Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_05-cv-02625/USCOURTS-caed-2_05-cv-02625-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 443
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Accommodations
Cause of Action: 42:2003 Job Discrimination

---

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

1

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

JENNIFER LE,

Plaintiff, No. Civ. S-05-2625 DFL KJM

v. Memorandum of Opinion

 and Order

CALIFORNIA NURSES ASSOC.,

Defendant. 

_____________________________/

Plaintiff Jennifer Le alleges that defendant California

Nurses Association (“CNA”) illegally discriminated against her by

failing to reasonably accommodate her religious objection to

paying union dues. CNA moves to dismiss on the ground that Le

lacks standing. The court GRANTS defendant’s motion because CNA

is not responsible for any damages Le may have suffered, and

because there is an inadequate showing that CNA’s challenged

policy will cause Le any future harm.

I. Facts and Procedural History

From January 2002 until January 2004, Le worked as an advice

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 1 of 11
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

2

nurse for Kaiser Permanente (“Kaiser”), which has a contract with

CNA providing that most nursing positions be filled by CNA

members. (Compl. ¶¶9-10, 32.) On January 28, 2004, Kaiser

removed Le from her position as an advice nurse because she

refused on religious grounds to facilitate the prescription of

birth control pills. (Id. ¶ 9.) Le is a devout Roman Catholic. 

(Id. ¶ 12.) 

Kaiser placed Le on unpaid, involuntary leave while she

looked for another position within Kaiser that would not cause

conflict with her religious beliefs. (Le Decl. ¶ 23.) Soon

thereafter, on February 17, Kaiser offered Le a temporary, nonunion position that she could fill while searching for a

permanent job. (Id. ¶ 24.) She began in the temporary position

in early April. (Id.) 

Three months before the events just described, in October

2003, Le states that she discovered that CNA supports pro-choice

causes and informed the union that she could not in good

conscience continue paying union dues. (Id. ¶¶11-13.) Under the

CNA-Kaiser contract, nurses with religious objections to

supporting CNA may maintain their eligibility for employment by

contributing to one of five designated charities instead of

paying union dues. (Id. ¶ 16.) But Le claims that each of the

five designated charities – the American Heart Association,

American Cancer Society, AIDS Foundation, Planned Parenthood, and

Doctors Without Borders – engage in activities that violate her

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 2 of 11
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

3

religious beliefs. (Id. ¶¶ 16-17.) On October 25, 2003, she

sent CNA a letter stating that she objected to the designated

charities and asking that she be allowed to donate to the United

Way instead. (Id. ¶¶ 13-14.) Receiving no response, she re-sent

the letter on November 19, 2003. (Id. ¶ 17.) Still having

received no substantive response, Le filed a complaint with the

EEOC in late January 2004. (Le Decl. ¶ 22.) 

Whether CNA eventually would have asked Kaiser to terminate

Le for failing to donate to a designated charity cannot be known,

as Kaiser removed Le from her position as advice nurse in January

2004 because she refused to facilitate the prescription of

contraceptives. Le admits that CNA never sought her termination

and never threatened to do so. (Le Dep. at 89-90.)

In the spring and summer of 2004, while working in the

temporary position, Le applied for fourteen nursing jobs at

Kaiser. (Id. ¶ 28.) Her applications were unsuccessful. (Id. ¶

29.) In October 2004, she left Kaiser for a non-union position

with Catholic Healthcare West ("CHW"). (Id. ¶ 35.) Le’s

unverified complaint alleges that she is ineligible for promotion

within CHW and that she has not applied for union positions with

other area healthcare providers because their contracts with CNA

make no provision for religious objectors. (Compl. ¶¶ 27-31.) 

The complaint also alleges that “in the future, Le intends to

continue to seek positions at medical facilities in which she

would be employed as a nurse which require CNA membership.” (Id.

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 3 of 11
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

4

¶ 24.) In her deposition, however, Le acknowledges that if a

healthcare organization's contract with CNA is silent as to

religious objectors, a religious objector may remain eligible for

unionized nursing positions by contributing an amount equal to

union dues to any tax-qualified, non-religious, non-labor

charity. (Le Dep. at 172-73.) Further, CNA has submitted a

declaration from its membership manager, Nancy Bratchett

(“Bratchett”), stating that “[i]f the collective bargaining

agreement does not provide a list of charities, CNA will

accommodate the nurse by allowing him or her to choose any nonlabor, non-religious charity exempt from taxation.” (Bratchett

Decl. ¶ 5.) According to Bratchett, there are currently fourteen

religious objectors working under the CNA-CHW contract. (Id. ¶

7.) These objectors donate their dues to charities of their own

selection, including food banks and animal-rights organizations. 

(Id.)

Le seeks damages for lost wages, a declaratory judgment

holding that CNA's refusal to accommodate her choice of charity

violates Title VII and FEHA, and preliminary and permanent

injunctions against similar conduct by CNA in the future. 

