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Anderson v. SEIU Local 503

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Anderson v. SEIU Local 503
Case number: 21-609
Status: Closed
Important dates
Filed: Nov. 20, 2018
District court decision:
Sept. 4, 2019
Appeals court decision:
July 29, 2021
Supreme Court decision:
Jan. 10, 2022
District court outcome
Public-sector unions cannot be held liable for refunding union dues collected after union membership withdrawal if that withdrawal occurs outside of an established annual window and there is a pre-existing agreement for fees deduction throughout a given time period, regardless of membership status.
Appeals court outcome
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling.
Supreme Court outcome
Certiorari denied.

This case is one of over a hundred public-sector union lawsuits Ballotpedia tracked following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2018 decision in Janus v. AFSCME. These pages were updated through February 2023 and may not reflect subsequent case developments. For more information about Ballotpedia's coverage of public-sector union policy in the United States, click here. Contact our team to suggest an update.

Anderson v. SEIU Local 503 was decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on July 29, 2021. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon's October 2019 dismissal of the case. The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of dues deduction authorization agreements made prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME permitting continued dues deductions for a given time period if a member withdrew from the union outside of an established annual window. In Janus, the high court held that public-sector unions cannot require non-members to pay fees to support union activities. The Supreme Court denied review of the case on January 10, 2022.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

HIGHLIGHTS
  • The parties to the suit: The lead plaintiff was Loriann Anderson. The lead defendant was the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503.
  • The issue: In light of Janus v. AFSCME, can public-sector unions be held liable for refunding union dues collected after union membership withdrawal if that withdrawal occurs outside of an established annual window and there is a pre-existing agreement for fees deduction throughout a given time period?
  • The presiding judges: Judge Marco A. Hernandez presided over the district court proceedings. A three-judge panel—Senior Judge Mary Schroeder, Senior Judge Barry Silverman, and Judge Mary Murguia—presided over the case in the Ninth Circuit.
  • The outcome: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon's dismissal of the case. The Supreme Court denied review.

    • Procedural history

    The lead plaintiff was Loriann Anderson, represented by attorneys from the Freedom Foundation and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc. The lead defendant was the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503, represented by attorneys from Swanson, Thomas, Coon & Newton, and Altshuler Berzon LLP. For a complete list of plaintiffs and defendants in this suit, click here.[1][2]

    Below is a brief procedural history of the lawsuit:[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

    • November 20, 2018: The plaintiffs in Anderson v. SEIU Local 503 first filed their lawsuit on November 20, 2018, in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon (case number 3:18-cv-02013). The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of dues deduction authorization agreements made prior to the Supreme Court's 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME permitting continued dues deductions for a given time period if a member withdrew from the union outside of an established annual window. The plaintiffs requested an injunction against enforcement of the above agreements, a refund of all fees collected after membership withdrawal, nominal damages, costs, and attorney’s fees. The defendants responded with motions to dismiss based on failure to state a claim.
    • September 4, 2019: The district court issued an opinion and order in favor of the defendants, dismissing the lawsuit based on failure to state a claim. The court issued a formal judgment on October 7, 2019, officially terminating the case.
    • April 16, 2020: The appellate court granted the defendants’ motion to stay the appeal pending the resolution of Belgau v. Inslee.
    • July 29, 2021: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling.
    • October 22, 2021: The plaintiffs, along with public-sector workers in three other lawsuits, filed a joint petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court.
    • January 10, 2022: The Supreme Court denied review of the case.

    For a list of available case documents, click here.

    Decision

    District court decision

    On September 4, 2019, Judge Marco A. Hernandez issued a decision in favor of the defendants, dismissing the Plaintiffs’ complaint for failure to state a claim. Judge Hernandez wrote the following in the court's opinion:[4]

    “

    (“Appellees’ deduction of union dues in accordance with the membership cards’ dues irrevocability provision does not violate Appellants’ First Amendment rights. Although Appellants resigned their membership in the union and objected to providing continued financial support, the First Amendment does not preclude the enforcement of ‘legal obligations’ that are bargained-for and ‘self-imposed’ under state contract law.”) (quoting Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663, 668–71 (1991)).

    However, Plaintiffs also argue that Defendants violate the First Amendment by collecting union dues without consent. In other words, Plaintiffs appear to argue that the underlying membership agreement violates Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights because it lacks the “waiver” Plaintiffs allege is necessary under Janus. This argument is also without merit. The membership agreement here does not compel involuntary dues deductions and does not violate the First Amendment. See Belgau v. Inslee, 359 F. Supp. 3d 1000, 1016 (W.D. Wash. 2019). All deductions of dues from Plaintiffs’ pay are made pursuant to Plaintiffs’ explicit written consent in the membership agreements. The parties do not dispute that Plaintiffs signed the membership agreements and that they did not need to do so as a condition of their employment. Plaintiffs could have declined to join the union and paid agency fees instead. [...]

