Ninth Circuit Says Public Union Not Retrospectively Liable for Mandatory Dues

Steven D. Schwinn, UIC John Marshall Law School

The Ninth Circuit ruled last week in Danielson v. Inslee that a public sector union is not liable for mandatory union dues paid before the Supreme Court struck mandatory union fees in Janus. The ruling follows a similar one in the Seventh Circuit.

Recall that the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 in Janus v. AFSCME that public sector unions could not collect mandatory fair-share fees (fees used for collective bargaining activities) consistent with the First Amendment. The ruling overturned the 1977 case Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which upheld mandatory fees against a First Amendment challenge.

After Janus, public sector unions stopped collecting the fees. But some public sector employees sued for pre-Janus fees paid. That's what happened in the Seventh Circuit, which led that court to hold that unions weren't on the hook for pre-Janus fees. And it's what happened in the Ninth Circuit, too.

The Ninth Circuit held that the union could invoke a good-faith defense against the plaintiffs' claims, relying on the pre-Janus state of the law to continue to collect mandatory fair-share fees. As to the strong hints from the Court even before 2018 that fair-share fees were on the chopping block, the Ninth Circuit said,

Although some justices had signaled their disagreement with Abood in the years leading up to Janus, Abood remained binding authority until it was overruled. We agree with our sister circuit that "[t]he Rule of Law requires that parties abide by, and be able to rely on, what the law is, rather than what the readers of tea-leaves predict that it might be in the future."

The Supreme Court has admonished the circuit courts not to presume the overruling of its precedents, irrespective of hints in its decisions that a shift may be on the horizon.