Archive for category: News Items

Durst v. Oregon

On March 31, 2020, the District of Oregon granted summary judgment in Durst v. Oregon Education Association, et al. to the Oregon Education Association and its affiliates represented by Altshuler Berzon LLP.  The court rejected the claims of three former union members that their First Amendment rights were violated when their employers deducted union membership dues that the plaintiffs themselves had agreed to pay in exchange for union membership rights and benefits.  The court recognized that its decision was consistent with every other federal court that has addressed similar post-Janus claims challenging voluntary union membership dues deductions, including in many other cases litigated by Altshuler Berzon LLP.  The decision can be found here.

Chambers v. AFSCME, et al.

On March 31, 2020, the District of Oregon granted summary judgment to the defendant unions in Chambers v. AFSCME, et al., rejecting the plaintiffs’ attempts to recover fair-share fees that they had paid to cover the costs of collective bargaining, in accordance with then-valid state law and binding Supreme Court precedent before the Supreme Court overturned that precedent in Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31.  The plaintiffs in Chambers brought a putative class action against Oregon affiliates of AFSCME, SEIU, NEA, and other unions, seeking to assert claims on behalf of most public sector employees across the state of Oregon.  Altshuler Berzon LLP successfully defended the unions against plaintiffs’ federal and state tort law claims.  The district court’s order can be found here.  Altshuler Berzon LLP has also successfully defended many similar post-Janus lawsuits filed across the country.

Quirarte v. United Domestic Workers AFSCME Local 3930

On February 10, 2020, in Quirarte v. United Domestic Workers AFSCME Local 3930, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California granted judgment on the pleadings to the defendant government officials and union, ruling that the deduction of union dues from California home care providers’ paychecks did not violate the First Amendment, that no state action was involved in making those deductions, and that the plaintiffs could not assert a cause of action under the Medicaid Act.  The order can be found here.  The case is on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  Altshuler Berzon LLP represents United Domestic Workers in the case.

Few v. UTLA et al.

On February 10, 2020, the United States District Court, in Few v. UTLA et al., granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims seeking to enjoin the California state laws governing the deduction of voluntary union dues from public employee union members and to recover damages premised on the plaintiff’s payment of voluntary dues prior to his resignation from his union.  The order can be found here.  Altshuler Berzon LLP represented defendant United Teachers Los Angeles in the district court proceedings.

Grossman v. Hawaii Government Employees Association/AFSCME Local 152

In Grossman v. Hawaii Government Employees Association/AFSCME Local 152, the District of Hawaii rejected multiple attacks on voluntary unionism for public sector workers in Hawaii based on the plaintiff’s radical misinterpretations of Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31.  On May 21, 2019, the court dismissed the plaintiff’s facial challenge to Hawaii’s system of exclusive representation for purposes of collective bargaining for public sector workers, finding that challenge squarely foreclosed by Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedent.  On January 31, 2020, the court granted summary judgment against the plaintiff’s remaining claim, in which the plaintiff sought a refund of dues that the plaintiff had voluntarily agreed to pay as a union member in exchange for the rights and privileges of union membership that she received.  The orders can be found here and here.  The union defendants were represented by Altshuler Berzon LLP.

Hendrickson v. AFSCME Council 18 (D.N.M.)

In Hendrickson v. AFSCME Council 18, the District of New Mexico granted the Union’s and State of New Mexico’s motions for summary judgment.  On January 22, 2020, the court ruled that a union membership agreement that required an employee who chose to become a union member to pay dues for a renewable one-year period was enforceable, rejecting the plaintiff’s argument that the agreement violated his First Amendment rights.  The court also rejected the plaintiff’s challenge to exclusive union representation as established by New Mexico’s public employee collective bargaining law.  The order can be found here.  The union defendant was represented by Altshuler Berzon LLP.

On March 5, 2020, Altshuler Berzon LLP attorneys moved to preliminarily enjoin new water project operations and block environmental rollbacks adopted by the Trump Administration that will threaten the survival of multiple west coast fish species.  Altshuler Berzon serves as lead counsel to a coalition of fishing groups (including the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and Golden State Salmon Association) and conservation groups (including NRDC, Defenders of Wildlife, and The Bay Institute).  The new federal rollbacks are authorized by October 2019 Biological Opinions issued under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by the National Marine Fisheries Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service and implement a campaign promise to loosen environmental rules made by Donald Trump in 2016 when he was campaigning for President in the San Joaquin Valley of California.  The case is PCFFA v. Ross, N.D. Cal. Case No. 3:19-cv-07897-LB.

