Stolz v. United Broth. of Carpenters and Joiners

• Decision Date: 15 October 1985
• Docket Number: No. CV-R-84-11-ECR.,CV-R-84-11-ECR.
• Citation: 620 F. Supp. 396
• Parties: Johnnie D. STOLZ, Dean L. Stolz, James Barth, and Gus Flangas, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF AMERICA, LOCAL UNION NO. 971, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Nevada

620 F. Supp. 396

Johnnie D. STOLZ, Dean L. Stolz, James Barth, and Gus Flangas, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF AMERICA, LOCAL UNION NO. 971, Defendants.

No. CV-R-84-11-ECR.

United States District Court, D. Nevada.

October 15, 1985.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Chan G. Griswold, Reno, Nev., for plaintiffs.

Michael B. Roger, Van Bourge, Allen, Weinberg & Roger & Rosenfeld, San Francisco, Cal., and Nathan Jenkins, Reno, Nev., for defendants.

ORDER

EDWARD C. REED, Jr., District Judge.

In this case, plaintiff has sued on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated. According to the complaint, defendants have allegedly violated § 101(a)(3) of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. § 411(a)(3). Defendants' alleged transgressions consist in improperly combining the proposition of a wage increase with that of a "dues checkoff" in one question at the December, 1982, union election, thereby denying the union membership the right to vote on each issue separately. In addition, plaintiff contends that defendants' allowing retired members to vote on the proposition was improper, in that retirees have no right to vote in union elections. As the vote on the two propositions passed by a margin of almost 200, the union began to collect the dues check-off on January 1, 1983, and has continued to do so until the present. In that plaintiff alleges that the Local collected these dues illegally, he demands full restitution and punitive damages of $10,000. Additionally, plaintiff seeks a permanent injunction restraining defendant from collecting or imposing further dues.

Plaintiff has moved this Court to certify as a class all Local members from whom dues were collected. Further, plaintiff has moved for summary judgment on the issue of the defendant's liability. Defendant opposes the class certification, and argues that an evidentiary hearing is necessary to test the adequacy of plaintiff's representation of the class. Additionally, defendant opposes plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, and argues that this action is barred by the applicable statute of limitation and the doctrine of laches. Because the statute of limitations and laches could dispose of this case immediately, the Court will consider these questions first.

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

Because the LMRDA, as with many federal labor statutes, contains no statute of limitations itself, courts have had to borrow an analogous state or federal statute in order to fill that gap. The Ninth Circuit has held that the applicable statute for the LMRDA is the state statute for the alleged violation for statutorily created rights. See Trotter v. International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, 704 F.2d 1141 at 1143, n. 2 (9th Cir.1983); Copitas v. Retail Clerks International Association, 618 F.2d 1370, 1372 (9th Cir.1980). Because most of the state statutes regarding the violation of statutorily created rights are three years in length, the statute for the LMRDA in the Ninth Circuit has also generally been three years. Id.

In June of 1983, however, the United States Supreme Court decided DelCostello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983). In that case, the Court decided that the applicable statute for actions arising under the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 141 et seq., (LMRA) would no longer be the most closely analogous state statute, but would instead be the six-month statute found in § 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 160(b). Id. at 169-172, 103 S.Ct. at 2293-2294. Although the LMRDA is distinct from the LMRA, several circuits have applied the six-month limitation of DelCostello to causes of action under the LMRDA. See Vallone v. Local Union No. 705, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 755 F.2d 520 (7th Cir.1984); Local Union No. 1397, United Steelworkers of America, v. United Steelworkers of America, 748 F.2d 180 (3rd Cir.1984). See also Barnett v. United Air Lines, 738 F.2d 358 (10th Cir.1984) (DelCostello limitation applies to actions under the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151).