    To the extent that Plaintiffs may argue they were “coerced” into membership, the Court does not agree. As stated in Kidwell v. Transportation Communications International Union, “[w]here the employee has a choice of union membership and the employee chooses to join, the union membership money is not coerced. The employee is a union member voluntarily.” [8]

    		”
    —Judge Hernandez

    Hernandez was appointed by President Barack Obama (D).

    Appellate court decision

    On July 29, 2021, a three-judge panel—Senior Judge Mary Schroeder, Senior Judge Barry Silverman, and Judge Mary Murguia—affirmed the district court's dismissal of the case. The court's memorandum said:[5][6]

    “

    The parties agree that this court’s intervening decision in Belgau v. Inslee, 975 F.3d 940 (9th Cir. 2020), cert. denied, No. 20-1120, 2021 WL 2519114 (June 21, 2021), controls the outcome of this appeal. We affirm the district court’s judgment dismissing plaintiffs’ action for failure to state a claim. See Belgau, 975 F.3d at 946-69 (discussing state action), 950-52 (concluding that the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, Council 31, 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018), did not extend a First Amendment right to avoid paying union dues that were agreed upon under validly entered union membership agreements).

    Plaintiffs’ motion for summary affirmance, set forth in their reply brief, is denied.

    AFFIRMED.[8]

    		”

    President Jimmy Carter (D) nominated Schroeder to the court, President Bill Clinton (D) nominated Silverman, and President Barack Obama (D) nominated Murguia.

    Supreme Court petition

    On October 22, 2021, the plaintiffs, along with public-sector workers in three other lawsuits, filed a joint petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. The petition stated:[9]

    “

    Petitioners are public employees in the States of California and Oregon who exercised their First Amendment rights to resign their union memberships, revoke their authorizations for their public employers to withhold further union payments from their wages after they became nonmembers, and object to subsidizing union speech. The respondent government employers and unions ignored petitioners’ revocations and continued seizing payments for union speech from these objecting nonmembers until an escape period (contained in their dues deduction authorizations) for stopping union deductions occurred.

    [...]

    "In some ways, escape-period requirements are worse than the agency fee law Janus held unconstitutional. Illinois’s law required government employers to deduct from nonconsenting employees’ wages reduced union fees that excluded monies used for some political purposes. 138 S. Ct. at 2486. California’s and Oregon’s post-Janus revocation law requires that governments deduct full union dues, including monies used for partisan political purposes, from employees who resign and object to these seizures outside an annual revocation period. Cal. Educ. Code § 45060; Or. Rev. Stat. 243.806 (App.40-41, 78-82). For employees who do not want to support union expressive activities, escape-period restrictions can be more harmful to their speech rights than the “agency shop” requirement Janus struck down.[8]

    		”

    The Supreme Court denied the petition on January 10, 2022.[7]

    Legal context

    Janus v. AFSCME (2018)

    See also: Janus v. AFSCME

    On June 27, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a 5-4 decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (Janus v. AFSCME), ruling that public-sector unions cannot compel non-member employees to pay fees to cover the costs of non-political union activities.[10]

    This decision overturned precedent established in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education in 1977. In Abood, the high court held that it was not a violation of employees' free-speech and associational rights to require them to pay fees to support union activities from which they benefited (e.g., collective bargaining, contract administration, etc.). These fees were commonly referred to as agency fees or fair-share fees.[10]

    Justice Samuel Alito authored the opinion for the court majority in Janus, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch. Alito wrote, "Abood was poorly reasoned. It has led to practical problems and abuse. It is inconsistent with other First Amendment cases and has been undermined by more recent decisions. Developments since Abood was handed down have shed new light on the issue of agency fees, and no reliance interests on the part of public-sector unions are sufficient to justify the perpetuation of the free speech violations that Abood has countenanced for the past 41 years. Abood is therefore overruled."[10]

    Related litigation

    To view a complete list of the public-sector labor lawsuits Ballotpedia tracked between 2019 and 2023, click here.

    Number of federal lawsuits by circuit

    Between 2019 and 2023, Ballotpedia tracked 191 federal lawsuits related to public-sector labor laws. The chart below depicts the number of suits per federal judicial circuit (i.e., the jurisdictions in which the suits originated).

    Public-sector labor lawsuits on Ballotpedia

    See also: Public-sector union policy in the United States, 2018-2023

    Click show to view a list of cases with links to our in-depth coverage.

