Court Opinion

ID: 9474637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:03:56.542942+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:13.863488
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result.
I have much earlier expressed my disapproval of the rule and reasoning of Hoffman v. Lonza, Inc., 658 F.2d 519 (7th Cir.1981). See my separate opinions in Hoffman and Dober v. Roadway Express, Inc., 707 F.2d 292 (7th Cir.1983). But Hoffman —however difficult it may be to square with Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U.S. 554, 96 S.Ct. 1048, 47 L.Ed.2d 231 (1976) and Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 87 S.Ct. 903, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967) — is clearly the law of this circuit. Hoffman and its progeny appear to govern this ease.
In any event, the reasons offered here by the majority for why the union membership is entitled only to a brand of representation worse than perfunctory are ingenious but unpersuasive. I am struck by the apparent need felt by a succession of judges over the years to defend, often at length, the not self-evidently correct Hoffman rule. See Dober, 707 F.2d at 294-95; Superczynski v. P.T.O. Services, Inc., 706 F.2d 200, 202-03 (7th Cir.1983); Graf v. Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway, 697 F.2d 771, 779-80 (7th Cir.1983); Hoffman, 658 F.2d at 521-23. I would stand by my previously expressed views on this subject.