Jordi v. Sauk Prairie School Bd.
| Decision Date | 30 January 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-C-1165-C.,85-C-1165-C. |
| Citation | 651 F. Supp. 1566 |
| Parties | Ronald JORDI, James W. Jackson, Ron Kostroski, Claire Richardson, John Budd, Milo Kilen, Dan Reierson, Duane Woerpel, Bill Rahl, Michael Kuss, John R. Frericks, Shaughn Bannon, Mary Lee Lyon, Tammy Kochaver, Lois Emberson, Cynthia Larson, John Morey, and Laura Lang, Plaintiffs, v. The SAUK PRAIRIE SCHOOL BOARD; Robert Koenig, Donna Purcell, Melvin Bickford, Kathryn Rozovics, Corine Hutter, William Jacquish, and Torger Mikkelson, individually and as officers of the Sauk Prairie School Board; the Sauk Prairie Education Association; Oakla Yankee, individually and as an officer of the Sauk Prairie Education Association; the Wisconsin Education Association Council; James Blank, and Morris D. Andrews, individually and as officers of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Wisconsin |
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Walter L. Harvey, Harvey Law Offices, Madison, Wis., for plaintiffs.
Bruce Meredith and William Sample, Wisconsin Educ. Ass'n Council, Madison, Wis., for defendants.
This is a civil action for monetary, injunctive, and declaratory relief. Plaintiffs allege that defendants have deprived them of federal and state constitutional rights of freedom of expression and association, due process, and equal protection. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants have violated Wis.Stat. § 111.70(1)(f), (2), and (3)(a)6 () Jurisdiction is alleged to exist under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and on 28 U.S.C. § 1343 and § 2201; in addition, plaintiffs invoke this court's pendent jurisdiction over their state constitutional and statutory claims. Presently before the court are defendants' motions to dismiss and for abstention, and plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction.
Defendants argue that many of plaintiffs' claims are time barred because they were filed after the end of the limitations periods under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Wis. Stat. § 111.70. They argue also that this court should abstain from adjudicating plaintiffs' federal constitutional claims because these claims and others are currently at issue in a proceeding before the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission between the same parties, and that this court should decline to exercise pendent jurisdiction over plaintiffs' state claims. Finally, defendants contend that plaintiffs' claims based on the Wisconsin Constitution and Wis.Stat. § 111.70 fail to state a claim on which relief can be granted, and that all of the claims asserted against individual defendants fail to state a claim on which relief can be granted. In support of their motion for abstention, defendants have also filed certain supplemental materials.1
Plaintiffs do not object to any of these supplemental materials, and have filed supplemental materials of their own, consisting of a transcript of proceedings before the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission on September 17, 1986. I will consider the transcript in ruling on the motion to abstain.
Whether to abstain is a threshold question that must be resolved before the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim can be addressed. For the purpose of deciding the motion for abstention, I have assumed that the allegations of the complaint are true and have used these allegations to make findings of fact concerning the identity of the parties and the nature of the dispute between them. I have also made findings of fact concerning the administrative proceedings between the parties based on the supplemental materials that have been submitted.
The following findings of fact are based on the allegations of the complaint and are made by assuming those allegations to be true.
Plaintiffs are all Wisconsin residents employed as teachers by defendant Sauk Prairie School Board. Defendants Koenig, Purcell, Bickford, Rozovics, Hutter, Jacquish, and Mikkelson are officers and members of the Sauk Prairie School Board.
Sauk Prairie Education Association, South Central United Educators, Wisconsin Education Association Council, and the National Education Association are affiliated labor organizations. Defendant Sauk Prairie Education Association is the exclusive bargaining representative for teachers employed by the Sauk Prairie School Board. Defendant Wisconsin Education Association Council is a statewide labor organization representing teachers; defendants Blank and Andrews are its president and secretary. Defendant Sauk Prairie Education Association submits a specific sum of money for each of its members each month to defendant Wisconsin Education Association Council. It is a condition of membership in Sauk Prairie Education Association that the prospective member also belong to the other three organizations. Only members of the Sauk Prairie Education Association can hold its offices. None of the plaintiffs belong to any of the four organizations.
