Lydon v. Local 103, Int'l Bhd. of Elec. Workers
| Decision Date | 24 October 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 13–2009.,13–2009. |
| Citation | 770 F.3d 48 |
| Parties | Brendon J. LYDON, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. LOCAL 103, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, Defendant, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Affirmed. George P. Fisher, with whom Susan E. Stenger and Burns & Levinson LLP were on brief, for appellant.
Indira Talwani, with whom Ira Sills, Kevin C. Merritt, and Segal Roitman, LLP were on brief, for appellee.
Before HOWARD and THOMPSON, Circuit Judges, and LAPLANTE, District Judge.*THOMPSON, Circuit Judge.
Brendon Lydon believes that his union—Local 103 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (“Local 103”)—runs its hiring hall in a discriminatory way, retaliated against him for complaining about the discrimination, and breached its duty of fair representation. So he sued Local 103 in district court, alleging violations of several federal labor laws. Acting on a motion to dismiss, the district judge resolved the case in Local 103's favor. Lydon appeals. And what follows is our explanation of why we must affirm.
2. The pattern agreement provides:
This Agreement shall be subject to change or supplemented at any time by mutual consent of the parties hereto. Any such change or supplement agreed upon shall be reduced to writing, signed by the parties hereto, and submitted to the International Office of the IBEW for approval, the same as this Agreement.
3. The constitution declares:
[Local unions] are empowered to make their own bylaws and rules, but these shall in no way conflict with this Constitution. Where any doubt appears, this Constitution shall be supreme. All bylaws, amendments and rules, all agreements, jurisdiction, etc., of any kind or nature, shall be submitted to the [IBEW] for approval. No [local union] shall put into effect any bylaw, amendment, rule or agreement of any kind without first procuring such approval. The [IBEW] has the right to correct any bylaws, amendments, rules or agreements to conform to this Constitution and the policies of the [IBEW]....
4. “Category I provisions,” the pattern agreement states,
are considered Standard Agreement Language by the IBEW International Office and NECA National. By joint recommendation and in written agreement, all Inside Construction Agreements between IBEW Local Unions and NECA chapters must contain all Category I Language verbatim, i.e. no deviations or changes to these clauses are permitted. Likewise, the agreement may not contain language that is contrary to the intent of the Category I language or circumvent provisions contained in the Category I language that pertains to but does not conflict with the Category I language. Additional language that pertains to but does not conflict with Category I language may follow the language, but is not to be inserted in the language. ...
(Emphasis in original.)
The collective-bargaining agreement (“CBA”) between Local 103 and the Boston NECA chapter also stated that Local 103 is an exclusive hiring hall. And for a time Local 103 did in fact function as an exclusive hall, keeping a list of out-of-work members looking for jobs and referring them to the NECA in chronological order ( i.e., with the person on the list the longest getting first dibs on an available NECA job). Members are not required to accept whatever job referral comes their way. But if they say no more than two times in a row, they are “rolled” back to the bottom of the referral list.
A change occurred in September 2006 when Local 103 and the Boston NECA chapter signed a memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) allowing union members to get jobs another way as well: thanks to the MOU, members could now solicit work directly from Boston NECA employers. This change made Local 103 a non exclusive hiring hall. So said Local 103's business manager, Mike Monahan. Local 103 implemented the MOU without first getting IBEW approval—such approval was not necessary, Monahan told members at a membership meeting.
Lydon asked Local 103 for a copy of the MOU. But his request fell on deaf ears. So he turned things up a notch, writing a letter to the IBEW's president complaining about the solicitation system. And he followed that up with a formal complaint with the IBEW's vice president. But the IBEW took no action.
In August 2011 Local 103 and the Boston NECA chapter agreed to a new CBA. Local 103 then sent that document to the IBEW for approval, along with the MOU. Eventually, Lydon got a letter from the IBEW's president saying that the IBEW had “conditionally approved” the CBA. The letter, however, did not mention the MOU or the solicitation system.
