elected to those positions, she had not paid her dues for nearly two years. Id., ¶ 147.
It was not until the fall of 2021 that Galle was made to settle her debts. Id., ¶ 186. Hudson points out, however, that at no point in the dues-paying process did Galle have her membership threatened, id. ¶ 175, and at no point did she face obstacles in her effort to pay those late dues. Id., ¶ 186. Instead, she was able to pay retroactively. Id.
If the facts at the center of this dispute appear familiar to a reader who has followed this long-running battle, it's because they are. In September 2019, after most of the aforementioned events had occurred (but before the Local 3723 vote, which took place in August 2020), Hudson took his membership dispute to court - this Court, to be precise. Id., ¶ 108. He sued AFGE, Local 1923, Autrey and the Department of Labor, “accus[ing] [them] of violating a number of federal statutes and the common law.” Hudson Membership, 2020 WL 3035039, at *1. His complaint contained “myriad intertwined claims within different counts,” id. at *4, which this Court distilled into five types of claims: (1) claims that the denial of Hudson's membership rights, including the right to vote and participate in elections, violated his rights under the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), id.; (2) claims alleging breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing based on Defendants' revocation of his membership without proper notice, id. at *7; (3) claims that Defe...
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