Court Opinion

ID: 9456654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:59:42.217537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:04.017946
License: Public Domain

*19COFFIN, Circuit Judge,
(concurring).
I would affirm solely on the ground that plaintiff’s complaint does not describe a violation of her constitutional rights as the result of any federal action. In my view the union shop provision at issue in Railway Employes’ Dept. v. Hanson, 351 U.S. 225, 76 S.Ct. 714, 100 L.Ed. 1112 (1956), was significantly different, insofar as its “federal action” implications are concerned, from the union shop provision in § 14(b) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 164(b).
In Hanson the Court began its discussion of federal involvement by agreeing with the Supreme Court of Nebraska that since the union shop provision of the Railway Labor Act had been enacted to strike down inconsistent laws in 17 states, “ ‘Such action on the part of Congress is a necessary part of every union shop contract entered into on the railroads as far as these 17 states are concerned for without it such contracts could not be enforced therein.’ ” 351 U.S. at 232, 76 S.Ct. at 718. It is with reference to this statement that the Court adds its own phrasing: “We agree with that view. If private rights are being invaded, it is by force of an agreement made pursuant to federal law which expressly declares that state law is superseded.” Id. Subsequently the Court contrasts, without comment, the express allowance of union shop in the Railway Labor Act with § 14(b) of Taft-Hartley which "makes the union shop agreement give way before a state law prohibiting it.” Id., n. 5. In sum, I read the Court as saying that the action of Congress was the essential, “but for” validating support for the union shop agreements.1
Section 14(b) is not only incapable by its terms of overriding any inconsistent state legislation but, unlike the Railway Labor Act provision, represents a weakening rather than a strengthening of federal policy toward union shop. Since it cannot be realistically claimed that the net effect of § 14(b) was to increase federal support of union shop, it would follow logically from a ruling that § *2014(b) constitutes federal support and authority for union shop that the pre1947 Congressional silence also constituted federal support and authority. From that logical point it is but a short step to the conclusion that all Congressional silence constitutes endorsement or, put another way, that all federal inaction is really federal action.
I would therefore say that the reasoning in the text of Hanson is not applicable to such a neutral and independently unsanctioning statute as § 14(b). But the court’s opinion makes a further argument based on a footnote reference in Hanson, 351 U.S. at 232 n. 4, 76 S.Ct. 714, to the invocation of government sanction when courts enforce an agreement. Applied to this case, the argument is that if the employer refused to discharge plaintiff, it would face both an unfair labor practice charge and a federal lawsuit. To this I think there are two answers. The first is that the possibility of such suits and charges exists whenever any clause of a collective bargaining agreement is violated, whether Congress has legislated concerning the clause or not. It strikes me oddly to think of every term in a bargaining agreement as bearing the imprimatur of the federal government simply because of the fact that a federal agency is charged with supervision of the processes of reaching agreements, the end results of which are for the parties to determine. Moreover, I see no necessity for such a concept. Should a party seek to enforce any agreement discriminating against the exercise of a person’s constitutional rights, courts would, under Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161 (1948), simply not enforce it.
But there is a second reason why the mere prospect of court or agency sanctions falls short of constituting federal action. The Court’s words are “Once courts enforce the agreement the sanction of government is, of course, put behind them.” 351 U.S. at 232 n. 4, 76 S.Ct. at 718. By implication there is no sanction until the courts (or agencies) enforce the agreement. As long as the parties to the collective bargaining do not seek enforcement of the contract but are content to adhere to the clause which allegedly discriminates, there is no government action.2
A finding that there is no federal action here sufficient to support plaintiff’s cause of action would not prevent employees who were discriminated against by union-management agreements from seeking relief. At least two alternative routes for challenging such discriminations are available. The employee can bring a proceeding before the National Labor Relations Board alleging a violation of the union’s duty of fair representation, Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173 (1944), or he may seek relief under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5. With these remedies available, an open-ended interpretation of federal action seems unnecessary as well as strained.

. The four cases cited by the Supreme Court in Ilanson, at 232, 76 S.Ct. 714, for the proposition that Congressional involvement was the “but for” cause of the union shop provisions all concerned situations in which the governmental involvement was much greater and different than it is here. In Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 64 S.Ct. 757, 88 L.Ed. 987 (1944), and Public Utilities Comm’n of District of Columbia v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451, 72 S.Ct. 813, 96 L.Ed. 1068 (1952), there was either direct statutory authorization for or close governmental supervision of the activities challenged as unconstitutional. The government was so involved in the challenged activity that the private party was viewed as performing a governmental function. Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173 (1944), and Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Howard, 343 U.S. 768, 72 S.Ct. 1022, 96 L.Ed. 1283 (1952), concerned statutory interpretation as opposed to the applicability of Constitutional limitations to private parties. In both opinions, the challenged activity was specifically authorized by Congress.

. The scope of Shelley has been arguably restricted. E. g., Evans v. Abney, 396 U.S. 435, 445, 90 S.Ct. 628, 24 L.Ed.2d 634 (1970). Certainly, the doctrine of that case has not been extended to a point where governmental action is created by a third party’s challenging the private agreement in a court. If that were true, the Court’s emphasis in Shelley, 334 U.S. at 19, 68 S.Ct. 836, of the validity of private agreements to include a racially restrictive covenant in a deed, would be meaningless.