(Compl. at 18-20.) Her unverified complaint states that "[i]n

the future, [she] wishes to apply for employment as a nurse with

medical facilities operated by Kaiser." (Compl. ¶ 25.) Nowhere

in her declaration, however, does Le state that she would apply

for union nursing positions if CNA were forced to alter its

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 4 of 11
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

5

policies. 

On May 10, 2006, the court heard oral argument on CNA’s

original motion to dismiss. At the hearing, the court instructed

Le to file a declaration that at the time the complaint was filed

she was looking for other employment but was deterred by CNA’s

alleged failure to accommodate her religious beliefs. The court

told Le “to be as specific as possible.” (Tr. at 10; see also

id. at 6, 17-18.) Le filed a declaration in support of standing

on June 7, 2006. On June 16, the court denied CNA’s motion to

dismiss, but authorized CNA to file an additional motion to

dismiss for lack of standing after taking Le’s deposition. 

(Order at 5.) 

CNA took Le’s deposition on June 12, 2006. (Decl. of Pamela

Allen in Support of Mot. at 2.) It filed the present motion to

dismiss for lack of standing on July 19. Le filed a supplemental

declaration in support of standing on August 2. 

II. Analysis

The requirement that a plaintiff have standing to bring a

case in federal court derives from the “case” or “controversy”

provision of Article III. 

This ‘irreducible constitutional minimum’ of standing

requires: (1) that the plaintiff have suffered an ‘injury in

fact’-- an invasion of a judicially cognizable interest

which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or

imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) that there be

a causal connection between the injury and the conduct

complained of -- the injury must be fairly traceable to the

challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of

the independent action of some third party not before the

court; and (3) that it be likely, as opposed to merely

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 5 of 11
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

Although the allegation does not appear in Le's 1

complaint, Le later asserted in her declaration that CNA

delayed her transfer to the temporary position at Kaiser

thereby causing her to lose wages. Her counsel conceded that

this was not a part of the claim in this case, however, when

the court pointed out that Le did not raise this particular

issue with the EEOC. (Tr. at 8-9.) Nevertheless, the claim

reappears in Le's Opposition, filed months later. Because she

conceded it, the court does not consider Le’s claim that CNA

somehow delayed her start date in the temporary Kaiser

position.

6

speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a

favorable decision.

Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 167 (1997). 

The burden of establishing standing rests on the party

invoking federal jurisdiction. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife,

504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992). This burden is not merely a pleading

requirement; rather, it requires the proponent of federal

jurisdiction to produce the “degree of evidence required at the

successive stages of the litigation.” Id. (citations omitted). 

In ruling on a motion to dismiss for lack of standing, a court

may properly consider evidence beyond the pleadings. See

Gladstone Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 109 n.22

(1979). A plaintiff may have standing to sue for damages and yet

lack standing to sue for prospective relief. Hodgers-Durgin v.

De La Vina, 199 F.3d 1037, 1041 n.1 (9th Cir. 1999). 

This case presents two separate standing issues. The first

is whether Le has standing to sue for lost wages resulting from

her alleged inability to work in union nursing jobs after January

2004. The second is whether she has standing to sue for 1

declaratory and injunctive relief. For the reasons discussed

below, the court holds that she has neither.

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 6 of 11
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

7

A. Le's Standing to Sue for Lost Wages

Le lacks standing to sue CNA for lost wages because any

wages she might have lost are not “fairly traceable to the

challenged action of the defendant.” Bennett, 520 U.S. at 167. 

Le lost her job as an advice nurse with Kaiser because she

refused to facilitate the prescription of oral contraceptives,

not because she stopped paying union dues or objected to the five

designated charities. She admits in her deposition that she has

no “concrete” evidence that CNA had anything to do with Kaiser's

decision to remove her as an advice nurse. (Le Dep. at 127.) 

The reasons she does give for suspecting CNA might have been

involved –- that her dispute with CNA was ongoing when Kaiser

refused to accommodate her objection to prescribing birth

control, and her “very broad general . . . knowledge of unions

having a lack of tolerance for people who didn't toe the line” --

amount to nothing more than speculation. (Id. at 127-28.) 

Nor can the fact that Le has not worked in a union position

since that time be attributed to CNA. First, she does not allege

that CNA is responsible for her lack of success in securing any

of the fourteen Kaiser nursing jobs she applied for in 2004. 

Indeed, Le admits in her deposition that CNA has nothing to do

with Kaiser's hiring decisions. (Id. at 177.) Second, she

admits that she could have taken a union job with any one of the

many area healthcare providers whose contract with CNA does not

have a provision for religious objectors. (Id. at 171.) She

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 7 of 11
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

Le claims that these fourteen objectors may fall under a 2

grandfather clause in the CNA-CHW contract that does not apply

to her, and so their existence does not demonstrate that CNA

would accommodate her if she applied for a union job at CHW. 

