Local No 82, Furniture and Piano Moving, Furniture Store Drivers, Helpers Warehousemen and Packers v. Crowley, 82-432

• Decision Date: 12 June 1984
• Docket Number: No. 82-432,82-432
• Citation: 104 S.Ct. 2557,467 U.S. 526,81 L.Ed.2d 457
• Parties: LOCAL NO. 82, FURNITURE AND PIANO MOVING, FURNITURE STORE DRIVERS, HELPERS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND PACKERS, et al. v. Jerome CROWLEY, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

467 U.S. 526

104 S.Ct. 2557

81 L.Ed.2d 457

LOCAL NO. 82, FURNITURE AND PIANO MOVING, FURNITURE STORE DRIVERS, HELPERS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND PACKERS, et al.

v Jerome CROWLEY, et al.

No. 82-432.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued Jan. 9, 1984.

Decided June 12, 1984.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 2, 1984.

Syllabus

Title I of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA) provides a "Bill of Rights" for labor union members, including various protections for members involved in union elections. Section 102 provides that any person whose Title I rights have been violated may bring an action in federal district court "for such relief (including injunctions) as may be appropriate." Title IV of the Act provides an elaborate postelection procedure aimed at protecting union democracy through free and democratic elections. Section 402 provides that if the Secretary of Labor (Secretary), upon complaint by a union member, finds probable cause to believe that a violation of Title IV election proceedings has occurred, he shall bring an action against the union in federal district court to set aside the election and to order a new election under the supervision of the Secretary. Section 403 provides that the remedy prescribed by Title IV for challenging an election already conducted shall be exclusive. Petitioner union, in preparation for an election scheduled for the last two months of 1980, held a meeting to nominate candidates for its executive board. Admission to the meeting was restricted to those union members who could produce a computerized receipt showing that their union dues had been paid. One of the respondents was among those members who were prohibited from entering the meeting for not possessing such a receipt. There was also a disagreement at the meeting as to the office for which another respondent had been nominated. These respondents and other respondent union members then filed a protest with the union, but it was denied. Election ballots were thereafter distributed with instructions that they be returned by mail so as to arrive in a designated post office box by 9 a.m. on December 13, 1980, at which time they were to be counted. On December 1, 1980, after the ballots had been distributed, respondents filed an action in Federal District Court, alleging that the union and petitioner union officers had violated Title I, and seeking a preliminary injunction. On December 12, the court issued a temporary restraining order halting the election. This was followed by several months of negotiations between the parties and hearings before the court. Ultimately, holding that Title I reme- dies were not foreclosed when Title I violations occurred during the course of an election and rejecting petitioners' argument that respondents' exclusive remedy was to file a complaint with the Secretary under Title IV, the court issued a preliminary injunction and an order declaring the interrupted election invalid, setting forth detailed procedures to be followed during a new election, and appointing outside arbitrators to supervise implementation of the procedures. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held: The District Court overstepped the bounds of "appropriate" relief under Title I when it enjoined an ongoing union election and ordered that a new election be held pursuant to procedures imposed by the court. Pp. 535-551.

(a) While § 102, standing by itself, suggests that individual union members may properly maintain a Title I suit whenever rights guaranteed by that Title have been violated, that section explicitly limits relief that may be ordered by a district court to that which is "appropriate" to any given situation. Moreover, while Title IV protects many of the same rights as does Title I, § 402 of Title IV sets up an exclusive method for protecting Title IV rights, and under this method individuals are not permitted to block or delay union elections by filing suits for violation of Title IV. Pp. 536-540.

(b) Whether suits alleging violations of Title I may properly be maintained during the course of a union election depends upon the appropriateness of the remedy required to eliminate the claimed violations. In the absence of legislative history suggesting that Congress intended to require or allow courts to pre-empt the Secretary's expertise and supervise their own elections, and given the clear congressional preference expressed in Title IV for supervision of new elections by the Secretary, the conclusion is compelled that Congress did not consider court supervision of union elections to be an "appropriate" remedy for a Title I suit filed during the course of an election. Thus, if the remedy sought is invalidation of an election already being conducted and court supervision of a new election, union members must utilize the remedies provided by Title IV. For less intrusive remedies sought during an election, however, a district court retains authority to order appropriate relief under Title I. Pp. 540-550.

