United Food and Commercial Workers v. United Food

• Citation: 301 F.3d 468
• Decision Date: 22 August 2002
• Docket Number: No. 00-4544.,00-4544.
• Parties: UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION LOCAL 911 et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

301 F.3d 468

UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION LOCAL 911 et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 00-4544.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued April 24, 2002.

Decided and Filed August 22, 2002.

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Ted Iorio (argued and briefed), Christine A. Reardon (briefed), Fillipe S. Iorio, Donato S. Iorio (briefed), Kalniz, Iorio & Feldstein, Toledo, OH, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Eben O. McNair, IV (briefed), Melvin S. Schwarzwald (argued and briefed), James G. Porcaro (briefed), Schwarzwald & McNair, Cleveland, OH, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before DAUGHTREY and MOORE, Circuit Judges; SIMPSON, District Judge.^*

MOORE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which DAUGHTREY, J., joined. SIMPSON, D.J. (p.____), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

OPINION

MOORE, Circuit Judge.

This case involves a dispute between an international labor organization and one of its affiliates. Plaintiffs-Appellants United Food and Commercial Workers ("UFCW") International Union Local 911 and its individual members ("Local 911") appeal the district court's dismissal of their complaint against Defendants-Appellees UFCW International Union ("International Union") and its officers for violations of the Labor-Management Relations Act ("LMRA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 141-187, and the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 ("LMRDA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 401-531. Because relief could be granted on the LMRA claim and one of the LMRDA claims, we AFFIRM in part and REVERSE in part the district court's decision and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

Local 911, a chartered affiliate of the International Union, represents approximately 12,000 workers in the meat packing, food processing, and retail industries of northwestern Ohio. Meijer, Inc. ("Meijer"), is a Michigan-based retail chain that sells groceries and general merchandise. September 19, 1998, marked the expiration of Local 911's collective bargaining agreement with Meijer for four Meijer stores in the Toledo, Ohio, area. The negotiations that ensued between Local 911 and Meijer resulted in a "last, best and final offer" by Meijer, which Local 911 rejected by a margin of nine to one. Joint Appendix ("J.A.") at 94-95 (First Am. Compl. ("FAC") at ¶¶ 23-25). Local 911's subsequent attempt to boycott Meijer's Toledo stores was overruled by the International Union. By December 7, 1998, however, Local 911 and Meijer managed to reach and ratify a successor collective bargaining agreement, which "contained improvements over and above [Meijer's previous offers]." J.A. at 98 (FAC at ¶ 40).

At about this time, Meijer was building a new store in Bowling Green, Ohio. On February 1, 1999, David W. Gelios ("Gelios"), the president and chief executive officer of Local 911, wrote to Douglas H. Dority ("Dority"), the president of the International Union, about Local 911's future representation of union members at the new Meijer store, noting the store's location "in the middle of Local 911's jurisdiction." J.A. at 269. Dority decided to assign the store to the jurisdiction of Local 1059, which covers central and southeastern Ohio. Local 911 immediately appealed Dority's decision under the UFCW International Union Constitution ("UFCW Constitution"). After a hearing, the UFCW International Executive Board denied the appeal.

On November 19, 1999, Local 911 filed a complaint in the district court, alleging that the International Union had (1) denied it due process in violation of § 101(a)(5) of the LMRDA, (2) abridged its free speech and assembly rights in violation of § 101(a)(2) of the LMRDA, and (3) breached the UFCW Constitution in violation of § 301 of the LMRA. On March 14, 2000, with the leave of the district court, Local 911 filed a first amended complaint, alleging in addition to the claims raised in its original complaint that the International Union had breached its fiduciary duty to Local 911 in violation of § 501 of the LMRDA. Local 911 sought various declaratory judgments, a preliminary and permanent injunction, restoration of jurisdiction over the Meijer store in Bowling Green, various damages in excess of one million dollars, and costs.

On March 28, 2000, the International Union filed a motion to dismiss Local 911's complaint for improper venue and failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. On October 31, 2000, the district court granted the International Union's motion on the latter ground. United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local No. 911 v. United Food & Commercial Workers Int'l Union, 119 F.Supp.2d 724, 729, 734-35 (N.D.Ohio 2000). This timely appeal followed.

