Opinion ID: 2226822
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hanson, Street, and Lathrop

Text: In Railway Employes' Dep't v Hanson, 351 US 225; 76 S Ct 714; 100 L Ed 1112 (1956), non-union employees of a railroad brought suit in a Nebraska state court against the railroad and various unions representing the railroad's employees seeking to enjoin anticipated enforcement of a union shop [12] agreement entered into between the railroad and the unions. The contract required that all employees of the railroad become members of the specified union as a condition of their employment. The union shop agreement was permissively authorized by the Federal Railway Labor Act. That act authorized union shop agreements notwithstanding the law of `any State'. 351 US 228. The Nebraska state constitution contained a right to work provision which outlawed union shop agreements. The Nebraska trial court enjoined enforcement of the agreement. The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the union shop agreement violated the First Amendment in that it deprived employees of their freedom of association, and violated the Fifth Amendment, [13] in that it required members of the union to pay for activities above and apart from the costs relating to collective bargaining. The Nebraska Supreme Court concluded that the relevant provisions of the Railway Labor Act were unconstitutional under the Federal constitution, and therefore did not supersede the Nebraska state constitution's right to work provision. 160 Neb 669; 71 NW2d 526 (1955). The United States Supreme Court, in an opinion authored by Justice Douglas, reversed. While the Court's decision in Hanson has been accorded varying interpretations in later cases, we believe that Hanson narrowly held: (1) that Congress' bare authorization of union shops was within the constitutional realm of legislative policy making under the Commerce Clause, [14] in pursuit of labor peace; and (2) that the Hanson record did not present any concrete, justiciable First Amendment issues relating to the union shop agreement's potential impairment of freedom of expression or forcing of ideological conformity, since the action had been commenced before the effective date of the agreement. [15] 351 US 238. In International Ass'n of Machinists v Street, 367 US 740; 81 S Ct 1784; 6 L Ed 2d 1141 (1961), a union shop agreement entered into under the Railway Labor Act was challenged by objecting railroad employees. The employees brought an action in a Georgia state court alleging that substantial portions of their compulsory union dues were being used to finance the campaigns of political candidates, and to advance the propagation of political and economic doctrines to which the plaintiffs were opposed. The agreement in Street was in effect at the time the action was brought and a concrete record was therefore presented. The state trial court entered a judgment for the plaintiffs, enjoining enforcement of the agreement to the extent that it permitted the use of dues for political purposes and the propagation of ideologies which the plaintiffs opposed. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. 215 Ga 27; 108 SE2d 796 (1959). On appeal, the United States Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Brennan signed by four Justices, with two additional Justices concurring in the decisional analysis, reversed and remanded for further proceedings. Justice Brennan's opinion considered the Hanson decision at length. The inadequacy of the Hanson record with respect to the justiciability of the possible First Amendment issues was emphasized. Hanson was read as only reaching the facial constitutionality of the Railway Labor Act's authorization of union shop agreements: In their brief in this Court the appellees in Hanson argued that First Amendment rights would be infringed by the enforcement of an agreement which would enable compulsorily collected funds to be used for political purposes. But there was nothing concrete in the record to show the extent to which the unions were actually spending money for political purposes and what these purposes were, nothing to show the extent to which union funds collected from members were being used to meet the costs of political activity and the mechanism by which this was done, and nothing to show that the employees there involved opposed the use of their money for any particular political objective. In contrast, the present record contains detailed information on all these points, and specific findings were made in the courts below as to all of them. When it is recalled that the action in Hanson was brought before the union-shop agreement became effective and that the appellees never thereafter showed that the unions were actually engaged in furthering political causes with which they disagreed and that their money would be used to support such activities, it becomes obvious that this Court passed merely on the constitutional validity of  2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act on its face, and not as applied to infringe the particularized constitutional rights of any individual. On such a record, the Court could not have done more, consistently with the restraints that govern us in the adjudication of constitutional questions and warn against their premature decision. We therefore reserved decision of the constitutional questions which the appellees present in this case. We said: It is argued that compulsory membership will be used to impair freedom of expression. But that problem is not presented by this record    if the exaction of dues, initiation fees, or assessments is used as a cover for forcing ideological conformity or other action in contravention of the First Amendment, this judgment will not prejudice the decision in that case. For we pass narrowly on  2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act. We only hold that the requirement for financial support of the collective-bargaining agency by all who receive the benefits of its work is within the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause and does not violate either the First or the Fifth Amendments. Id. 351 US 238. See, also, 351 US 242 (concurring opinion). Thus all that was held in Hanson was that  2, Eleventh was constitutional in its bare authorization of union-shop contracts requiring workers to give `financial support' to unions legally authorized to act as their collective bargaining agents. We sustained this requirement ÔÇö and only this requirement ÔÇö embodied in the statutory authorization of agreements under which `all employees shall become members of the labor organization representing their craft or class.' Clearly we passed neither upon forced association in any other aspect nor upon the issue of the use of exacted money for political causes which were opposed by the employees. (Footnote omitted, emphasis supplied.) 