Boudreaux v. Louisiana State Bar

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Boudreaux v. Louisiana State Bar
Case number: 22-30564
Status: Appealed to the Fifth Circuit
Important dates
Filed: Aug. 1, 2019
District court decision:
Jan. 13, 2020, Aug. 8, 2022
Appeals court decision:
July 2, 2021, Pending
District court outcome
The district court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. On remand, the court ruled in favor of the defendants on all claims.
Appeals court outcome
The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling and remanded the case to the lower court.

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.

Boudreaux v. Louisiana State Bar was remanded to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on July 2, 2021. On August 8, 2022, the district court ruled in favor of the defendants on all claims.[1] The plaintiff appealed again to the Fifth Circuit on September 6, 2022.[2]

The suit challenged the constitutionality of the Louisiana State Bar Association's (LSBA) membership and fee requirements in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. In Janus, the Supreme Court held that public-sector unions cannot require non-members to pay fees to support unions' non-political activities.[3] On January 13, 2020, the district court ruled in favor of the defendants, dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. The plaintiff appealed to the Fifth Circuit in February 2020. On July 2, 2021, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling and remanded the case to the lower court.[4][5][6][7]

HIGHLIGHTS
  • The parties to the suit: The plaintiff is Randy Boudreaux, a Louisiana attorney. The defendants are the Louisiana State Bar Association (LSBA), the Louisiana Supreme Court, and the justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court in their official capacities.
  • The issue: In light of Janus v AFSCME, do the Louisiana State Bar Association membership and fee requirements violate First and Fourteenth Amendment rights?
  • The presiding judges: Judge Lance Africk presided over the district court proceedings. A three-judge panel—Judges Don Willett, Jerry E. Smith, and Stuart Kyle Duncan—presided over the case in the Fifth Circuit.
  • The outcome: The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal and remanded the case. On remand, the district court ruled in favor of the defendants on all claims. The plaintiff again appealed to the Fifth Circuit.

    • Procedural history

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

    • August 1, 2019: Boudreaux first filed his lawsuit on August 1, 2019, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The plaintiff filed an initial claim that challenged the constitutionality of the Louisiana State Bar Association membership and fee requirements and requested an injunction against enforcement of those requirements, as well as costs, attorney’s fees, and other expenses. He challenged the above-mentioned requirements on the grounds that they violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and that there were not sufficient safeguards in place to ensure the LSBA did not use collected fees to fund political speech with which members disagree.
    • September 30, 2019: The defendants filed motions to dismiss. The plaintiff subsequently responded.
    • January 13, 2020: The court issued an order granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss.
    • February 11, 2020: The plaintiff filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The opening brief was submitted on April 1, 2020, The defendants submitted a brief on May 1, 2020.[8][9]
    • July 2, 2021: The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling and remanded the case to the lower court.
    • August 8, 2022: The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana ruled in favor of the defendants on all claims.
    • September 6, 2022: The plaintiff appealed to the Fifth Circuit.

    For a list of available case documents, click here.

    Decision

    District court decision (2020)

    On January 13, 2020, Judge Lance Africk issued an order granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss. Judge Africk wrote the following in the court's opinion:[6]

    “

    The Court is not persuaded that the United States Supreme Court left the mandatory-membership question open in Keller or Lathrop. The Court is similarly not persuaded that Janus overruled one or both decisions.

    In Lathrop, the plaintiff, a Wisconsin attorney, challenged the constitutionality of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s order requiring all attorneys to join the Wisconsin Bar Association and pay mandatory dues to be licensed to practice law in the state. 367 U.S. at 827–28. The United States Supreme Court clarified that it was only confronted with the “question of compelled financial support of group activities, not with involuntary membership in any other aspect” because the plaintiff’s “compulsory enrollment imposes only the duty to pay dues.” Id.

    This case presents an analogous situation. Boudreaux’s compulsory enrollment in the LSBA imposes upon him only the duty to pay dues and it does not otherwise compel him to attend meetings or associate with any person. The United States Supreme Court, therefore, has already answered the question presented in Boudreaux’s first claim—whether states can condition the right to practice law in the state on membership in the state bar association and the payment of dues—in the affirmative. Keller relied upon this holding in deciding that an integrated bar association’s use of compulsory dues to finance activities germane to its legitimate purposes does not violate attorneys’ First Amendment rights. 496 U.S. at 13–14.

    This case is distinguishable from Janus, which held that public-sector unions may not deduct agency fees or “any other payment to the union” from the wages of nonmember employees unless the employees waive their First Amendment rights by “clearly and affirmatively consent[ing] before any money is taken from them.” 138 S. Ct. at 2486. Like Keller and Lathrop, this case involves mandatory membership in a bar association, not a public-sector union. The majority in Janus did not discuss Keller or respond to the dissent’s assertion that Keller was a “case . . . involving compelled speech subsidies outside the labor sphere [that] today’s decision does not question.” 138 S. Ct. at 2498 (Kagan, J., dissenting). The United States Supreme Court has made it clear that “if a precedent of this Court has direct application in a case [here, Keller], yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions [here, Janus], the [lower courts] should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.” Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237 (1997) (quotation omitted).[10]

    		”

    Judge Africk was appointed by President George W. Bush (R).

