Opinion ID: 309634
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Failure to Provide for a Hearing

Text: 20 The Local advances a second basis for holding the trusteeship to have been invalid. This claim relies upon the fact that the trusteeship was imposed without giving the Local an opportunity for a hearing. Such a hearing is arguably required by the language of 29 U.S.C. Sec. 464(c), and indubitably would have been helpful in this situation, since a hearing would have given the Local an opportunity to explain that no one was actually being expelled. Once reassured, the International would no longer have had an arguable basis for believing that a trusteeship was necessary. Thus the International's failure to afford the Local a chance to be heard prejudiced the Local by depriving it of an opportunity to remove the purported basis for the International's belief that democratic procedures had broken down. If the International was required to allow a hearing and did not do so, the imposition of the trusteeship must be held invalid. 21 The section relied upon by the Local does not, by its specific terms, make a hearing mandatory whenever a trusteeship is imposed. 17 Upon superficial examination the statute seems simply to say that a trusteeship will be presumed valid if a hearing is held-not that a trusteeship will be invalid if one is not held. 18 The legislative history of Sec. 464(c), as well as policy considerations, however, compel a holding that without a hearing a trusteeship is invalid. 22 The rationale for such a construction was recently articulated by the Fifth Circuit. 19 The court began by noting that in passing Sec. 464 Congress was extremely concerned with the frequent imposition of trusteeships over subordinate locals for illegitimate purposes. The court then stated: 23 Under the common law prior to the passage of the . . . [statute], a trusteeship imposed upon a subordinate body was invalid unless the subordinate body was granted a fair hearing. Plentty v. Laborers' Int. Union of No. America, supra 302 F.Supp. 332 at 338. Congress was aware of this when it enacted the . . . [statute]. 24 ____ 25