Court Opinion

ID: 9450240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:39:34.92333+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:12.826413
License: Public Domain

FAHY, Circuit Judge, with whom EDGERTON, Senior Circuit Judge,
joins, concurring:
I concur in the opinion of the court and add these words respecting the reliance placed by appellant upon Cunningham v. English, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 92, 94, 269 F.2d 539, 541, cert. denied, 361 U.S. 897, 80 S.Ct. 195, 4 L.Ed.2d 152 (1959). In that case the payment of counsel fees by the International was agreed to by two conflicting factions in the International, each claiming to represent the interests of the union members. The plaintiffs, whose counsel fees were in question and who obviously stood to benefit from any decree making the fees payable out of union funds, could not be said to have adequately protected the interests of the union membership in those funds. And the individual defendants who consented to the decree embodying the award of fees for plaintiffs’ counsel, also could not be said to have protected the membership interests in the union funds from which the fees were to be paid. The defendants whose control of the union was being challenged had agreed to pay the plaintiffs’ counsel fees as part of an arrangement which kept the defendants in office on a provisional basis. General principles of equity required that an opportunity to present their views be given to the union members before an order awarding fees be entered on such an agreement.
*698In the present case, however, the governing body of the appellant union, acting in the name of the union with respect to appellee’s claim for fees, has done all within its powers to protect the interests of its members in the union’s funds. When the motion for payment of counsel fees was made by appellee the appellant union, acting on behalf of its members, vigorously opposed the motion on the grounds discussed in the court’s opinion. There is no such danger that the rights of the members have been compromised by those with possibly adverse interests as there was in Cunningham. The interests of the union have been adequately protected by the International. They have not been determined by a consent decree, but by the judgment of the court in a contested proceeding. Accordingly adoption of the procedure used in Cunningham is not required.