Nagel v. United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 653

Background

The dispute arose from a March 4, 2018 collective bargaining agreement between United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 653, and SuperValu Cub Foods and other independent grocers. Under the previous agreement, employees with 30 years of qualifying employment could retire with full pension benefits. The new agreement eliminated that “30-and-out” benefit for a subset of employees.

The plaintiffs alleged that Local 653 unilaterally gave up the benefit during negotiations and failed to provide members with complete and accurate information before the ratification vote. They alleged that union materials did not explain the loss of the benefit and incorrectly described a committee’s vote of confidence as unanimous. The agreement was ultimately ratified by the union members.

Matthew Nagel’s amended complaint asserted that Local 653 breached its duty of fair representation and violated the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. After the court dismissed part of the amended complaint, Nagel’s only remaining claim was that Local 653 breached its duty of fair representation through bad-faith conduct. Thirty-one people later intervened and asserted the same claim.

Summary-judgment standard and legal rule

The court explained that summary judgment is proper when the evidence shows no genuine dispute about a material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. A genuine dispute exists when a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the opposing party.

A union breaches its duty of fair representation only when its conduct toward a bargaining-unit member is arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith. For a bad-faith claim, a plaintiff must prove both that the union acted in bad faith and that the plaintiff would not have been injured without that conduct.

In a case challenging a collective-bargaining-agreement ratification, causation required the plaintiffs to show that, without the union’s misconduct, the members would have voted against the proposed agreement and the employer would have accepted a revised agreement without the disputed provision. The court stated that evidence of causation could not be based on speculation.

Court’s analysis

The court did not decide whether Local 653 acted in bad faith because it found that the plaintiffs could not establish causation. The plaintiffs produced evidence that two members who voted for the agreement would have voted against it if they had known that the agreement eliminated the “30-and-out” benefit. Seven plaintiffs who did not vote stated that they would have voted against ratification if they had known about the elimination of the benefit.

The plaintiffs also offered statements that other nonvoting members might have opposed the agreement, but they did not provide testimony from those other members. The court found that this evidence was vague and speculative. It also found that the plaintiffs had not shown that the benefit was a critical voting issue for a large portion of the voting members.

Because the agreement passed by 119 votes, the court concluded that the evidence would not allow a reasonable jury to find that the agreement would have failed without the union’s misconduct.

Disposition

The court GRANTED Local 653’s motion for summary judgment. It DENIED AS MOOT Local 653’s motion to exclude the plaintiffs’ expert testimony. The order directed that judgment be entered accordingly.