Court Opinion

ID: 9428347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:30.618016+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:13.085509
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Marshall join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join all but Part II-D of the Court’s. opinion. That part holds that respondents’ exaction of a franchise fee is not a “permissible component of the exempt regulatory system.” Ante, at 722. Bather, I agree with the Court of Appeals that the approximately $12,000 collected annually in fees is not “incommensurate with Equity’s expenses in maintaining a full-time employee to administer the system,” 622 F. 2d 647, 651 (CA2 1980), and thus is not “unconnected with any of the goals of national labor policy which justify the antitrust exemption for labor,” ibid.
The Court justifies its conclusion by suggesting that, since the union could increase its dues to offset the revenue lost from invalidation of the fee system, “there is no reason to believe that any of [the union’s] legitimate interests would be affected,” if the fee system were found to violate the antitrust laws. Ante, at 722. The union could of course raise its dues, but the issue here is whether the conceded antitrust immunity of the franchising system includes the franchise fee.
I find somewhat incongruous the Court’s conclusion that an incident of the overall system constitutes impermissible regulation, but that agents in general may be significantly *724regulated because they are not a “nonlabor group.” This incongruity is highlighted by the similarity between union hiring halls and the franchising system, a similarity which the Court itself acknowledges: “Equity’s franchise system operates as a substitute for maintaining a hiring hall as the representative of its members seeking employment.” Ante, at 721. The Court disregards this similarity in concluding that the franchising system does not “directly benefit” the agents who are required to pay the fees. Ante, at 722, n. 31. It reaches this conclusion by incorrectly assuming that the only parties who directly benefit from the hiring hall and the franchising system are employers and employees and producers and actors, as the case may be. But surely the agents also benefit from the franchising system, which provides an orderly and protective mechanism for pairing actors who seek jobs with producers who seek actors. The system is thus the means by which the agents ultimately receive their commissions; it is as much the source of their livelihood as it is that of the actors.
Because the fee is an incident of a legitimate scheme of regulation and because it is commensurate in amount with the purpose for which it is sought, I would also affirm this holding of the Court of Appeals.