Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-06-02127/USCOURTS-ca4-06-02127-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 710
Nature of Suit: Fair Labor Standards Act
Cause of Action: 

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UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 06-2127

FRED ASHLEY; RANDY FOWLER; HENRY JUAREZ;

ANDREW TURNER,

Plaintiffs - Appellants,

versus

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD; ROBERT J.

BATTISTA, In his official capacity as Chairman

of the National Labor Relations Board; PETER

C. SCHAUMBER, In his official capacity as a

member of the National Labor Relations Board;

WILMA B. LIEBMAN, In her official capacity as

a member of the National Labor Relations

Board; PETER N. KIRSANOW, In his official

capacity as a member of the National Labor

Relations Board; DENNIS P. WALSH, In his

official capacity as a member of the National

Labor Relations Board; WILLIE L. CLARK, JR.,

In his official capacity as the Regional

Director of the Eleventh Region of the

National Labor Relations Board,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle

District of North Carolina, at Durham. William L. Osteen, Senior

District Judge. (1:06-cv-00316-WLO-PT)

Argued: October 30, 2007 Decided: November 20, 2007

Before MICHAEL, MOTZ, and KING, Circuit Judges.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ARGUED: William L. Messenger, NATIONAL RIGHT TO WORK LEGAL

FOUNDATION, Springfield, Virginia, for Appellants. Kye D.

Pawlenko, Office of the General Counsel, NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS

BOARD, Washington, D.C., for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Philip M. Van

Hoy, Stephen Dunn, VAN HOY, REUTLINGER, ADAMS & DUNN, Charlotte,

North Carolina, for Appellants. Ronald Meisburg, General Counsel,

John E. Higgins, Jr., Deputy General Counsel, John H. Ferguson,

Associate General Counsel, Margery E. Lieber, Deputy Associate

General Counsel, Eric G. Moskowitz, Assistant General Counsel,

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Washington, D.C., for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Plaintiffs Fred Ashley, Randy Fowler, Henry Juarez, and Andrew

Turner (collectively, Plaintiffs) bring this action against the

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board). Plaintiffs allege

that when the Board certified the International Union, United

Automobile and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) as

their exclusive bargaining representative without entertaining

their objections during the certification proceeding, the Board

deprived them of their liberty and property interests without due

process of law, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The district

court granted the Board’s motion to dismiss for lack of standing

and subject matter jurisdiction. We affirm, albeit on somewhat

different grounds.

I.

Plaintiffs are employees of Thomas Built Buses, Inc. (TBB).

TBB has a relationship with UAW that the district court described

as “interesting” -- it appears that for some time, TBB has been

assisting UAW in its organizing efforts at the TBB plant.

In June 2005, UAW requested that the NLRB conduct a

certification election at the TBB plant, in which TBB employees

would vote to determine whether UAW would become the exclusive

representative of the TBB employees. One day prior to the

election, TBB circulated a memorandum that implied that non-union

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employees would soon be subject to higher benefit costs. On the

day of the election, UAW recirculated the original memorandum, with

the addition of the headline “DID YOU SEE THIS? THE COST OF BEING

NON-UNION JUST WENT UP!” After the election, the unofficial tally

was 714 in favor of UAW and 504 opposed.

Plaintiffs argue that TBB’s circulation of the benefits change

memorandum one day prior to the election constitutes objectionable

conduct and provides grounds for setting aside the election

results. After the election, Plaintiffs sought to intervene in the

representation proceeding before the NLRB through which the Board

would officially certify UAW as the representative of the TBB

employees. Plaintiffs also filed objections to the certification

with the NLRB’s Regional Director. But Plaintiffs did not file a

charge alleging that TBB or UAW engaged in unfair labor practices.

The NLRB denied Plaintiffs’s motion to intervene, refused to

consider the objections filed with the Regional Director, and

certified UAW as the exclusive bargaining representative of TBB.

Instead of filing an unfair labor practices charge against TBB

and/or UAW, Plaintiffs brought this action against the NLRB,

claiming that the Board’s certification of UAW as their exclusive

representative deprived them of protected liberty and property

interests without due process of law, in violation of the Fifth

Amendment. The district court granted the Board’s motion to

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dismiss, finding a lack of standing and no subject matter

jurisdiction. Plaintiffs appeal.

II.

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, or Act) empowers the

Board to investigate questions of representation and, where

necessary, to direct elections by secret ballot and to certify the

results of such elections. 29 U.S.C.A. § 159(c) (West 1998 & Supp.

2007). The typical parties to a representation proceeding are the

employer and the union, and the Board does not normally allow

individual employees to intervene in representation proceedings.

See NLRB, Casehandling Manual, Part Two, Representation

Proceedings § 11194.4 (2007), available at

http://www.nlrb.gov/Publications/Manuals. It is unsurprising,

then, that the Board denied Plaintiffs’s motion to intervene in the

representation proceeding.