The Ninth Circuit has not yet indicated whether it will apply DelCostello to cases arising under the LMRDA. In fact, in the only case discussing the application of DelCostello outside the LMRA, the Circuit has specifically reserved the question of whether it will apply the case in any context broader than that specifically indicated by the court itself in DelCostello. Klemens v. Air Line Pilots Association, 736 F.2d 491, 499 n. 7 (9th Cir.1984) cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 435, 83 L.Ed.2d 362 (1984). When the Circuit has applied the DelCostello rule in LMRA cases, moreover, it has routinely refused to give it retroactive application. See Barina v. Gulf Trading and Transportation Co., 726 F.2d 560 (9th Cir.1984); McNaughton v. Dillingham Corp., 722 F.2d 1459 (9th Cir.1984) cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 291, 83 L.Ed.2d 227 (1984); Edwards v. Teamsters Local Union No. 36, 719 F.2d 1036 (9th Cir.1983) cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1102, 104 S.Ct. 1599, 80 L.Ed.2d 130 (1984); Scoggins v. Boeing Co., Inc., 742 F.2d 1225 (9th Cir.1984) (suggesting that DelCostello should be limited to suits against employers, and has no application to suits against unions). This Court need not consider the question of whether the DelCostello limitation must apply in LMRDA actions, therefore, for even if it did, the Court would not give it retroactive application in this particular case.

In Edwards v. Teamsters Local Union No. 36, supra, the Circuit considered the propriety of applying DelCostello to an LMRA action retroactively. In declining retroactive application of the case, the court set forth three factors to consider:

First, the decision to be applied non-retroactively must establish a new principle of law, either by overruling clear past precedent on which litigants may have relied ..., or by deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed.... Second, it has been stressed that "we must ... weigh the merits and demerits in each case by looking to the prior history of the rule in question, its purpose and effect, and whether retrospective operation will further or retard its operation." ... Finally, we have weighed the inequity imposed by retroactive application, for "where a decision of this Court could produce substantial inequitable results if applied retroactively, there is ample basis in our cases for avoiding the `injustice or hardship' by a holding of nonretroactivity."

Id. at 1040 (citing Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97 at 106-07, 92 S.Ct. 349 at 355, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971)).

In the present case, it is clear that the first Edwards factor has been satisfied. If DelCostello does apply to LMRDA actions, it will effectively overrule the previous statute of limitations for such actions in the Ninth Circuit. See Trotter, supra, and Copitas, supra. The previous statute constituted a clear precedent on which plaintiff could have justifiably relied. In addition, although a concurrence in a Supreme Court case on a tangentially related subject touched on the holding in DelCostello, see United Parcel Service v. Mitchell, 451 U.S. 56, 65-71, 101 S.Ct. 1559, 1565-1568, 67 L.Ed.2d 732 (1981) (Stewart, J., concurring), it could not be said to have "clearly foreshadowed" the result in the later case. Edwards, supra, at 1040.

As regards the second criterion, it seems that the nonretrospective application of the DelCostello rule in this case will not retard the rule's future operation. The court noted in DelCostello that the new rule's purpose was to establish a uniform system which would accord employees a satisfactory opportunity to vindicate their rights under the LMRA. DelCostello, supra, 462 U.S. at 171-72, 103 S.Ct. at 2294. With this purpose in mind, it seems unlikely that nonretroactive application of the rule in this circumstance will retard the Court's plan, in that DelCostello creates a procedural limitation, rather than substantive rights which the Court would have to acknowledge even retroactively.

Finally, the balance of equities required by the third prong of the Edwards test tips clearly in favor of the plaintiff in this case. As the LMRDA requires, plaintiff pursued internal union remedies for eight months until August of 1983. Plaintiff filed suit in January of 1984, exactly one year after the allegedly illegal election took place. Hence, plaintiff was well within the three-year requirement of the previous statute of limitation for LMRDA action. Moreover, although this would not be in strict compliance with DelCostello if it were to be applied, by filing one year after the action arose plaintiff has not "slept on his rights." Instead of waiting until the end of the then existing statute of limitations period, the plaintiff managed to file this action before even one third of it had managed to expire. In this sense, this Court must find that the equities favor the plaintiff in that he has managed to prosecute this action in a timely manner. The DelCostello rule, therefore, will not be applied against him retroactively.

In addition, for the same reasons stated above, the Court finds untenable defendants' contention that the doctrine of laches also bars the present cause of action. Laches is an equitable doctrine which prevents the prosecution of a cause of action in which the plaintiff has clearly disregarded the time element. Normally, the doctrine will not apply where the plaintiff has filed his action within the period specified for the analoguous action at law, and where the defendant has not been prejudiced by the delay in filing the suit. Shouse v. Pierce County, 559 F.2d 1142 at 1147 (9th Cir.1977).

In the present case, the plaintiff has filed his action within the Ninth Circuit's presently applicable statute of limitations for LMRDA actions. Even if the DelCostello...