Boyle v. California State University Employees Union

Background

The plaintiffs filed a third amended complaint. The SEIU defendants, identified as the only remaining defendants, moved to dismiss parts of that complaint. The challenged claims concerned the unions’ alleged refusal to promptly accept some plaintiffs’ resignations from union membership and related claims about deductions from employee paychecks.

Rulings on standing, mootness, and preemption

The court dismissed the portions of Counts 2 and 3 seeking prospective relief because the plaintiffs acknowledged that Don Weber and Elizabeth McAdams lacked standing to seek prospective relief on Counts 2 and 3, and that Jamie Snyder lacked standing to seek prospective relief on Count 2.

The court also dismissed Counts 2 and 3 insofar as they sought prospective injunctive and declaratory relief. The parties agreed that those claims were moot under the reasoning of the court’s earlier order, and the plaintiffs waived arguments that the claims should be treated differently for mootness purposes.

The plaintiffs conceded that the state-law claims in Count 3 were preempted. The court therefore dismissed those state-law claims.

Count 2 and state action

The remaining disputed issue was whether the plaintiffs could state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for the constitutional violations alleged in Count 2. Section 1983 provides a cause of action for certain constitutional violations committed under color of state law. The court explained that the plaintiffs also had to adequately allege state action for purposes of their First Amendment theory.

The court found that Count 2 focused only on the unions’ alleged failure to promptly accept membership resignations and on requirements such as sending a signed letter to union headquarters or submitting a second resignation letter. The count did not challenge later deductions of union dues from the paychecks of plaintiffs who attempted to resign; the complaint treated membership resignation and termination of payroll deductions as separate issues.

The court held that the alleged conduct was not fairly attributable to the state. The plaintiffs had not adequately alleged that the unions’ internal membership practices involved a right or privilege created by the state or a rule of conduct imposed by the state. The court noted that the state did not create the unions or require employees to join them, and the plaintiffs had not identified a state law or regulation establishing substantive or procedural rules for managing the unions’ membership rolls. Any policy requiring signed resignation letters sent to union headquarters was a union policy, not a state-imposed policy.

The court also held that the unions could not fairly be treated as state actors based on the alleged refusal to accept membership resignations. Even assuming that the deduction and transfer of membership dues or fair-share fees could support a joint-action theory involving the state, that theory did not apply because Count 2 addressed only the unions’ internal membership practices. The court rejected reliance on a California statute regulating requests to terminate payroll deductions because the complaint repeatedly stated that Count 2 concerned membership resignations, not payroll-deduction authorizations.

Disposition

The court granted the motion to dismiss. It dismissed the specified prospective-relief claims for lack of standing or mootness, dismissed the state-law claims under Count 3 based on preemption, and dismissed Count 2 without leave to amend. The court ordered the plaintiffs to file a fourth amended complaint within 21 days, limited to the parties and claims remaining in the case. The defendants were required to answer within 21 days after the amended complaint was filed.