Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-02-07111/USCOURTS-caDC-02-07111-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 730
Nature of Suit: Labor Management Report &amp; Disclosure
Cause of Action: 

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Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

Federal Reporter or U.S.App.D.C. Reports. Users are requested to notify

the Clerk of any formal errors in order that corrections may be made

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 7, 2003 Decided December 2, 2003

No. 02-7111

CHARLES CALLIHAN AND

WILBER M. THOMAS,

APPELLANTS

v.

UNITED ASSOCIATION OF JOURNEYMEN AND APPRENTICES

OF THE PLUMBING AND PIPEFITTING INDUSTRY AND

MARTIN J. MADDALONI, UA GENERAL PRESIDENT,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(00cv02988)

Arthur L. Fox, II argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellants.

Sally M. Tedrow argued the cause for appellees. With her

on the brief was Dinah S. Leventhal.

 Bills of costs must be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment.

The court looks with disfavor upon motions to file bills of costs out

of time.

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Before: SENTELLE, RANDOLPH, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: After the decision in Thomas v.

Grand Lodge of Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (‘‘IAM’’), 201 F.3d 517 (4th Cir. 2000), two union members

brought an action against their union, claiming that it had not

complied with § 105 of the Labor-Management Reporting

and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. § 415. Section 105

reads: ‘‘Every labor organization shall inform its members

concerning the provisions of this chapter.’’ The ‘‘provisions’’

set forth the rights of union members and the responsibilities

of union officers. Thomas held that unions had an ongoing

duty to inform their members of the LMRDA. The complaint in this case alleged that the union had provided its

members with information about the LMRDA only once,

when the provisions became law in 1959. While the complaint

was pending, the union undertook several steps to notify its

members of the LMRDA. To the district court, these steps

satisfied § 105. The court therefore entered summary judgment for the union, from which the members appeal.

No one disputes the holding in Thomas that ‘‘members’’ in

§ 105 means current union members. The issue here is the

meaning of ‘‘inform,’’ an issue the court of appeals in Thomas

directed District Judge Messitte to resolve on remand. 201

F.3d at 521. When the case returned, Judge Messitte ordered the union to send all new members a copy of the

Department of Labor’s summary of the LMRDA; to publish

the summary in three issues of the union’s journal, the first

within six months of the order, and again in 2004 and 2008;

and to post the summary on the union’s website. Thomas v.

Grand Lodge of Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, Civ. No. PJM 97–2001 (D. Md. Sept. 19, 2000).

The Labor Department’s one-page summary of the

LMRDA describes the union member rights contained in

Title I. Among these are the right to participate equally in

union activities, freedom of speech, and safeguards against

improper discipline. See 29 U.S.C. § 411. The summary also

mentions other LMRDA provisions, some imposing duties on

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union officers and others giving members the right to receive

copies of collective bargaining agreements and union reports

to the Labor Department; to run for office; to cast secret

ballots in union elections; and to protest the conduct of

elections. At the end of the Labor Department’s summary is

a statement that the full text of the LMRDA may be found in

many public libraries and on the Internet at the Department’s

website — www.dol.gov.

After the complaint was filed in this case, the union —

apparently taking a cue from the district court’s order in

Thomas — published a copy of the Labor Department’s

summary in its journal, agreed to do the same in 2004 and

2008, and modified its welcome letter to new members to

include the summary. The union did not, however, post the

summary on its website. These are the union actions the

district court viewed as sufficient compliance with § 105.

We place to one side the point that the union’s actions, even

if sufficient, did not preclude the district court from issuing

an injunction requiring the union to do what it now promised.

‘‘Voluntary discontinuance of an alleged illegal activity does

not operate to remove the case from the ambit of judicial

power.’’ Walling v. Helmerich & Payne, 323 U.S. 37, 43

(1944). See United States v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629,

632 (1953); Hecht Co. v. Bowles, 321 U.S. 321, 327 (1944).

But in the district court and in this court, the members never

invoked this line of authority as a ground for opposing the

union’s summary judgment motion or as a basis for claiming

that they were entitled to summary judgment.

