Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/403/333/case.php
Timestamp: 2020-02-18 06:54:53
Document Index: 588513532

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 402', '§ 482', '§ 402', '§ 482', '§ 481', '§ 482', '§ 482']

MARSHALL, J., wrote the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J.,and BLACK, DOUGLAS, HARLAN, STEWART, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., post, p. 403 U. S. 341, and WHITE, J., post, p. 403 U. S. 343, filed dissenting opinions. chanrobles.com-red
After failing to obtain relief through the internal procedures of either union organization, Hantzis filed a complaint with the Secretary of Labor pursuant to § 402(a) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 482(a). The complaint repeated the charge that union facilities had been used to promote the candidacy of the incumbent president and raised, for the first time, an additional objection concerning a meeting attendance requirement imposed as a condition of candidacy for union office. [Footnote 3] At no time during his chanrobles.com-red
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed without reaching the question whether the attendance requirement was reasonable. In the court's view, Hantzis' failure to challenge the requirement during his pursuit of internal union remedies precluded the Secretary from later raising the issue. The court chanrobles.com-red
At chanrobles.com-red
the outset, petitioner contends that the language of the section empowers the Secretary to investigate and litigate any and all violations that may ave affected the outcome of an election once a union member has exhausted his internal union remedies concerning any violation that occurred during that election. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the Secretary is authorized to act if his investigation uncovers "a violation" -- this, it is chanrobles.com-red
Petitioner contends that the congressional concerns underpinning the exhaustion requirement were, in fact, adequately served in this case, because the election in question was actually protested by a union member within the union, and because the union was later given a chance to remedy specific violations before being taken to court by the Secretary. In this view, it is irrelevant that Hantzis himself did not focus his election challenge on the attendance requirement when seeking internal union remedies. In sum, the Secretary urges that § 402(b) empowers him to act so long as a union member objects chanrobles.com-red
Of course, any interpretation of the exhaustion requirement must reflect the needs of rank and file union members -- those people the requirement is designed ultimately to serve. We are not unmindful that union members may use broad or imprecise language in framing their internal union protests, and that members will often lack the necessary information to be aware of the existence or scope of many election violations. Union democracy is far too important to permit these deficiencies to foreclose chanrobles.com-red
I dissent. The Court acknowledges that 29 U.S.C. § 482(b), in permitting the Secretary to bring a civil action against the union if his investigation discloses "a violation" of § 481, might well mean "any violation whatever revealed by the investigation." Ante at 403 U. S. 338. Nonetheless, it concludes that "a violation" is limited to "any of the violations raised by the union member during his internal union election protest," ibid., because the broader interpretation would disregard the congressional chanrobles.com-red
That holding fits precisely the situation before us. Intervention was properly invoked when the dissident union member pursued his complaint through the union's internal procedures. When the Secretary's subsequent investigation uncovered another Title IV violation, surely it was "a violation" that Congress meant should also be corrected. Indeed, 29 U.S.C. § 482(b) provides that, if the Secretary's investigation leads him to conclude that there is "probable cause to believe that a violation of this subchapter has occurred" the Secretary should seek in a chanrobles.com-red
29 U.S.C. § 482(c). I take it, then, that the Secretary is under no obligation, indeed forbidden, to follow a provision of the bylaws or constitution that is unlawful. If, in proceedings that order a new election, the Secretary discovers in the bylaws or constitution a provision regulating elections that he deems unlawful -- such as the meeting attendance rule -- but the union insists that it is entirely lawful, does the Secretary simply ignore the provision in holding the election, may he or the union secure a judicial ruling on it, or is court action foreclosed and the Secretary required to follow the provision simply because a member in challenging chanrobles.com-red