(Le Reply [sic] at 8.) This is grasping at straws. The

provision of the CNA-CHW contract applicable to Le specifies

that “Employees of the Employer who are subject to this

Agreement shall be required as a condition of employment to

maintain membership in the Union in good standing subject to

federal law.” (Id. at 9 (emphasis added).) As already

mentioned, Le admits that where the contract does not

designate a list of charities, federal law requires a union to

accommodate religious objectors by allowing them to donate to

the charity of their choice. Thus, CNA would be required to

accommodate Le if she applied for a union job at CHW.

8

admits that had she done so, she could have diverted her union

dues to a charity of her choice and still enjoyed “all of the

rights and benefits of the union contract, the wage rate, the

fringe benefits, [and] the grievance procedure.” (Id.) Le chose

not to apply for any such jobs because she was “exhausted and

mentally frustrated” from her disputes with Kaiser and CNA, not

because CNA's policies with respect to religious objectors would

have been a barrier. (Id. at 166.) Indeed, CNA has accommodated

fourteen religious objectors who work at CHW, Le's current

employer, by allowing them to contribute to the charities of

their choice. 

2

Because any wages Le may have lost are traceable to Kaiser’s

actions or her own choices, not to CNA's conduct or policies, Le

lacks standing to sue CNA for damages. 

B. Le's Standing to Sue for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief

It is undisputed that CNA's policies do not prevent Le from

working in union positions for area employers other than Kaiser. 

Therefore, with respect to those employers, a declaratory

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 8 of 11
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

9

judgment or injunction against CNA would not benefit Le or

redress any injury to her. Accordingly, the possibility that she

might seek a union position outside of Kaiser does not give Le

standing to seek prospective relief. 

The only course of events in which CNA's policy might injure

Le is if she were once again to hold a union position with

Kaiser, which she has not done since 2004. If she did, CNA

likely would require her to pay union dues or contribute to one

of the five designated charities, all of which Le finds

objectionable. Whether Le has standing to seek prospective

relief turns on the likelihood that she will find herself working

for Kaiser in a union position. 

It is highly speculative that Le will again even apply for a

union position with Kaiser. As already noted, a plaintiff has

standing only if it is “likely, as opposed to merely speculative,

that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.” 

Bennett, 520 U.S. at 167 (citation omitted); see also City of Los

Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 108 (1983). A plaintiff seeking

injunctive relief must further demonstrate “that he is in

immediate danger of sustaining some direct injury.” Feit v.

Ward, 886 F.2d 848, 857 (7th Cir. 1989) (citation omitted and

emphasis added). 

Despite the court’s admonition that Le’s declaration should

be as specific as possible about her intentions with respect to

seeking union employment in the future, nowhere in her

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 9 of 11
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

Because no CNA policy prevents Le from getting union 3

jobs outside of Kaiser, her reliance on Int'l Bhd. of

Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 365-66 (1977), is

misplaced. (Reply at 11-12.) In that case, the Court stated

that “[w]hen a person's desire for a job is not translated

into a formal application solely because of his unwillingness

to engage in a futile gesture he is as much a victim of

discrimination as is he who goes through the motions of

submitting an application.” Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 365-66. 

CNA’s policy did not prevent Le from getting a union job

outside of Kaiser, so applying would not have been futile.

Because the court finds that Le has not come forward with 4

any evidence that she intends to apply for a union job, her

reliance on Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003), is

misplaced. (Reply [sic] at 10-11.) Although the Court in Gratz

found that a student who had not actually applied for admission

as a transfer student had standing to challenge a university's

admissions criteria, it stated that even “if [the student] had

10

declaration does she state that she would apply for a union job

with Kaiser if she obtained the prospective relief she seeks. 

Moreover, although in her deposition Le acknowledges knowing that

she already has the legal right to work in union positions

outside of Kaiser without paying union dues or contributing to

objectionable charities, she has not applied for any such

positions over the last two years. Finally, despite her 3

counsel’s repeated assertions to the contrary at the oral

argument on this motion, Le’s state-court complaint against

Kaiser does not seek reinstatement. 

Le's failure to state under oath that she intends to seek

union employment at Kaiser, her failure to seek union employment

outside of Kaiser since 2004, and her failure to seek

reinstatement in her state-court action against Kaiser together

demonstrate that she does not intend to apply for union jobs at

Kaiser if she wins prospective relief in this case. She offers 4

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 10 of 11
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

submitted a transfer application and been rejected, he would

still need to allege an intent to apply again in order to seek

prospective relief.” Gratz, 539 U.S. at 261. Because Le does

not assert an intent to apply for union jobs in the future, Gratz

does not support her argument.

11

nothing to the contrary. Therefore, she has failed to show that

she is in immediate danger of suffering a direct injury as a

result of CNA’s policy. Accordingly, she lacks standing to seek

prospective relief.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, CNA’s motion to dismiss for

lack of standing is GRANTED.

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: 10/11/2006

DAVID F. LEVI

United States District Judge

Case 2:05-cv-02625-DFL -KJM Document 58 Filed 10/12/06 Page 11 of 11