On January 24, 2025, Judge Michael H. Simon of the District of Oregon granted judgment to Service Employees International Union Local 503, dismissing all of the claims of a public employee who asserted that the union had forged her signature on a membership card. The public employee, who was represented by the anti-union Freedom Foundation, had filed a federal court lawsuit in March 2021. The Freedom Foundation then widely publicized its allegations of forgery including by obtaining an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
The union took the position that no forgery had occurred, and the public employee had signed the card herself, and asked the Oregon Employment Relations Board (“ERB”) to resolve the dispute. After a three-day hearing with live witness testimony, the ERB agreed with the union that the card was not forged. The union defended that finding through the Oregon appellate courts, and then returned to the federal district court to ask that the finding be given preclusive effect. The Oregon district court agreed, and held that the ERB’s finding that the union had not forged the card required the dismissal, with prejudice, of all of the public employee’s claims.
The district court’s decision can be found here.
Altshuler Berzon LLP represented Service Employees International Union Local 503 in the case.