Each year since 1979, defendants Sauk Prairie Education Association and Sauk Prairie School Board have entered into a collective bargaining agreement covering the wages, hours, and conditions of employment of Sauk Prairie teachers. The Sauk Prairie Education Association has held membership meetings to vote on ratification of these agreements that were open only to its members.
Each of the Sauk Prairie collective bargaining agreements has contained a "fair share" provision, by virtue of which employees of the bargaining unit who were not members of the Sauk Prairie Education Association could be required to pay "their fair share costs of the collective bargaining process and contract administration." Under the terms of the agreement, the Sauk Prairie Education Association would certify such costs, and the school board would then deduct each non-member's fair share in equal installments from that person's paychecks. The school board did not participate in the process by which fair share costs were determined. The amount deducted from non-members' paychecks has been equal or nearly equal to the dues required of Sauk Prairie Education Association members.
Plaintiffs object to defendant Sauk Prairie Education Association's use of any of their money for any purpose, and in particular for any purpose not directly related either to the costs of collective bargaining incurred by the Sauk Prairie Education Association acting as the plaintiffs' exclusive representative, or to the costs of administering the collective bargaining agreement between the Sauk Prairie School Board and the Sauk Prairie Education Association.
Defendant Sauk Prairie Education Association transmits a portion of the money withheld from plaintiffs' salaries to the Wisconsin Education Association Council and its affiliated labor organizations, pursuant to an arrangement by the Commission and the National Education Association that is imposed on each of their local affiliates. The organizations to which this money is transmitted are not parties to the collective bargaining agreement between the Sauk Prairie School Board and the Sauk Prairie Education Association, and no portion of the money transmitted to them is spent on the cost of collective bargaining between the Sauk Prairie Education Association and the Sauk Prairie School Board, or on the cost of administering the collective bargaining agreement between these defendants. Instead, these organizations use this money to engage in advocating, promoting, and furthering their ideological, political, social and associational goals.
The following findings of fact are based on the supplemental materials submitted by the parties.
On September 10, 1979, plaintiff Ronald Jordi informed the president of the Sauk Prairie Education Association that he did not wish to belong either to the Sauk Prairie Education Association or to the organizations with which it is affiliated, the South Central United Educators, Wisconsin Education Association Council, and the National Education Association. On October 2, 1979, Jordi was furnished with a copy of the non-member fair share procedure of the Wisconsin Education Association Council by-laws. Under this procedure, members of a local affiliate of the Wisconsin Education Association Council can object to the expenditure of a portion of their fair share payment for contributions or expenditures on behalf of political candidates, parties, or organizations, and can apply for a rebate of the portion of the payment spent for such purposes. Such objections are filed with the president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.
Jordi initiated the fair share procedure on October 4, 1979. Jordi and the Wisconsin Education Association Council were not able to agree on the amount of his rebate, and Jordi ultimately invoked the arbitration provision of the non-member fair share procedure.
In June 1981 Jordi and the Wisconsin Education Association Council chose Edward Krinsky of the American Arbitration Association as arbitrator in their dispute over the amount of the rebate to which Jordi was entitled for the 1979-80 and 1980-81 school years. Krinsky conducted a hearing on the dispute on July 23 and August 20, 1981.
On February 24, 1982, plaintiffs Jordi, Jackson, Kostroski, Richardson, Budd, Kilen, Reierson, Woerpel, Rahl, Kuss, Bannon, and Emberson, with Joanne Zimmel, who is not a plaintiff in this lawsuit, filed a complaint against the Sauk Prairie School Board, the Sauk Prairie Education Association, the South Central United Educators, and the Wisconsin Education Association Council with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, case number XXII, no. 29357, MP-1312. The complaint charged the respondents with discriminating against the complainants in the exercise of their rights under Wis.Stat. § 111.70(2). The complainants contended that the Sauk Prairie Education...
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