Opinion ID: 4453185
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Entitlement to Money Damages

Text: No one doubts that Mr. Janus is entitled to declaratory and injunctive relief. The Supreme Court declared that the status quo violated his First Amendment rights and that “States and public‐sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees.” 138 S. Ct. at 2486. Mr. Janus is now protected from that practice. Any remaining relief was for the district court to consider. That court declined to grant monetary damages, on the ground that AFSCME’s good‐faith defense shielded the union from such liability. We agree with that conclusion. While this may not be all that Mr. Janus hoped for in this litigation, it is not unusual for remedies to be curtailed in light of broader legal doctrines. Moreover, though Mr. Janus con‐ tends that he did not want any of the benefits of AFSCME’s collective bargaining and other representative activities over the years, he received them. Putting the First Amendment is‐ sues that concerned the Supreme Court in Janus II to one side, there was no unjust “windfall” to the union, as Mr. Janus al‐ leges, but rather an exchange of money for services. Our No. 19‐1553 27 decision in Gilpin v. AFSCME, 875 F.2d 1310 (7th Cir. 1989) is on point: [T]he union negotiated on behalf of these employees as it was required by law to do, adjusted grievances for them as it was required by law to do, and incurred ex‐ penses in doing these things … . The plaintiﬀs do not propose to give back the benefits that the union’s ef‐ forts bestowed on them. These benefits were rendered with a reasonable expectation of compensation founded on the collective bargaining agreement and federal labor law, and the conferral of the benefits on the plaintiﬀs would therefore give rise under conven‐ tional principles of restitution to a valid claim by the union for restitution if the union were forced to turn over the escrow account to the plaintiﬀs and others similarly situated to them. Id. at 1316. We have followed similar principles in the ERISA context. “If restitution would be inequitable, as where the payor ob‐ tained a benefit that he intends to retain from the payment that he made and now seeks to take back, it is refused.” Oper‐ ating Eng’rs Local 139 Health Benefit Fund v. Gustafson Const. Corp., 258 F.3d 645, 651 (7th Cir. 2001); see also Constr. Indus. Ret. Fund of Rockford, Ill. v. Kasper Trucking, Inc., 10 F.3d 465, 467 (7th Cir. 1993) (“The welfare fund pooled the money to provide benefits for all persons on whose behalf contributions were made. Because the drivers received the health coverage for which they paid through the deductions Kasper sent to the fund, no one is entitled to restitution.”); UIU Severance Pay Tr. Fund v. Local Union No. 18‐U, United Steelworkers of Am., 998 F.2d 509, 513 (7th Cir. 1993) (“[B]ecause the cause of action we 28 No. 19‐1553 are authorizing is equitable in nature, recovery will not follow automatically upon a showing that the Union contributed more than was required but only if the equities favor it.” (in‐ ternal quotation marks omitted)). We conclude that Mr. Janus has received all that he is entitled to: declaratory and injunc‐ tive relief, and a future free of any association with a public union.