Opinion ID: 3013270
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Objection Requirement

Text: The Unions contend that plaintiffs failed to carry their burden of objecting to the fair-share fee calculation by not raising a “contemporaneous objection,” i.e., by not objecting at the time of fee collection. Addressing this issue as a question of plaintiffs’ standing to sue, the District Court rejected the Unions’ contention on the ground that plaintiffs’ complaint satisfied the objection requirement. We agree. No Supreme Court case explicitly establishes a contemporaneous-objection requirement. While International Association of Machinists v. Street, 367 U.S. 740 (1961), held that each non-member must individually object to disputed fair-share fees, that requirement merely places the burden on dissenting employees affirmatively to opt out of fees to which they object, rather than allowing them to opt into fees with which they agree. See id. at 771 (holding that because the individual Street plaintiffs “have in the course of [this action] made known to their respective unions their objection to the use of their money for the support of political causes[,] . . . the respective unions were without power to use payments thereafter tendered by them for such political causes”). Since Street, the Court has reiterated that non-members may raise their initial objection in a complaint. Abood, 431 U.S. at 239 (“[T]he requirement in Street that dissent be affirmatively indicated 7 was satisfied by the allegations in the complaint that was filed.”) (citation omitted); Bhd. of Ry. & S.S. Clerks, Freight Handlers, Exps. & Station Employees v. Allen, 373 U.S. 113, 119 n.6 (1963) (citing Street, 367 U.S. at 771) (employees in Railway Labor Act case “first made known their objection to the [unions’] political expenditures in their complaint filed in this action; however, this was early enough”). Yet the Unions argue that Hudson imposed a more onerous notice standard and that “post-Hudson cases have implicitly rejected the notion of objection-by-lawsuit.” Even assuming arguendo that the Unions are correct, the contemporaneous-objection principle they espouse would nonetheless be inapplicable in this case because, as we explain more fully infra in Section III.B, “the notice procedures and the fee information given under the plan were inadequate.” Lowary v. Lexington Local Bd. of Educ., 903 F.2d 422, 430 (6th Cir. 1990). Thus the plaintiffs lacked sufficient information to formulate a contemporaneous objection.