International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, AFL-CIO v. Jones.
No. 23-3225. 12/5/2024. D.Kan. Judge Federico. Labor Unions—Financial Misconduct of Union President—Union Constitution—Disciplinary Proceedings—Due Process.
December 5, 2024
Jones was president of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers (the union), which represents tens of thousands of members in the United States and Canada. In February 2023, Union Vice Presidents Fultz, Simmons, Baca, and Stadnick attended a union meeting in Marco Island, Florida, where it was disclosed that the US Department of Justice was investigating President Jones and Union Secretary-Treasurer Creeden for financial misconduct. Vice President Simmons subsequently investigated the financial misconduct claims. Vice President Fultz then brought disciplinary charges against President Jones alleging that he had paid his wife for work she did not perform while she had been living in Ukraine; that he had spent union funds on private dining by his family; and that he had admitted on Marco Island that he had spent union funds to travel to his residence in Ukraine. President Jones created a committee to investigate the allegations that consisted of Secretary-Treasurer Creeden and Vice President McManamon. The union’s executive council (council), comprised of the international president and five international vice presidents, met on May 12 and disqualified President Jones from using presidential authority to process his own disciplinary charges and thus rejected his investigatory committee. The council also appointed Lunsford, business manager of Union District 57, to perform the duties of president in processing the charges. Following a hearing, three voting vice presidents issued a written council decision finding that President Jones had violated the union constitution, removing him from office, stripping him of his union membership, and directing him to pay back the money he misspent. But President Jones refused to step down. Instead, he removed the vice presidents who had acted against him from various union positions, filed charges against them, and limited their travel. President Jones also filed suit, purporting to act on behalf of the union, to nullify the vice presidents’ decision and prohibit further action against him as union president. The vice presidents counterclaimed under federal labor law against President Jones, his wife, and Secretary-Treasurer Creeden for breach of the union constitution, retaliation, and breach of fiduciary duty, and they sought a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction removing President Jones from office while the case was pending. The district court issued an interim preliminary injunction in accordance with the parties’ agreement that kept President Jones in office but prevented him from traveling or using his credit cards without the vice presidents’ approval. But before the court ruled on the motion for a preliminary injunction, President Jones announced his immediate retirement. The district court ultimately granted the vice presidents partial summary judgment affirming their decision to remove Jones from office and ruled that the council’s decision was “binding and entitled to full effect.”
On appeal, Jones argued that the disciplinary proceeding violated the union constitution and his due-process rights under the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA). However, the union constitution gives the council exclusive jurisdiction to hear charges against international officers, and the president is an “international officer”; and it places the council above the president in the union decision-making hierarchy. Thus, decisions in such proceedings, which necessarily entail interpreting the relevant union law, are left to the council. And here, the council was not unreasonable in deciding that Jones was barred by the union constitution from performing any role in the proceedings against him. Accordingly, the district court did not err in affirming the council’s decision interpreting the union constitution to give it exclusive jurisdiction over the proceedings against Jones.
Jones also argued that the council lacked authority to appoint a temporary, partially empowered international president. Here, the council appointed Lunsford to perform tasks that it believed Jones was disqualified from performing. This action was a reasonable means of effectuating the union constitution’s provision requiring the council to fill vacancies in the president’s office. Therefore, the district court did not err in affirming Lunsford’s appointment.
Jones further contended that the council’s May 12 meeting was unauthorized because only he had the power to call it. However, the council’s implicit interpretation of the constitution that it was allowed to meet without the president’s call for a meeting was not unreasonable, so the Tenth Circuit deferred to it.
Jones also asserted that he should have been given 15, rather than 14, days’ notice of the hearing on the charges against him. However, this scheduling error was inconsequential.
Jones additionally argued that Vice President Fultz’s recusal at the May 12 meeting made resulted in the council not having a quorum, so the council’s decision to remove him was not binding. While Vice President Fultz recused himself from voting at the May 12 meeting, he remained present. The union constitution’s incorporation of Robert’s Rules of Order, which requires only that a member be “present” to count toward a quorum, thus supports the district court’s affirmance of the presence of a quorum.
Jones also contended that the union constitution requires a majority of the council—at least four of its six members—to vote to remove him. However, the general rule of all parliamentary bodies is that the act of a majority of the quorum is the act of the body when a quorum is present. Therefore, it was permissible for only three members to vote to remove him.
Jones further argued that the council violated his due-process rights under the LMRDA because the charges against him were too vague, the vice presidents who voted to remove him were biased, and he was not allowed to review and rebut the evidence against him. Section § 411(a)(5) of the LMRDA applies when a “member” is “expelled” from a union. Here, the declaratory judgment challenged in this appeal did not address President Jones’s membership, so the Tenth Circuit declined to consider his arguments. Nevertheless, the Tenth Circuit reviewed Jones’s procedural objections under the LMRDA and determined they were meritless because the charges were specific, there was no indication of bias, and Jones received a full and fair hearing.
Lastly, Jones maintained that the district court erred by giving him only seven days to respond to the vice presidents’ summary judgment motion and not allowing him to conduct discovery. Reviewing for plain error, the Tenth Circuit determined that the district court’s decision to set an expedited briefing schedule was warranted under the circumstances and that the district court did not explicitly prohibit discovery. Therefore, the district court did not plainly err in granting summary judgment based on the evidence and arguments that the parties presented.
The order granting summary judgment was affirmed.