    v • e
    Public-sector labor lawsuits
    Federal lawsuits

    Adams v. Teamsters Union Local 429 • Akers v. Maryland State Education Association • Aliser v. SEIU California • Allen v. Ohio Civil Service Employees Association • Allen v. Santa Clara County Correctional • Anderson v. SEIU Local 503 • Babb v. California Teachers Association • Baisley v. International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers • Belgau v. Inslee • Bennett v. AFSCME • Bermudez v. SEIU Local 521 • Bierman v. Dayton • Boudreaux v. Louisiana State Bar • Boyle v. SEIU California • Brice v. California Faculty Association • California v. Azar • Campos v. Fresno Deputy Sheriff’s Association • Carey v. Inslee • Casanova v. IAM Local 701 • Chandavong et al. v. Fresno Deputy Sheriff's Association et al. • Cook v. Brown • Cooley v. California Statewide Law Enforcement Association • Crowe v. Oregon State Bar • Cruz v. Union Independiente Autentica de Empleados de la Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados • Danielson v. Inslee • Diamond v. Pennsylvania State Education Association • Doughty v. State Employees Association of New Hampshire, SEIU, Local 1984 • Durst v. OEA • Few v. United Teachers Los Angeles • File v. Hickey • Fischer v. Murphy • Fisk v. Inslee • Fizer v. Ohio Association of Public School Employees • Fleck v. Wetch • Grega v. Council of New Jersey State College Locals • Grossman v. Hawaii Government Employees Association • Gruber v. Oregon State Bar • Guppy v. City of Los Angeles • Halloran v. AFSCME Council 5 • Hamidi v. SEIU • Hannay v. Kent State • Hartnett v. Penn. State Education Association • Hendrickson v. AFSCME Council 18 • Hernandez v. AFSCME California • Hoekman v. Education Minnesota • Hough v. SEIU Local 521 • Imhoff v. California Teachers Association • Jackson v. Napolitano • James v. SEIU Local 688 • Janus v. AFSCME • Jarchow v. Wisconsin • Kabler v. United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 1776 Keystone State • Wenzig v. SEIU Local 668 • Kopie v. International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees • Kurk v. Los Rios Classified Employees Association • Lamberty et al. v. Connecticut State Police Union et al. • LaSpina v. SEIU Pennsylvania State Council • Lee v. Ohio Education Association • Leitch v. AFSCME • Littler v. Ohio Association of Public School Employees • Loescher v. Teamsters Local 320 • Lutter v. JNESO • Mandel v. SEIU Local 73 • Marsh v. AFSCME Local 3299 • Martin v. California Teachers Association • Masuo v. AFSCME AFL-CIO • Matthews v. United Teachers of Los Angeles • Mattos v. AFSCME Council 3 • Mayer v. Wallingford-Swathmore School District • McCain v. Ventura County Federation of College Teachers, AFT Local 1828 • McCollum v. NEA-Alaska • McCutcheon v. CWA Local 7076 • McDonald v. Firth • Mendez v. CTA • Miller v. Inslee • Misja v. PSEA • Molina v. SEIU Local 668 • Mooney v. Illinois Education Association • Nearman v. SEIU Local 503 • Neely v. AFSCME Council 13 • Nguyen v. Admin. and Residual Employees Union • Nichols v. Home Care Providers Union • O'Callaghan v. Drake • Ochoa v. Public Consulting Group • Ocol v. Chicago Teachers Union • Ogle v. Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, AFSCME, Local 11 • Oliver v. SEIU Local 668 • Pellegrino v. New York State United Teachers • Penning v. SEIU Local 1021 • Polk v. Yee • Popp v. ALPAI • Piekarski v. AFSCME Council 5 • Quirarte v. UDW AFSCME Local 3930 • Reisman v. Associated Faculties of the University of Maine • Rizzo-Rupon v. International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, District Lodge 141 • Routh v. Inslee • Schaszberger v. AFSCME Council 13 • Schell v. Oklahoma Supreme Court Justices • Schumaker v. Inslee • Seager v. UTLA • Seidemann v. Professional Staff Congress • Smith v. AFSCME Council No. 8 • Smith v. New Jersey Education Association • Smith v. Bieker • Solomon v. AFSCME District Council 37 • Stroeder v. Service Employees International Union, Local 503 • Sweeney v. Raoul • Sweet v. California Association of Psychiatric Technicians • Taylor v. Heath • Thompson v. AFSCME Council 89, Local 4013 • Thompson v. Marietta Education Association • Thulen v. AFSCME • Uradnik v. Inter Faculty Org. • Utke v. University of Connecticut American Association of University Professors • Weyandt v. PSCOA • Wholean v. CSEA SEIU Local 2001 • Wilford v. National Education Association • Williams v. PSEA • Wolf v. University Professional & Technical Employees • Yates v. Hillsboro Unified School District • Yohn v. California Teachers Association

    See also

    External links

    Case documents

    Trial court

    Appeals court

    Supreme Court

    Footnotes

    1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 PacerMonitor, “Anderson et al v. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503, Oregon Public Employees Union (OPEU) et al,” accessed April 28, 2020
    2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 PacerMonitor, “Loriann Anderson, et al v. Service Employees Internationa, et al,” accessed April 28, 2020
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Freedom Foundation, “Anderson v. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503: Complaint - Class Action,” November 20, 2018
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 PacerMonitor, “Anderson v. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503: Opinion and Order,” September 4, 2019
    5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, "Memorandum," July 29, 2021
    6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Supreme Court of the United States, "No. 21-609," accessed October 27, 2021
    7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Supreme Court of the United States, "Order List: 595 U.S.," January 10, 2022
    8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
    9. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Joint petition for writ of certiorari," October 22, 2021
    10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Supreme Court of the United States, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, et al., June 27, 2018
    v • e
    Public-sector union policy in the United States
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