Thompson v. Marietta Education Association

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Thompson v. Marietta Education Association
Case number: 19-4217
Status: Closed
Important dates
Filed: June 27, 2018
District court decision:
Nov. 26, 2019
Appeals court decision:
Aug. 25, 2020
Supreme Court decision:
June 7, 2021
District court outcome
The district court ruled in favor of the defendants.
Appeals court outcome
The appellate court affirmed the district court’s decision.
Supreme Court outcome
Certiorari review 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.

Thompson v. Marietta Education Association was decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on August 25, 2020. The suit challenged Ohio’s use of a democratic system of exclusive representative collective bargaining to set employment terms for public school teachers. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio's decision in favor of the defendants.[1][2][3][4] The U.S. Supreme Court denied review of the case on June 7, 2021.[5]

HIGHLIGHTS
  • The parties to the suit: The plaintiff was Jade Thompson. The defendants were the Marietta Board of Education and the Marietta Education Association.
  • The issue: Do exclusive representation laws violate non-union members’ First Amendment rights?
  • The presiding judges: Judge Michael Watson presided over the case in the district court. A three-judge panel—Judges Julia Smith Gibbons, Richard Griffin, and Amul Thapar—presided over the case in the Sixth Circuit.
  • The outcome: The Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision in favor of the defendants.

    • Procedural history

    The plaintiff was Jade Thompson, an Ohio Spanish teacher. She was represented by attorneys from the Buckeye Institute and Baker and Hostetler, LLP. The defendants were the Marietta Education Association (MEA) and the Marietta City School District Board of Education. They were represented by attorneys from Bricker & Eckler LLP, Schwarzwald Mcnair & Fusco LLP, Altshuler Berzon LLP, and the National Education Association.

    Thompson filed her lawsuit on June 27, 2018, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. She constitutionally challenged Ohio law allowing units of public employees to elect an exclusive union representative to negotiate with their public employer. Thompson argued that these collective bargaining systems should be invalidated as a violation of the First Amendment, even if public employees do not have to join or financially support the majority-chosen union representative.[1][2][3][4]

    • June 27, 2018: Plaintiff files complaint against Marietta Board of Education, Marietta Education Association.
    • March 4, 2019: Both plaintiff and defendants file motions for summary judgment.
    • November 26, 2019: Court denies plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment and grants defendants’ motion for summary judgment, ruling in favor of the defendants, upholding the Ohio law.
    • August 25, 2020: Appellate court upholds district court’s decision and rules in favor of the defendants.
    • June 7, 2021: Supreme Court denies certiorari review.

    For a list of available case documents, see below.

    Decision

    District court

    On November 26, 2019, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ruled in favor of the defendants, upholding the challenged Ohio law.[1][2][4]

    Judge Michael Watson wrote the following in the district court's opinion:[6]

    “ Ohio's system of exclusive representation is narrowly tailored to achieve that end such that it would survive even strict scrutiny. Although the scheme means that the terms of any bargained-for collective bargaining agreement apply to Plaintiff as a member of the bargaining unit, she remains free to not join the Union. ... She remains free to “[f]orm, join, assist, or participate in, or refrain from forming, joining,

    assisting, or participating in . . . any employee organization of [her] own choosing.” ... Moreover, the Union does not speak for Plaintiff; it speaks for the bargaining unit of which she is a member, supra, and she remains free to voice her disagreement with the Union. ... All of these aspects of Ohio’s exclusive representation scheme demonstrate that it is narrowly tailored to achieve the compelling State interest while protecting bargaining unit members’ constitutional rights from undue infringement. Opening the system up to multiple unions (or permitting non-Union members to negotiate on their own behalf) would impair the State’s compelling interest ... and leaving non-Union members’ interests entirely unrepresented during bargaining would raise its own constitutional concerns. Ohio’s system is sufficiently tailored, and Plaintiff's discontent with the legislature’s word choice in using “exclusive representative’ instead of a phrase such as “exclusive bargaining partner” does not render the scheme unconstitutional as violative of her First Amendment speech and association rights.[7]

    		”

    Watson joined the court in 2004 after being nominated by President George W. Bush (R).

    Appeals court

    On August 25, 2020, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit—Judges Julia Smith Gibbons, Richard Griffin, and Amul Thapar—upheld the district court’s decision. Thapar wrote in the court's decision:[4]

    “

    By signing on the dotted line, public employees accept the government as their employer. In Ohio, the law requires them to also accept a union as their exclusive bargaining representative. It’s a take-it-or-leave-it system—either agree to exclusive representation, which is codified in state law, or find a different job. This take-it-or-leave-it system is in direct conflict with the principles enunciated in Janus v. AFSCME, 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018). But when the Supreme Court decided Janus, it left on the books Minnesota State Board for Community Colleges v. Knight, 465 U.S. 271 (1984). And because Knight directly controls the outcome of this case, we affirm the district court’s decision upholding the challenged Ohio law.

    [...]

    This case presents First Amendment questions of considerable importance. But they are controlled by a fair reading of the Supreme Court’s precedents. We therefore affirm the district court’s order granting summary judgment for the defendants. [7]

    		”

    Gibbons joined the court in 2002 after being nominated by President George W. Bush (R). Griffin, also nominated by Bush, joined the court in 2005. Thapar was nominated to the court by President Donald Trump (R) in 2017.

    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.[8]

    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.[8]

    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."[8]

    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

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    See also

    External links

    Case documents

    Supreme Court

    Appeals court

    Trial court

    Footnotes

    1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Pacer Monitor, "Thompson v. Marietta Education Association et al," accessed September 10, 2020
    2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Pacer Monitor, "Jade Thompson v. Marietta Education Association, et al," accessed September 10, 2020
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Altshuler Berzon LLP, "Sixth Circuit Rejects Constitutional Challenge to Exclusive Representative Collective Bargaining," accessed September 10, 2020
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, "No. 19-4217," August 25, 2020
    5. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "No. 20-1019," accessed June 28, 2021
    6. ↑ United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio Eastern Division, "Order on Motion for Summary Judgment," November 26, 2019
    7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
    8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Supreme Court of the United States, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, et al., June 27, 2018
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    Public-sector union policy in the United States
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