367 US 747-749. Finding the Street record sufficiently concrete to present the issues not decided in Hanson, the Court went through an exhaustive analysis of the legislative histories of various Federal railroad labor acts, and then delivered the following construction of the Railway Labor Act's union shop provision: We give  2, Eleventh the construction which achieves both congressional purposes when we hold, as we do, that  2, Eleventh is to be construed to deny the unions, over an employee's objection, the power to use his exacted funds to support political causes which he opposes. We express no view as to other union expenditures objected to by an employee and not made to meet the costs of negotiation and administration of collective agreements, or the adjustment and settlement of grievances and disputes. We do not understand, in view of the findings of the Georgia courts and the question decided by the Georgia Supreme Court, that there is before us the matter of expenditures for activities in the area between the costs which led directly to the complaint as to `free riders,' and the expenditures to support union political activities. We are satisfied, however, that  2, Eleventh is to be interpreted to deny the unions the power claimed in this case. The appellant unions, in insisting that  2, Eleventh contemplates their use of exacted funds to support political causes objected to by the employee, would have us hold that Congress sanctioned an expansion of historical practices in the political area by the rail unions. This we decline to do. Both by tradition and, from 1934 to 1951, by force of law, the rail unions did not rely upon the compulsion of union security agreements to exact money to support the political activities in which they engage. Our construction therefore involves no curtailment of the traditional political activities of the railroad unions. It means only that those unions must not support those activities, against the expressed wishes of a dissenting employee, with his exacted money. (Footnotes omitted.) 367 US 768-770. The Street opinion emphasized that the objecting employees' cause of action arose under the Railway Labor Act, and not the First Amendment, because the exactions complained of were not authorized by that statute. 367 US 771. The foregoing interpretations of Hanson and Street clearly indicate that neither case was decided on First Amendment grounds, although the delimiting language of that provision arguably implicitly compelled the results reached. In Lathrop v Donohue, 367 US 820; 81 S Ct 1826; 6 L Ed 2d 1191 (1961), a companion case to `Street, Wisconsin attorney Lathrop brought an action in a state trial court to recover compulsorily exacted dues paid by him to the integrated Wisconsin State Bar, alleging the requirement to pay such dues to be unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments [16] of the United States Constitution. The treasurer of the Wisconsin State Bar was named as the defendant. The defendant demurred to the complaint on three grounds, one of which was that the complaint did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The trial court sustained the demurrer on all three grounds, and then entered an order dismissing the complaint without leave to amend, for the reason that no amendment could cure the defects in the merits of the plaintiff's case. See 367 US 868-869 (Black, J., dissenting). On appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the judgment of the trial court was affirmed. 10 Wis 2d 230; 102 NW2d 404 (1960). The Court held that the trial court was without subject matter jurisdiction to entertain the plaintiff's complaint, but went on to treat the complaint as if it had been originally filed in the reviewing court. We read the Wisconsin Supreme Court's opinion as determining that the state had a sufficient interest in the achievement of the stated objectives of the integrated bar to justify the minimal compulsion of individuals effected by the requirement of association in, and payment of dues to, the integrated Wisconsin bar. The United States Supreme Court, on appeal, divided sharply and entered a plurality judgment affirming the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That affirmance was later explained in Abood v Detroit Board of Education, 431 US 209, 233, fn 29; 97 S Ct 1782; 52 L Ed 2d 261 (1977), as follows: In Lathrop v Donohue, 367 US 820, a companion case to Street, a lawyer sued for the refund of dues paid (under protest) to the integrated Wisconsin State Bar. The dues were required as a condition of practicing law in Wisconsin. The plaintiff contended that the requirement violated his constitutionally protected freedom of association because the dues were used by the State Bar to formulate and to support legislative proposals concerning the legal profession to which the plaintiff objected. A plurality of four Justices found that the requirement was not on its face unconstitutional, relying on the analogy to Hanson. And the plurality ruled, as had the Court in Hanson, that the constitutional questions tendered were not ripe, for the Court was nowhere `clearly apprised as to the views of the appellant on any particular legislative issues on which the State Bar has taken a position, or as to the way in which and the degree to which funds compulsorily exacted from its members are used to support the organization's political activities.' 367 US at 845-846. The other five Members of the Court disagreed with the plurality and thought that the constitutional questions ought to be reached. Three Justices would have upheld the constitutionality of using compulsory dues to finance the State Bar's legislative activities even where opposed by dissenting members. See id., at 848 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 865 (Whittaker, J., concurring in result). The other two Justices would have held such activities to be unconstitutional. See ibid. (Black, J., dissenting); id., at 877 (Douglas, J., dissenting). The only proposition about which a majority of the Court in Lathrop agreed was that the constitutional issues should be reached. However, due to the disparate views of those five Justices on the merits and the failure of the other four Members of the Court to discuss the constitutional questions, Lathrop does not provide a clear holding to guide us in adjudicating the constitutional questions here presented. It is clear from the foregoing that the United States Supreme Court did not resolve the merits of the constitutional issues raised by the plaintiff's arguments in Lathrop. Although none of the three decisions discussed above was decided on First Amendment grounds, some analysis of them is necessary in order to fully understand the Abood decision, upon which Mr. Falk places considerable reliance.