Akers v. Md. State Educ. Ass'n

376 F. Supp. 3d 563
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maryland
DecidedApril 18, 2019
DocketCivil Action No. RDB-18-1797
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 376 F. Supp. 3d 563 (Akers v. Md. State Educ. Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Akers v. Md. State Educ. Ass'n, 376 F. Supp. 3d 563 (D. Md. 2019).

Opinion

Richard D. Bennett, United States District Judge

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Plaintiffs Ruth Akers ("Ms. Akers") and Sharon Moesel ("Ms. Moesel") (collectively, "Plaintiffs") bring this putative class action against the following Defendants: Maryland State Education Association ("MSEA"), a labor union; Teachers' Association of Baltimore County and Teachers' Association of Anne Arundel County, local union chapters affiliated with MSEA, sued as representatives of the class of all chapters and affiliates of MSEA; National Education Association ("NEA"), a labor union affiliated with MSEA; Verletta White, interim superintendent of the Board of Education of Baltimore County, and George Arlotto, superintendent of Anne Arundel County, sued in their official capacities as representatives of the class of all superintendents of Maryland school districts; Larry Hogan, as Governor of Maryland, in his official capacity; Brian Frosh, Attorney *567General of Maryland, in his official capacity; and Elizabeth Molina Morgan, Robert I. Chanin, John A. Hayden III, Donald W. Harmon, and Ronald S. Boozer, members of the Maryland Public School Labor Relations Board, in their official capacities. (Am. Compl., ECF No. 59.) Plaintiffs are public school teachers who were not members of the teachers' union but were required to pay representation fees to the union as a condition of employment. (Id. ) Plaintiffs allege violations of their constitutionally-protected rights and various state-law torts, and they seek injunctive and declaratory relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 2201. (Id. )

Currently pending before this Court are State-Defendants'1 Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint (ECF No. 74 ) and Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint of Defendants Maryland State Education Association, Teachers' Association of Baltimore County, Teachers' Association of Anne Arundel County, and National Education Association [ (collectively, "the Union Defendants") ] (ECF No. 75 ). Shortly after the filing of this action, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Janus v. Am. Fed'n of State, Cty., and Mun. Emps., Council 31 , --- U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 2448, 201 L.Ed.2d 924 (2018), holding that "[s]tates and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees." 138 S.Ct. at 2459. Plaintiffs' claims for injunctive and declaratory relief are now moot. Furthermore, consistent with many other courts, this Court holds that collection of fees in good-faith reliance on then-valid law bars the Plaintiffs' refund claims. Accordingly, for the reasons that follow, both Motions to Dismiss (ECF Nos. 74, 75) are GRANTED.

BACKGROUND

In ruling on a motion to dismiss, this Court "accept[s] as true all well-pleaded facts in a complaint and construe[s] them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Wikimedia Found. v. Nat'l Sec. Agency , 857 F.3d 193, 208 (4th Cir. 2017) (citing SD3, LLC v. Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc. , 801 F.3d 412, 422 (4th Cir. 2015) ). This dispute involves the payment of compulsory union dues. Ms. Akers is a public-school teacher who works for the Baltimore County Public Schools, and Ms. Moesel teaches at Annapolis High School in the Anne Arundel County Public Schools. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 14, 18; ECF No. 59.) Ms. Akers does not approve of the MSEA or its affiliates and refused to become a member, but she was required to pay "representation fees" (also referred to as "agency fees")2 to the MSEA as a condition of her employment. (Id. at ¶ 15-16, 26.) Ms. Moesel was an active member of MSEA and the Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County until she was expelled in May 2017,3 but the union continued taking representation fees from her pay without her consent. (Id. at ¶¶ 19-20.) The MSEA was authorized under Md.

*568Code. Education §§ 6-407(c) - (f) to extract these fees from non-union members as a condition of their employment. (Id. at ¶ 23.) Plaintiffs assert that by taking these fees from public-school employees, Defendants committed the torts of conversion, trover, detinue, and trespass to chattels. (Id. at ¶ 25.)

Plaintiffs also allege that under the recently-enacted4 Maryland House Bill 811 ("HB 811"), public-school employers are required to provide the MSEA and its affiliates with the name, home address, home telephone numbers, and personal cell-phone numbers of each newly-hired school employee, regardless of whether the employee consents to the disclosure. (Id. at ¶¶ 28-32.) Additionally, Ms. Moesel alleges that public-school teachers should not be forced to accept the union as their exclusive bargaining representative and that forcing a non-union teacher to accept union-negotiated terms of employment violates anti-trust laws as well as their First Amendment right of freedom of association. (Id. at ¶¶ 43-48.)

Ms. Akers initially filed the purported class-action Complaint (ECF No. 1 ) on June 18, 2018. A Motion for Preliminary Injunction (ECF No. 13 ) was filed on June 29, 2018, seeking to prevent the enforcement of certain provisions in HB 811 from taking effect on July 1, 2018. Plaintiffs later agreed to withdraw the motion on the basis that HB 811 had already taken effect. (See ECF No. 105.) Plaintiffs filed the operative Amended Complaint on September 7, 2018,5 adding Ms. Moesel as a Plaintiff and adding Verletta White and George Arlotto as Defendants. (ECF No. 59.) Both Verletta White and George Arlotto filed Motions to Dismiss (ECF Nos. 80, 83), to which Plaintiffs did not respond and later agreed could be granted. (ECF No. 105.) The Amended Complaint contains the following requests: (1) a declaration under the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, that the requirement for non-union members to pay representation fees is unconstitutional; (2) all representation fees that have been collected must be refunded under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

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Bluebook (online)
376 F. Supp. 3d 563, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/akers-v-md-state-educ-assn-mdd-2019.