The NLRA also empowers the Board to prevent any person or

entity from engaging in any unfair labor practice affecting

commerce. 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 152(1), 160(a). An employer’s

contribution of support to a labor organization constitutes an

unfair labor practice within the meaning of the Act. Id. at §

158(a)(2); see also ILGWU v. NLRB, 366 U.S. 731, 738 (1961). Thus,

in this case, if TBB’s circulation of the benefits change

memorandum constitutes a “contribution of support” to UAW, then

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TBB’s actions fall within the definition of an unfair labor

practice.

Moreover, “any person,” not just an employer or union, may

file a charge alleging that a person or entity has engaged in

unfair labor practices. 29 C.F.R. § 102.9. The General Counsel of

the Board has the final authority to decide whether to pursue the

investigation of a charge and initiate the adjudication of a

complaint under section 160 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 153(d); see

also NLRB v. United Food & Commercial Workers, 484 U.S. 112 (1987).

The Board adjudicates the merits of unfair labor practice charges

brought by the General Counsel. 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(b)-(d). If the

Board finds that an employer or union has committed an unfair labor

practice, it may issue a final order setting aside its previous

certification of a union. See Lunardi-Central Distributing Co.,

161 NLRB No. 126 at 1444-45 (1966). Any party to a Board

proceeding aggrieved by this final order may obtain review of the

order in the courts of appeals. 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(f).

Therefore, in the case at hand, Plaintiffs could have filed an

unfair labor practices charge with the Board. If the General

Counsel initiated the adjudication of charges, the Board could have

held that TBB or UAW committed unfair labor practices and set aside

its previous certification of UAW as the exclusive representative

of the TBB employees. Alternatively, if the Board held that no

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1Some of these cases deal with state, rather than

administrative, procedures; however, the principle that a plaintiff

may not complain of procedures he or she has not pursued is the

same. 

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unfair labor practice had been committed, the Plaintiffs could have

appealed the Board’s final decision to this court.

Plaintiffs, however, chose not to file an unfair labor

practices charge with the Board. Instead, Plaintiffs ask us to

declare that the process that the NLRA establishes to address

unfair labor practices violates their constitutional rights,

despite the fact that they failed to pursue this process. As our

sister courts have repeatedly held, a plaintiff may not bypass a

seemingly adequate administrative process and then complain of that

process’s constitutional inadequacy in federal court. See, e.g.,

Farhat v. Jopke, 370 F.3d 580, 596 (6th Cir. 2004); Santana v. City

of Tulsa, 359 F.3d 1241, 1244 (10th Cir. 2004); Krentz v.

Robertson, 228 F.3d 897, 904 (8th Cir. 2000); Alvin v. Suzuki, 227

F.3d 107, 116 (3d Cir. 2000); Cotton v. Jackson, 216 F.3d 1328,

1331 (11th Cir. 2000); Rathjen v. Litchfield, 878 F.2d 836, 840

(5th Cir. 1989); Dusanek v. Hannon, 677 F.2d 538, 543 (7th Cir.

1982).1

Even assuming that Plaintiffs have suffered the deprivation of

a constitutionally protected liberty or property interest, which is

not at all clear, their failure to avail themselves of their right

to file an unfair labor practices charge means that they have

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2Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), on which Plaintiffs

heavily rely, involves an entirely different statutory scheme, not

governing asserted employment rights, but entitlement to social

security benefits. Eldridge “raised at least a colorable claim

that because of his physical condition and dependency upon the

disability benefits,” a pre-termination evidentiary hearing not

permitted by administrative procedures was constitutionally

required. Id. at 331. Despite Eldridge’s failure to avail himself

of other administrative remedies, these particular allegations

permitted him to bring this due process claim in federal court.

Plaintiffs make no remotely similar allegations here. 

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failed to state a due process claim. As Judge Becker explained in

Alvin, “to state a claim for failure to provide due process, a

plaintiff must have taken advantage of the processes that are

available to him or her, unless those processes are unavailable or

patently inadequate.” 227 F.3d at 116. This is so because a due

process violation “is not complete” when the asserted deprivation

occurs; rather it is only complete when the government “fails to

provide due process.” Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 126 (1990).

Accordingly, where “there is a process on the books that appears to

provide due process, the plaintiff cannot skip that process and use

the federal courts as a means to get back what he wants.” Alvin,

227 F.3d at 116. As in Alvin, here “a procedural due process

violation cannot have occurred” because “the governmental actor

provides apparently adequate procedural remedies and the plaintiff

has not availed himself of those remedies.” Id. (citing Zinermon,

494 U.S. at 126).2

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III.

Because Plaintiffs did not file an unfair labor practices

charge complaining of TBB’s unlawful assistance to UAW, they have

failed to state a due process claim. Accordingly, the judgment of

the district court dismissing this action is 

AFFIRMED.

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