Opinion ID: 699528
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Accounting for Chargeable Expenses

Text: 29 The employees further contend that CWA's method of accounting for its chargeable expenses does not furnish a reliable basis for calculating the fees they must pay. Since the unions possess the facts and records from which the proportion of political to total union expenditures can reasonably be calculated, basic considerations of fairness compel that they, not the individual employees, bear the burden of proving such proportion. Allen, 373 U.S. at 122, 83 S.Ct. at 1163. The union must demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that its expenses are chargeable. Ellis, 466 U.S. at 457 n. 15, 104 S.Ct. at 1897 n. 15. Although the parties vigorously dispute the issue, we agree with the district court that CWA has met its burden. 30 For one week of every thirteen weeks CWA employees record their activities on time sheets according to one of twenty-four categories. JA 252. An outside firm, Westat, Inc., determines from the time sheets how much time is spent on chargeable and non-chargeable activities. Westat also randomly telephones employees to verify the information provided. Its verification has discovered few reporting errors that resulted in a chargeable activity being reclassified as nonchargeable. 818 F.Supp. at 405. Independent certified public accountants annually audit the allocations resulting from Westat's work. Each year they have issued unqualified opinion letters, the strongest assurances available, concluding that the allocations fairly represented the CWA's chargeable and nonchargeable expenses. 10 Id. at 404. The employees counter with a report prepared by a professor of accounting and auditing at Harvard Business School who concluded that the Union's method allows CWA employees to skew time reporting toward chargeable activities. The report primarily asserts that advance notice of the reporting period allows CWA personnel to bunch chargeable time during that period. JA 191. The employees argue that only contemporaneous daily time reports with an expanded comment section requiring specific identification of the activities performed and recorded can ensure accuracy. JA 198. 31 The record supports the district court's determination that CWA met its burden of proof. The Union's evidence established that Westat's verification discovered few discrepancies between the time reported on the time sheets and the information gathered during its telephone checks and that the overall data did not support an inference of systematic misreporting. JA 106-08 (DiGaetano Decl. pp 13-14). In response, the employees offered no evidence that CWA in fact packed disproportionate amounts of its chargeable time into the monitored weeks. Accordingly, we uphold the district court on this issue.