II. ANALYSIS

We review de novo a district court's dismissal of a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Inge v. Rock Fin. Corp., 281 F.3d 613, 619 (6th Cir.2002). In doing so, we "accept all well-pleaded factual allegations of the complaint as true and construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Id. However, we "need not accept as true legal conclusions or unwarranted factual inferences." Mich. Paytel Joint Venture v. City of Detroit, 287 F.3d 527, 533 (6th Cir.2002) (quotation omitted). We will affirm a dismissal "only if it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations." Inge, 281 F.3d at 619 (quoting Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73, 104 S.Ct. 2229, 81 L.Ed.2d 59 (1984)).

A. The LMRDA Claims

In Finnegan v. Leu, 456 U.S. 431, 102 S.Ct. 1867, 72 L.Ed.2d 239 (1982), the Supreme Court observed that the LMRDA "was the product of congressional concern with widespread abuses of power by union leadership." Id. at 435, 102 S.Ct. 1867. Congress ultimately adopted amendments to the LMRDA that were "aimed at enlarged protection for members of unions paralleling certain rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution":

The amendments placed emphasis on the rights of union members to freedom of expression without fear of sanctions by the union, which in many instances could mean loss of union membership and in turn loss of livelihood. Such protection was necessary to further the [LMRDA]'s primary objective of ensuring that unions would be democratically governed and responsive to the will of their memberships.

Id. at 435-36, 102 S.Ct. 1867. The scope of the LMRDA's protection, however, does not extend as far as that of the Constitution. United Steelworkers of Am. v. Sadlowski, 457 U.S. 102, 109, 102 S.Ct. 2339, 72 L.Ed.2d 707 (1982). For example, union rules must only be "reasonable" to be valid under § 101(a)(2), which guarantees free speech and assembly rights to union members, whereas governmental regulations must further a compelling governmental interest and be narrowly tailored to be valid under the First Amendment. Id. at 111, 102 S.Ct. 2339.

1. Section 101(a)(5)

Section 101(a)(5) of the LMRDA provides:

No member of any labor organization may be fined, suspended, expelled, or otherwise disciplined except for nonpayment of dues by such organization or by any officer thereof unless such member has been (A) served with written specific charges; (B) given a reasonable time to prepare his defense; (C) afforded a full and fair hearing.

29 U.S.C. § 411(a)(5). In Breininger v. Sheet Metal Workers Int'l Ass'n Local Union No. 6, 493 U.S. 67, 110 S.Ct. 424, 107 L.Ed.2d 388 (1989), the Supreme Court stated "that by using the phrase `otherwise discipline,' Congress did not intend to include all acts that deterred the exercise of rights protected under the LMRDA, but rather meant instead to denote only punishment authorized by the union as a collective entity to enforce its rules." Id. at 91, 110 S.Ct. 424. In other words, a union member is "disciplined" only when the union takes action "under color of the union's right to control the member's conduct in order to protect the interests of the union or its membership." Id. (quotation omitted).

Local 911 contends that its members were disciplined in violation of the LMRDA when Dority assigned the Meijer store at Bowling Green to the jurisdiction of Local 1059 rather than Local 911. This decision was allegedly made "in a calculated attempt to retaliate against [Local 911] for [its] aggressive posture" during the negotiations with Meijer over the collective bargaining agreement for the Toledo stores. J.A. at 410. We consider Local 911's choice of words somewhat curious given the Breininger Court's determination that the LMRDA's "specifically enumerated types of discipline — fine, expulsion, and suspension — imply some sort of established disciplinary process rather than ad hoc retaliation by individual union officers." Breininger, 493 U.S. at 91-92, 110 S.Ct. 424. In a footnote, the Court clarified that it "d[id] not imply that `discipline' may be defined solely by the type of punishment involved, or that a union might be able to circumvent §§ 101(a)(5) and 609 by developing novel forms of penalties different from fines, suspensions, or expulsions." Id. at 92 n. 15, 110 S.Ct. 424. However "novel" the denial of jurisdiction might be as a form of punishment, it seems, at least in our view, to be much closer to ad hoc retaliation than to "punishment authorized by the union as a collective entity to enforce its rules." Id. at 91, 110 S.Ct. 424. We therefore hold that the district court did not err in dismissing this claim.

Another difficulty with Local 911's § 101(a)(5) claim is that the alleged punishment did not result from an established union disciplinary process. Cf. Konen v. Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, Local 200, 255 F.3d 402, 410 (7th Cir.2001) (holding that the plaintiff was not disciplined in violation of the LMRDA because he "was never subjected to official Union discipline ... and there is no...