Court Opinion

ID: 9460144
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:43:01.580272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:30.210396
License: Public Domain

ENOCH, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
With regret I find myself unable to agree with my colleagues. The majority opinion, as did the opinions in King and Air Line Stewards, holds that Congress did not intend § 101(a)(5) to preclude summary removal of a member from Un*859ion office. King has been analyzed, however, as going on to hold that a claim was stated under § 609 on the theory that the words “otherwise discipline” in § 101 (a) (5) were not intended by Congress to include removal from office, but the same words were so intended in § 609. Otherwise, the Ninth Circuit reasoned, use of an effective weapon of reprisal against officers exercising rights guaranteed by the Act would have been immunized, without serving any apparent legislative purpose.
I think, basically, this is the thinking behind the decisions of the numerous courts to which the majority refers who have adopted King and that this fear dictates the majority’s assertion that there is no legislative history to indicate that officers forfeited their Title I rights to equal membership rights and free speech by the mere act of becoming Union officials.
I do not question the cogent argument of the majority that the same words in different context may have different meanings, but I feel that insufficient consideration has been given to the complete legislative history of § 609.
There is apparently no. disagreement among the Courts that § 101(a)(5) provides a right to procedural due process only to members as members and that § 609 provides enforcement for rights set out in other portions of the Act. King, the majority here, and other decisions in conformity with King, adopt the position that if the same words are construed to have the same meaning in § 101(a)(5) and § 609, then officers would have no remedy against removal from office for exercising rights which would be protected for them as members, if they were not officers as well. These decisions all view such an interpretation as unreasonable, although none of these decisions seem to question the fact that § 609 is an enforcement provision only, which provides no additional rights.
Section 609 was originally proposed to allow civil enforcement through the Secretary of Labor (see 2 Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, page 1567) but the section was subsequently amended to provide for individual members to bring actions in their own names only to meet certain objections of some members of Congress. (See 2 Legislative History, -LMRDA, page 1662). Thus '§ 609 was in the process made virtually a duplicate of the provisions of § 102.
The gloss placed on the wording of § 609 by the Circuits following King is appealing, but I see us as adventuring beyond the intent of Congress in adopting the majority interpretation. Instead of leaving to legislative action the fashioning of a remedy for the evils envisaged by King, we are legislating by judicial fiat in the guise of interpretation. I would affirm the decision of the District Court.
FAIRCHILD, Circuit Judge, joins in the dissent of ENOCH, Circuit Judge.