Lee v. Ohio Educ. Ass'n
Decision Date | 25 March 2019 |
Docket Number | CASE NO.: 1:18CV1420 |
Citation | 366 F.Supp.3d 980 |
Parties | Sarah R. LEE, Plaintiff, v. OHIO EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, et al., Defendants. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio |
Jonathan F. Mitchell, Austin, TX, Shannon W. Conway, Talcott J. Franklin, Law Office of Talcott Franklin, Dallas, TX, Sean T. Logue, Carnegie, PA, for Plaintiff.
Eben O. McNair, IV, Jessica S. Monroe, Cleveland, OH, John M. West, Bredhoff & Kaiser, Washington, DC, Timothy Joseph Gallagher, Schwarzwald McNair & Fusco, Cleveland, OH, for Defendants.
Pending before the Court are motions to dismiss filed by 1) Defendants Craig Zimpher, Aaron Schmidt, and Richard Lumpe (Doc. 35); 2) Avon Lake City School District (Doc. 36); and 3) Avon Lake Education Association, National Education Association, and Ohio Education Association (collectively, "NEA")(Doc. 37). Additionally, Plaintiff Sarah Lee has sought leave to amend her complaint. Doc. 48. The motion is GRANTED, and the Court will consider the motions to dismiss in light of the amended complaint. Plaintiff Sarah Lee has not opposed the dismissal of Zimpher, Schmidt, Lumpe, and the Avon Lake City School District. Those motions (Docs. 35, 36), therefore, are GRANTED. Accordingly, the Court now addresses the sole remaining motion, NEA's motion to dismiss.
Through this opinion, the Court joins an ever-growing number of courts that have found that causes of action seeking to enjoin collection of fair-share fees and recoup damages based on prior collection of those fees must be dismissed in light of Janus v. American Federation of State, County, & Municipal Employees, Council 31 , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S.Ct. 2448, 201 L.Ed.2d 924 (2018). One colleague has succinctly noted:
Janus v. American Federation of State, County, & Municipal Employees, Council 31 , [––– U.S. ––––], 138 S.Ct. 2448 (2018) does not entitle Hough to a refund of the fair-share fees he paid before the ruling came down. Assuming it's necessary to inquire whether the defendant's good-faith reliance on then-existing law bars Hough's refund claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the defendants have indeed established good-faith reliance as a matter of law. This is so for the reasons provided in the following cases: Janus v. American Federation of State, County, & Municipal Employees, Council 31 , No. 15 C 1235, 2019 WL 1239780, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 18, 2019) ; Carey v. Inslee , No. 3:18-CV-05208-RBL, 2019 WL 1115259, at *9 (W.D. Wash. Mar. 11, 2019) ; Cook v. Brown , No. 6:18-CV-01085-AA , 2019 WL 982384, at *7 (D. Or. Feb. 28, 2019) ; Danielson v. American Federation of State, County, & Municipal Employees, Council 28 , 340 F.Supp.3d 1083, 1087 (W.D. Wash. 2018).
Hough v. SEIU LOCAL 521 , No. 18-CV-04902-VC, 2019 WL 1274528, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 20, 2019) ; see also Crockett v. NEA-Alaska , 367 F.Supp.3d 996, 2019 WL 1212082 (D.Alaska Mar. 14, 2019) ( ). The Court agrees with the rationale of these decisions and incorporates it herein. Accordingly, NEA may present a good faith defense and the request for injunctive relief is moot.
Lamberty v. Connecticut State Police Union , No. 3:15-CV-378 (VAB), 2018 WL 5115559, at *9 (D. Conn. Oct. 19, 2018). This same rationale undermines Lee's reliance on district court decisions that were decided following Obergefell v. Hodges , ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 2584, 192 L.Ed.2d 609 (2015). Lee asserts that courts routinely declined to moot cases despite the decision in Obergefell . In support, Lee provided:
See, e.g., See Jernigan v. Crane , 796 F.3d 976, 979 (8th Cir. 2015) ( ); Rosenbrahn v. Daugaard , 799 F.3d 918, 922 (8th Cir. 2015) (); Waters v. Ricketts , 798 F.3d 682, 686 (8th Cir.2015) (); Waters v. Ricketts , 159 F.Supp.3d 992, 999–1000 (D. Neb. 2016) ) ; Strawser v. Strange , 190 F.Supp.3d 1078, 1081 (S.D. Ala. 2016) .
Doc. 41 at 10. As detailed above, cases survived post- Obergefell because courts concluded that specific, state statutes had not been the subject of the decision by the Court in Obergefell . The same cannot be said here. Janus , as detailed above, used broad language that immediately made it unconstitutional for unions to extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees. There is no dispute that NEA immediately ceased collecting such fees. Accordingly, any ...
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