    Appellate court decision (2021)

    On July 2, 2021, a three-judge panel—Judges Don Willett, Jerry E. Smith, and Stuart Kyle Duncan—reversed the district court’s ruling and remanded the case to the lower court. Willett wrote:[7]

    “

    [Boudreaux] claims that compelled dues and membership violate his First Amendment rights, as does LSBA’s failure to ensure that his dues are not used to fund the bar’s political and ideological activities. The district court dismissed all of Boudreaux’s claims. We reverse. …

    Discovery may bear out that LSBA does not actually engage in any non-germane activity. But at this stage, we take Boudreaux’s allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences in his favor. Under that standard, dismissing his freedom of association claim as foreclosed by [Keller v. State Bar of California] was error. ...

    The Constitution requires that bar members be able to challenge expenditures as non-germane, but Boudreaux alleges he is unable to do so because of LSBA’s deficient notice process. His inability to identify non-germane expenditures is his injury, not the non-germane expenditures themselves. … By alleging that LSBA does not regularly provide notice of its expenditures with sufficient specificity, Boudreaux has pleaded an injury-in-fact for the claim he is pursuing. Dismissing his claim for lack of standing was therefore error.[10]

    		”

    Willett and Duncan joined the court in 2018 after being nominated by President Donald Trump (R). Smith joined the court in 1987 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan (R).

    District court decision (2022)

    On August 8, 2022, Judge Africk ruled in favor of the defendants on all claims. Africk wrote:[1]

    “

    For the reasons stated herein, the Court will grant judgment in favor of defendants, the Louisiana State Bar Association (“LSBA” or “the Bar”) and the Justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court in their official capacities (collectively, “defendants”), and against plaintiff, Randy Boudreaux (“Boudreaux”) as to all claims. ...

    Plaintiff's claim is moot insofar as he challenges the LSBA's former legislative positions and now-rescinded policies of the House of Delegates, which occurred in the past and are not ongoing. As set forth in greater detail above, in the wake of McDonald, the Louisiana Supreme Court expressly amended its Rule XVIII, which governs the Louisiana State Bar Association, to require that the LSBA comply with the constitutional requirements expressed in the McDonald decision. Further, in January 2022, the House of Delegates approved resolutions to rescind all existing legislative policy positions, to recognize that the LSBA is bound by Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XVIII, § 6, and to suspend 'any [LSBA] activity not within its scope, including but not limited to any action with respect to legislative policy provisions previously adopted by the House of Delegates (which provisions are now obsolete and no longer effective under the text of the Rule).' Finally, more than a year has passed since McDonald was decided, during which time the LSBA has not engaged in any legislative activity to which plaintiff objects. ...

    Relatedly, insofar as plaintiff asserts that defendants are likely to engage in non-germane activities in the future, such claims are too speculative and remote to support standing. ...

    Finally, with respect to the post-McDonald instances of speech criticized by plaintiff-Tweets, emails, and press releases pertaining to wellness, the Red Mass, and charitable drives-defendants are correct insofar as they assert that the emails, in themselves, provide members with notice as to their contents. On the other hand, while tweets and press releases are publicly available and easily accessible, members would need to take affirmative steps to actively monitor such communications. Plaintiff submits that he should not be forced to constantly monitor such websites in order to stay apprised of LSBA's activities. However, the LSBA 'need not provide [members] with an exhaustive and detailed list of all its expenditures.' ... As explained above, these types of communications are not a major activity of the LSBA. Accordingly, the Court concludes that Hudson/McDonald do not require the LSBA to directly notify its members of each and every tweet or press release, when such information is readily available online.[10]

    		”

    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.[11]

    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.[11]

    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."[11]

    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

    Trial court


    Footnotes

    1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Casetext, "Boudreaux v. La. State Bar Ass'n," August 8, 2022
    2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 PacerMonitor, "Boudreaux v. LA State Bar Assoc," last updated September 7, 2022
    3. ↑ Illinois State Bar Association, "Boudreaux v. Louisiana State Bar: Civil Rights Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief,” August 1, 2019
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 PacerMonitor, "Boudreaux v. Louisiana State Bar Association et al,” accessed July 9, 2021
    5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 PacerMonitor, "Boudreaux v. LA State Bar Assn, et al,” accessed July 9, 2021
    6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 PacerMonitor, "Boudreaux v. Louisiana State Bar: Order and Reasons," January 13, 2020
    7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, "Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana USDC No. 2:19-CV-11962," July 2, 2021
    8. ↑ Illinois State Bar Association, “Boudreaux v. Louisiana State Bar: Opening Brief,” April 1, 2020
    9. ↑ Illinois State Bar Association, “Boudreaux v. Louisiana State Bar: Brief of Defendants,” May 1, 2020
    10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
    11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 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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