The motion for a preliminary injunction argues that the Biological Opinions are arbitrary, capricious and contrary to the ESA, and that if the US Bureau of Reclamation relies on them to increase its water diversions and water exports in California’s huge federal Central Valley Project, the result will be irreparable harm to winter run Chinook salmon and a number of other fish species that are already in dire shape.  A hearing on the motion is scheduled for this spring.  Numerous major water districts and irrigation interests have moved to intervene in the case on the side of the Trump Administration.

On February 24, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California certified a class of more than 200 former employees of defendant Microchip Technology Inc., who alleged that Microchip violated its fiduciary duties under ERISA by refusing to pay the severance it owed to class members whom Microchip fired without cause after completing its merger with their former employer, and further, by falsely asserting that the severance plan had “expired” six months earlier and by using those false assertions as a basis for inducing class members to release their ERISA benefits claims. 

The district court’s class certification order entitles the class members to join together in pursuing their claims for unpaid severance benefits, to enjoin Microchip’s wrongfully obtained releases, and to recover as an “equitable surcharge” the profits that Microchip earned on the roughly $6 million that it withheld from the class members.  Altshuler Berzon LLP is serving as class counsel along with the firms of McGuinn, Hillsman & Palefsky and the Law Offices of William B. Reilly.

On February 5, 2020, Altshuler Berzon LLP partner Michael Rubin argued City of Oakland et al. v. BP LLC et al., No. 18-6663, before a Ninth Circuit three-judge panel.  The consolidated cases, brought by the City of Oakland and the City and County of San Francisco against five of the largest private investor-owned oil and gas companies in the world, allege that defendants’ 50-year campaign of deceit and deception about the impacts of fossil-fuel combustion on global warming makes those companies liable under California law for their roles in creating the resulting public nuisance.  The plaintiffs seek an order of equitable abatement that would require the companies to remediate the devastating impacts of climate change on local public infrastructure.

The district court had dismissed the consolidated cases on the merits, after having denied the cities’ motions to remand the cases to the state courts in which they were originally filed.  The district court also dismissed four of the five defendants on personal jurisdiction grounds.  As a result, the oral argument encompassed three issues: (1) whether the district court had subject matter jurisdiction, under federal common law or otherwise, over the removed cases; (2) whether the cities’ complaints stated a claim for relief under state public nuisance law or federal common law; and (3) whether the district court could exercise personal jurisdiction over the out-of-state defendants based on allegations that they “purposefully directed” their tortious conduct against California.

Altshuler Berzon LLP attorneys Michael Rubin, BJ Chisholm, Corrine Johnson, and Rebecca Lee have been co-counseling these cases and other climate-change cases pending in state and federal courts throughout the country, with city and county attorneys on behalf of their respective jurisdictions and with co-counsel from Sher Edling.

In a series of settlements negotiated by Altshuler Berzon LLP and its co-counsel, prominent retailers including CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid, and national banking institutions JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have agreed to provide seats to all of their cashiers and tellers and to pay tens of millions of dollars in civil penalties.

The settlements, which have now received final court approval, arose in separate lawsuits filed under California’s “suitable seating” law (Wage Order §14) and the California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), which allows aggrieved workers to file a private right of action civil penalties on behalf of the State of California against employers that have committed Labor Code violations.  The key provision of the seating law requires California employers to provide seats to all employees “when the nature of their work reasonably permits the use of a seat.”

Of the tens of millions of dollars recovered in these cases, 25% has been allocated to the aggrieved workers and 75% was paid to the State Labor and Workforce Development Agency to be specially earmarked for future Labor Code enforcement and education – the allocation scheme required by PAGA. 

In 2019, as a result of these and other PAGA cases (including other seating cases in which Altshuler Berzon was co-counsel), the LWDA received more than $88 million in PAGA civil penalties.