Sometime before August 2011, Lydon signed onto something called the “Drug Free Program”—a Local 103/Boston NECA program through which members can land jobs with participating employers if they submit to drug testing. But he opted out of the program around the time Local 103 and the Boston NECA reached the new CBA. His reason for doing so was that he had a good spot on the referral list seniority-wise to land a long-term construction job set to open up—a job that did not have a drug-testing component, apparently. Local 103 never got his opt-out information, however, for reasons unknown. And Local 103 later counted his refusal to work for a drug-free employer as his third refusal—even though he was no longer participating in that program. So he ended up back on the bottom of the referral list.
An unhappy Lydon challenged the refusal rule's application to his situation. But Monahan—the person who handled the challenge—would not change the result. “Lydon appealed but was denied,” his complaint says—though he does not say there who did the denying. Anyway, Lydon claims that during this same period Monahan told another member appealing a similar decision that the solicitation system was in place because there were “undesirables” like “Lydon” in Local 103. He also told the member “that if your being rolled hadn't happened at the time Lydon was rolled, things could have been different.”
Lydon responded by filing charges against the IBEW with the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”), alleging that the IBEW had breached its duty of fair representation both by not disclosing requested information about the referral rule and by not representing him regarding referral issues. But the NLRB concluded that he had not shown an unfair-labor practice on the IBEW's part. So off to federal court he went.
Suing Local 103, Lydon's operative complaint—simply called “the complaint” from now on—has four counts. Count 1 alleges that Local 103 infracted the pattern agreement and the IBEW's constitution when it became a nonexclusive hiring hall—a change, count 1 claims, that discriminatorily favors members who solicit work over those who (like him) await referrals through the referral list. What Local 103 has done and is doing, count 1 says, constitutes an unfair-labor practice as defined in the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”), see 29 U.S.C. § 158, violating the Labor–Management Relations Act (“LMRA”), see 29 U.S.C. § 185 et seq. Count 2 contends that Local 103 retaliated against him for complaining about the new worker-dispatch system, a violation of the Labor–Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (“LMRDA”), see 29 U.S.C. § 401 et seq., count 2 adds.7 Count 3 charges that Local 103 breached its duty of fair representation by bargaining for the solicitation system, a system that flies in the face of IBEW rules and that Local 103 runs in a discriminatory manner, or so count 3 insists. And finally, count 4 asserts a class-action claim under count 1.
Local 103 later asked the judge to dismiss the complaint under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) or, alternatively, to resolve the case on summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56. The judge granted a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal, holding that Lydon's complaint failed to allege a plausible theory of relief. And that ruling triggered this appeal.
We give fresh review to the judge's Rule 12(b)(6) decision, affirming if—after accepting as true all well-pled facts in the complaint and drawing all reasonable inferences in Lydon's favor—the complaint fails to state a plausible claim. See, e.g., Schatz, 669 F.3d at 55. Merely reciting elements of a claim will not do, obviously. See, e.g., Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). Nor will alleging facts that “are too meager, vague, or conclusory to remove the possibility of relief from the realm of conjecture....” SEC v. Tambone, 597 F.3d 436, 442 (1st Cir.2010). One more thing: because the judge's reasoning does not bind us, we are free to affirm his decision on any basis supported by the record and the law. See, e.g., Rocket Learning, Inc. v. Rivera–Sánchez, 715 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir.2013).
With this discussion out of the way, we turn to the issues before us.
Kicking things off, Lydon argues in his opening brief that the judge abused his discretion by not considering “numerous declarations, documents, and otherwise useful information in opposition” to Local 103's motion to dismiss or for summary judgment. On a motion to dismiss, he reminds us, quoting from one of our cases, a judge can mull over “documents incorporated by reference in [the complaint], matters of public record, and other matters susceptible to judicial notice.” Giragosian v. Ryan, 547 F.3d 59, 65 (1st Cir.2008) (quoting In re Colonial Mortg. Bankers Corp., 324 F.3d 12, 20 (1st Cir.2003)). The problem for Lydon is that his initial brief never specifically identifies the “numerous” papers that the judge should have pondered but did not. And it never explains how these unnamed documents fit within the...
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