Sweeney v. Daniels
| Decision Date | 17 January 2013 |
| Docket Number | 2:12CV81-PPS/PRC |
| Parties | JAMES M. SWEENEY, DAVID A. FAGAN, CHARLES SEVERS, JAMES C. OLIVER, BRYAN SCOFIELD, EARL CLICK, JR. and INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, LOCAL 150, AFL-CIO, Plaintiffs, v. MITCH DANIELS, Governor of the State of Indiana, GREGORY ZOELLER, Attorney General of the State of Indiana, and LORI A. TORRES, Commissioner of the Indiana Department of Labor, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana |
On February 1, 2012, Indiana's governor signed into law House Enrolled Act No. 1001, thereby making Indiana the 23rd state to enact so-called "Right to Work" legislation. This case challenges that new law on a number of constitutional grounds. The plaintiffs are Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers and several of its officers and members. In northwest Indiana, Local 150 represents approximately 4,000 members and has at least 200 collective bargaining agreements with construction industry employers and employers of other types. There are three defendants: Indiana's Governor, Attorney General, and Commissioner of Labor, all sued in their official capacity.
Indiana's New Right to Work Law
The "Right to Work" label has a nice sound to it, but is misleading. What these types of laws actually prohibit are "union security clauses," which are provisions in collective bargainingagreements between labor unions and employers that condition employment on a worker joining the union. In addition, such clauses permit, as a substitute for union membership, requiring the payment of fees to the union or, in the case of religious objection, making a substitute payment to a charitable organization. So it's not as if prior to the law's enactment certain people in Indiana were prevented from working and the law suddenly gave them the "Right to Work." Rather, it simply prevents forced union membership.
Indiana's new law is codified in the Indiana Code as §22-6-6 and titled The meatiest provision of the Indiana Right to Work law is §8, which spells out its principal prohibitions:
A person may not require an individual to:
as a condition of employment or continuation of employment.
Also at issue in the present motion is §3 of the law. It is a curious provision. What it says is that nothing in the law changes or affects "any law concerning" collective bargaining in the building and construction industry other than a law that permits agreements requiring union membership or the other two kinds of payments - laws requiring payments of dues to a union or substitute payments to charities. In other words, §3 seems to do the very same thing as §8 but simply makes it clear that it applies specifically to the building and construction industry. This apparent redundancy in §3 and §8 is the subject of dispute between the parties and will be further addressed below.
The last relevant provision of the law is §13 which makes it clear that §§8-12 of the Act apply only "to a written or oral contract(s) or agreement(s) entered into, modified, renewed, or extended after March 14, 2012." This means that, because the Act became effective on February 1, 2012, §§8-12 of the law apply only to contracts agreed to in the future, not to contracts already in existence. Note, however, that §13 does not mention §3 - the section dealing with the building and construction industry - and this drafting oddity, and the confusion it has engendered, is one of the primary disputes between the parties here.
Motion to Dismiss Standard
To survive a motion to dismiss, "a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). See also Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007). Construing this standard, the Seventh Circuit advises that: "[i]n reviewing the sufficiency of a complaint under the plausibility standard announced in Twombly and Iqbal, we accept the well-pleaded facts in the complaint as true, but legal conclusions and conclusory allegations merely reciting the elements of the claim are not entitled to this presumption of truth." McCauley v. City of Chicago, 671 F.3d 611, 616 (7th Cir. 2011). And "the complaint must contain 'allegations plausibly suggesting (not merely consistent with)' an entitlement to relief." McCauley, 671 F.3d at 616, quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557.
The Seventh Circuit has affirmed dismissals of constitutional claims under Rule 12(b)(6). See, e.g., Hearne v. Board of Educ. of City of Chicago, 185 F.3d 770, 774-76 (7th Cir.1999) (); DeSalle v. Wright, 969 F.2d 273, 275-77 (7th Cir.1992) (); Khan v. Gallitano, 180 F.3d 829, 832 (7th Cir.1999) ().
Proper Party-Defendants
There is an initial squabble between the parties about who are proper party-defendants. The briefing is unnecessarily lengthy and complicated, and the parties have muddled multiple arguments on the subject including sovereign immunity under the 11th Amendment, prosecutorial immunity, legislative immunity, who are "persons" for purposes of §1983, "case or controversy" justiciability requirements, and so on. The bottom line is that because the amended complaint seeks only declaratory and injunctive relief, this case can go forward under the exception to 11th Amendment immunity created by Ex Parte Young, 208 U.S. 123 (1908). That case holds that a "private party can sue a state officer in his or her official capacity to enjoin prospective action that would violate federal law." Ameritech Corp. v. McCann, 297 F. 3d 582, 585-86 (7th Cir. 2002), quoting Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908). The question then becomes who is the right state official to name as a defendant, and do we need more than one to restrain the State of Indiana from doing whatever this court determines would violate the federal constitution (if anything)?
Under Ex Parte Young, plaintiffs should name a state official who bears "legal responsibility for the flaws they perceive in the system" and not one from whom they "could notask anything...that could conceivably help their cause." Hearne v. Bd. of Educ., 185 F.3d 770, 777 (7th Cir. 1999). In Hearne, the court held that governor was not a proper defendant because he had no role in the enforcement of challenged statutes and no power to nullify the enacted legislation. The same is true here. The Governor has no ability to enforce or nullify the Right to Work law. So he must be dismissed as a party. By contrast, both the Commissioner of Labor and the Attorney General have roles in the enforcement of the Right to Work law under §§10 and 11. As such, they are properly named as defendants.
Contracts Clause and Ex Post Facto Clause - Counts I and X
Counts I and X of the first amended complaint challenge the Right to Work law under the Contracts Clause and the Ex Post Facto Clause of the U.S. Constitution. As I alluded to earlier, the Union reads §3 of the Act to apply substantive provisions to existing contracts in the building and construction industry. This alleged impact on existing contracts that were legal when entered into is the linchpin of the Union's argument that the Right to Work statute violates the Contracts Clause and constitutes an Ex Post Facto law. But the State has responded with an emphatic denial that §3 means what the Union says it does. That is the first issue that needs to be explored because absent an immediate impact on an existing contract, the Contracts Clause and Ex Post Facto Clause arguments can go nowhere.
The Contracts Clause of Article I, §10 of the United States Constitution provides: The Supreme Court has held that the Contracts Clause puts "some limits on the power of the state to abridge existing contractual relationships . . ." Allied Structural Steel Company v. Spannaus, 438 U.S. 234, 242 (1978) (emphasis in original). A claim under the Contracts Clause examines first whether thechallenged law works a substantial impairment of a contractual relationship; second, whether the law has a significant and legitimate public purpose; and third, whether the law is reasonable and appropriate in furtherance of that purpose. Energy Reserves Group, Inc. v. Kansas Power and Light Company, 459 U.S. 400, 411-412 (1983). But the key point for our purposes is that the law must impact an existing contractual relationship.
The Ex Post Facto Clause works in a similar fashion. "The ex post facto prohibition forbids the Congress and the States to enact any law 'which imposes a punishment for an act which was not punishable at the time it was committed; or imposes additional punishment to that then prescribed.'" Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 28 (1981), quoting Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 325-26, 18 L.Ed. 356 (1867). The prohibition on ex post facto legislation is intended to insure that existing law can be relied upon until fair warning is given of changes to the law. Id....
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