(c) The District Court's order here directly interfered with the Secretary's exclusive responsibilities for supervising new elections and was inconsistent with the basic objectives of the LMRDA enforcement scheme. Pp. 550-551.

679 F.2d 978 (CA1 1982), reversed and remanded.

Gary S. Witlen, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

John H. Garvey, Lexington, Ky., for the federal respondent in support of petitioners.

Mark D. Stern, Goshen, N.Y., for respondents.

Justice BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA or Act), 73 Stat. 522, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 401 et seq., was Congress' first major attempt to regulate the internal affairs of labor unions. Title I of the Act provides a statutory "Bill of Rights" for union members, including various protections for members involved in union elections, with enforcement and appropriate remedies available in district court. Title IV, in contrast, provides an elaborate postelection procedure aimed solely at protecting union democracy through free and democratic elections, with primary responsibility for enforcement lodged with the Secretary of Labor. Resolution of the question presented by this case requires that we address the conflict that exists between the separate enforcement mechanisms included in these two Titles. In particular, we must determine whether suits alleging violations of Title I may properly be maintained in district court during the course of a union election.

The Court of Appeals approved a preliminary injunction issued by the District Court that enjoined an ongoing union election and ordered the staging of a new election pursuant to procedures promulgated by the court. After reviewing the complex statutory scheme created by Congress, we conclude that such judicial interference in an ongoing union election is not appropriate relief under § 102 of Title I, 29 U.S.C. § 412. We therefore reverse the Court of Appeals.

I

Local No. 82, Furniture and Piano Moving, Furniture Store Drivers, Helpers, Warehousemen, and Packers (Local 82) represents approximately 700 employees engaged in the furniture moving business in the Boston, Mass., area.¹ The union is governed by a seven-member executive board whose officers, pursuant to § 401(b) of the LMRDA, 29 U.S.C. § 481(b), must be chosen by election no less than once every three years. These elections, consistent with the executive board's discretion under the union's bylaws and constitution, have traditionally been conducted by mail referendum balloting. The dispute giving rise to the present case stems from the union election that was regularly scheduled for the last two months of 1980.

On November 9, 1980, Local 82 held a meeting to nominate candidates for positions on its executive board. The meeting generated considerable interest, in part because dissident members of the union were attempting to turn the incumbent union officials out of office. Two aspects of the controversial meeting are especially important for present purposes. First, admission to the meeting was restricted to those members who could produce a computerized receipt showing that their dues had been paid up to date. Several union members, including respondent Jerome Crowley, were prohibited from entering the meeting because they did not have such dues receipts in their possession. Second, during the actual nominations process, there was disagreement relating to the office for which respondent John Lynch had been nominated. At the close of nominations, petitioner Bart Griffiths, the union's incumbent secretary-treasurer, declared himself the only candidate nominated for that office; at the same time, he included Lynch among the candidates selected to run for union president.

Several dissatisfied members of the union, now respondents before this Court,² filed a protest with the union. On November 20, their protest was denied by Local 82.³ Election ballots were thereafter distributed to all members of the union, who were instructed to mark and return the ballots by mail so that they would arrive in a designated post office box by 9 a.m. on December 13, 1980, at which time they were scheduled to be counted. Respondent Lynch's name appeared on the ballot as a candidate for president, and not for secretary-treasurer.

On December 1, 1980, after the distribution of ballots had been completed, the respondents filed this action in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. They alleged, inter alia, that Local 82 and its officers had violated several provisions of Title I of the LMRDA, and sought a preliminary injunction. In particular, the respondents claimed that restricting admission to the nominations meeting to those members who could produce computerized dues receipts violated their "equal rights . . . to nominate candidates [and] to attend membership meetings" under § 101(a)(1) of the Act,⁴ as well as their right freely to express views...