As the case was presented, the union’s liability therefore

depended not on whether it had violated § 105 in the past,

but on whether the measures it had undertaken constituted

present compliance. The argument is that although sending

the LMRDA summary to new members may suffice to inform

them of the provisions, the union’s publication of the summary in its journal did not adequately inform current members. In their brief, the members rely on several affidavits

from experts on labor unions. One expert stated that members do not read union journals because these publications

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are ‘‘generally uninteresting.’’ Another stated that union

publications ‘‘range in quality dramatically’’ and that there ‘‘is

no accurate sense as to how widely these are read.’’ Still

another expert stated that there ‘‘is no definitive way for me

to determine what percentage of union members read their

union’s publications,’’ but it was ‘‘my impression that a substantial number — perhaps the majority — don’t read them

at all.’’

The expert affidavits spoke of unions generally, or, in one

instance, of the Teamsters in particular; none of the affidavits dealt specifically with the union in this case — the United

Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing

and Pipefitting Industry; and none had anything to say about

the quality of its journal or the extent of its readership.

Perhaps for this reason, the members, in their statement of

material facts not in dispute, did not refer to the affidavits

and said nothing about the readership of the union’s journal.

And in their opposition to the union’s statement of material

facts not in dispute, the members did not file a separate

statement of material facts in dispute, as local Rule 7.1(h)

requires. See Gardels v. CIA, 637 F.2d 770 (D.C. Cir. 1980).

Instead, they filed a memorandum in opposition indicating

that they had offered the affidavits not to contest facts, but

only to guide the court in its exercise of remedial discretion.

The summary judgment papers raised no other genuine

issue of fact. At best, the members’ position focused not so

much on what the union was doing but on what more it could

have done to inform the members. That is also the gist of

their argument on appeal. The members offered two proposals, neither of which the district court adopted. The first was

that the court order the union to post the LMRDA summary

on its website. There is nothing to this, whether viewed as a

proposed remedy or as a basis for liability. The members

offered no evidence that the union’s website has widespread

readership. In fact, one of the members’ experts stated in

his affidavit that ‘‘most union members do not own computers

or they lack the surfing skills to find the union’s web page.’’

Another expert stated that although ‘‘substantial numbers of

union members have computers,’’ they will not go to a union’s

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‘‘website for information.’’ If the idea is that union members

should have some way to gain access to the full text of the

LMRDA, as another of the experts proposed, this may be

accomplished by following the summary’s direction to the

Department of Labor’s website, or by a simple Internet

search for ‘‘LMRDA text.’’

The members’ other proposal was that the court order the

union to append the Labor Department’s summary to the

union’s constitution because members often turn to the constitution during disputes with the union leadership. Some of

the affidavits support this proposition in general. (The parties tell us that members receive a copy of the constitution

only upon request.) But we can perceive no legal principle

derived from § 105 that necessarily requires this measure as

a remedy for a violation. Still less can we see any basis for

interpreting ‘‘inform’’ in § 105 to mean that unions who do

not attach the summary to their constitutions violate the

LMRDA. That this form of notice might result in more

members being informed surely cannot be the legal standard.

Sending a copy of the summary to members each month, or

each week, or even each day might also better inform them of

their rights under the LMRDA, but no one would seriously

contend that a union’s failure to do so violates § 105. In

passing this statute, Congress ‘‘believed that only essential

standards should be imposed by legislation, and that in

establishing those standards, great care should be taken not

to undermine union self-government.’’ United Steelworkers

of Am. v. Sadlowski, 457 U.S. 102, 117 (1982). See also

Carothers v. Presser, 818 F.2d 926, 933–34 (D.C. Cir. 1987).

We therefore refuse to transform § 105 into a detailed code

of union conduct. Unions may choose among measures that

meet the minimum criterion of actual notice. So long as the

union makes a good-faith attempt to reach its current members through means that enable the members to learn of the

LMRDA’s provisions, § 105 is satisfied, even if more could

have been done. Cf. Nielsen v. Int’l Ass’n of Machinists &

Aerospace Workers, 94 F.3d 1107, 1115 (7th Cir. 1996).

The members, citing Int’l Org. of Masters, Mates & Pilots

v. Brown, 498 U.S. 466 (1991), tell us that union autonomy is

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of no concern when enforcing § 105. The case is not on

point. The Supreme Court there was addressing a very

different provision in a different title of the LMRDA. In

Carothers, we ruled that courts enforcing Title I should not

interfere with union procedures unless the union violates a

specific statutory proscription. Carothers, 818 F.2d at 933–

34. That is the controlling precedent here.

Affirmed.

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