Korzen v. Local Union 705, Intern. Broth. of Teamsters

• Decision Date: 25 January 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95-2343,95-2343
• Citation: 75 F.3d 285
• Parties: 151 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2448, 131 Lab.Cas. P 11,545 Lydia KORZEN and Marsha O'Brien, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. LOCAL UNION 705, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 285

75 F.3d 285

151 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2448, 131 Lab.Cas. P 11,545

Lydia KORZEN and Marsha O'Brien, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. LOCAL UNION 705, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS,

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 95-2343.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Nov. 29, 1995.

Decided Jan. 25, 1996.

Robert R. Tepper (argued), Chicago, IL, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Peggy A. Hillman (argued), Indianapolis, IN, Michael H. Slutsky, Allison, Slutsky & Kennedy, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and COFFEY and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Chief Judge.

This is a suit under section 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185(a), to enforce two provisions in union constitutions. (All other claims have been abandoned.) One is a provision of the constitution of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the other a provision of the constitution of the Teamsters local to which the plaintiffs belong. The local is the defendant. It employed the plaintiffs as secretaries to its chief, and they charge that when he was removed from office for alleged improprieties they were fired by his successor in retaliation for their perceived support of the faction to which the former chief, their boss, had belonged. Their summary discharge on this ground, without an opportunity for a hearing on the propriety of the discharge, is claimed to violate both the provision of the international's constitution forbidding "retaliating or threatening to retaliate against any member [of the Teamsters union] for exercising rights under this Constitution or applicable law, including the right to speak, vote, seek election to office, support the candidate of one's choice or participate in the affairs of the Union," and the provision of the local's constitution that "every member, by virtue of his membership in the Local Union, authorizes his Local Union to act as his exclusive bargaining representative with full and exclusive power to execute agreements with his employer governing terms and conditions of employment and to act for him and have final authority in presenting, processing, and adjusting any grievance, difficulty or dispute arising under any collective bargaining agreement or out of his employment with such employer." The district court granted summary judgment for the union without deciding whether there had been any retaliatory or otherwise improper motive for the discharge of the two plaintiffs, so we assume for purposes of the appeal that there was such a motive.

It is not so obvious as the parties and the district judge have assumed that this case is within the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Despite a factual configuration suggestive of a violation of the free-speech clause of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure (Landrum-Griffin) Act, 29 U.S.C. § 411(a)(2); Sewell v. Grand Lodge, 445 F.2d 545 (5th Cir.1971), the plaintiffs did not include such a claim in their complaint (for good reason, as we shall see). Their federal noncontractual claims were dismissed on summary judgment or settled out, and have been abandoned, leaving only their contractual claims. Section 301 confers jurisdiction to hear a suit for breach of a contract between an employer and a labor organization (that is, a collective bargaining contract) or between two labor organizations. The local union in this case was the plaintiffs' employer within the meaning of federal labor law, 29 U.S.C. § 152(2); Office Employees Int'l Union v. NLRB, 353 U.S. 313, 316, 77 S.Ct. 799, 801, 1 L.Ed.2d 846 (1957), but the plaintiffs, of course, are not labor organizations. A simple employment contract is not within the scope of section 301, even when the employer is a union, Kunz v. United Food & Commercial Workers, 5 F.3d 1006, 1009 (6th Cir.1993), for it is neither a contract between an employer and a labor organization nor a contract between two labor organizations. Union constitutions have been held to be contracts within the scope of section 301 and members of the union held entitled to sue to enforce the contract-constitution as third-party beneficiaries. United Ass'n of Journeymen & Apprentices v. Local 334, 452 U.S. 615, 101 S.Ct. 2546, 69 L.Ed.2d 280 (1981); Wooddell v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 502 U.S. 93, 112 S.Ct. 494, 116 L.Ed.2d 419 (1991); Shea v. McCarthy, 953 F.2d 29, 30-31 (2d Cir.1992). But in each of these cases it was the constitution of an international union that was at issue, and an international union is plausibly conceived of as a contractual union of its locals. Wooddell and Shea do not emphasize the international character of the unions whose constitutions were in issue in those cases, but it is plain from the Journeymen case, which established the principle that a union's constitution can be a contract between labor organizations within the meaning of section 301, that the basis for it is the fact that an international's constitution is a contract between the international and its locals. 452 U.S. at 620-23, 101 S.Ct. at 2549-51. The constitution of a local union, in contrast, is a contract between the union and its members, Talton v. Behncke, 199 F.2d 471, 473 (7th Cir.1952); Simoni v. Civil Service Employees Ass'n, Inc., 133 Misc.2d 1, 507 N.Y.S.2d 371, 377 (S.Ct.1986), in the same way that a corporate charter is a contract between the corporation and its shareholders (as well as between the state and the corporation and among the shareholders). Staar Surgical Co. v. Waggoner, 588 A.2d 1130, 1136 (Del.1991). A suit on a contract between a labor organization and a member is not within the scope of section 301.

So there is federal jurisdiction over the plaintiffs' claim for breach of the international's constitution, of which they as members of the union are third-party beneficiaries, but not over their claim for breach of the local's constitution. That claim is a straightforward claim for breach of contract under state common law. See Newell v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 789 F.2d 1186, 1190-91 (5th Cir.1986). (It is not preempted by the National Labor Relations Act, because the firing of these plaintiffs was unrelated to conduct either protected or prohibited by that Act. Amalgamated Ass'n of Street, Electric Railway & Motor Coach Employees of America v. Lockridge, 403 U.S. 274, 296-98, 91 S.Ct. 1909, 1922-24, 29 L.Ed.2d 473 (1971); LaBuhn v. Bulkmatic Transport Co., 865 F.2d 119 (7th Cir.1988); Robert A. Gorman, Basic Text on Labor Law: Unionization and Collective Bargaining 779-80 (1976).) As such however, it fits comfortably within the district court's supplemental jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. § 1367. In contrast, the district court's jurisdiction over the claim for breach of the international's constitution could not be comfortably supported as a supplement to the district court's jurisdiction over the plaintiff's other federal claims, now settled. We have been given no reason to suppose that any of these claims, which even the plaintiffs have now abandoned, ever had any substance; they may have been frivolous; and a frivolous claim does not invoke the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 537, 94 S.Ct. 1372, 1379, 39 L.Ed.2d 577 (1974); Crowley Cutlery Co. v. United States,...