Chavez-Deremer v. amazon.com Services, LLC

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: August 21, 2025
• Docket: 24-3260
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 21 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LORI CHAVEZ-DEREMER, Secretary of No. 24-3260 Labor, United States Department of Labor, D.C. No. 2:24-cv-00270-MJP Petitioner - Appellee,

v. MEMORANDUM*

AMAZON.COM SERVICES, LLC,

Respondent - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington Marsha J. Pechman, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted August 12, 2025** San Francisco, California

Before: RAWLINSON, BADE, and KOH, Circuit Judges. The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (“LMRDA”), 29

U.S.C. § 401 et seq., requires that an employer periodically report, among other

things, “any payment (including reimbursed expenses) to any of [its] employees

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concluded this case was suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). . . . for the purpose of causing such employee” to lobby against unionization and

“any expenditure . . . where an objective thereof, directly or indirectly, is to

interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the right to organize

and bargain collectively.” 29 U.S.C. § 433(a)(2)–(3). These reporting requirements

are subject to certain exceptions. See id. § 433(e). The Office of Labor-

Management Standards (“OLMS”), within the Department of Labor, has the

authority to investigate potential violations of these reporting requirements,

including the power to issue subpoenas. See 29 U.S.C. § 521(a)–(b).

Amazon appeals a district court order granting a request to enforce an

administrative subpoena by OLMS. The subpoena sought information about travel

reimbursements paid to certain Amazon supervisors who were sent to Amazon

facilities to dissuade the employees there from unionizing. Through the subpoena,

OLMS sought to determine whether Amazon violated the LMRDA by failing to

report these payments.

“The scope of the judicial inquiry in an . . . agency subpoena enforcement

proceeding is quite narrow.” United States v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 943 F.3d 1283,

1287 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting EEOC v. Fed. Express Corp., 558 F.3d 842, 848 (9th

Cir. 2009)). “As long as the evidence [sought] is relevant, material, and there is

some ‘plausible’ ground for jurisdiction . . ., the court should enforce the

subpoena.” Id.; see also McLane Co. v. EEOC, 581 U.S. 72, 77 (2017) (stating a

2 24-3260 subpoena may not be “too indefinite, issued for an illegitimate purpose, or unduly

burdensome” (citation modified)).1 We review the district court’s decision for

abuse of discretion. See Exxon, 943 F.3d at 1287. We affirm.

1. Amazon argues the subpoena was improper because the information it

sought, travel reimbursements for supervisors, was exempt from reporting under

Section 203(e) of the LMRDA, which exempts “expenditures made to any regular

officer, supervisor, or employee of an employer as compensation for service as a

regular officer, supervisor, or employee of such employer.” 29 U.S.C. § 433(e).

Whatever the precise contours of Section 203(e), the statute’s plain text

makes clear that the mere fact that these individuals were Amazon supervisors is

not alone sufficient to establish that the payments made to them were exempt. For

the exemption to apply, it is not enough that the “expenditures” be “made to any

regular officer, supervisor, or employee.” 29 U.S.C. § 433(e). Rather, the payments

must also constitute “compensation,” and that compensation must be for services

rendered “as a regular officer, supervisor, or employee.” Id. The district court

correctly concluded that the information sought by the subpoena was relevant to

OLMS’s investigation of whether the payments fell within this exemption. See

Exxon, 943 F.3d at 1287 (“The relevance requirement is not especially

1 We are unpersuaded by Amazon’s argument that a more probing review is justified because of potential constitutional issues. Cf. FEC v. Machinists Non- Partisan Political League, 655 F.2d 380 (D.C. Cir. 1981).

3 24-3260 constraining, but is instead generously construed to afford the agency access to

virtually any material that might cast light on the matter under investigation.”

(citation modified)); Fed. Express, 558 F.3d at 848 (“[A] party may not defeat

agency authority to investigate with a claim that could be a defense if the agency

subsequently decides to bring an action against it.” (citation omitted)).

2. Amazon argues OLMS’s subpoena constitutes an unprecedented attempt

to expand the scope of the LMRDA and thus violates the Administrative Procedure

Act. This argument fails because Amazon cannot show that OLMS has adopted a

new interpretation of the statute. OLMS has consistently taken the position that

reporting payments made to supervisors is mandated in at least some

circumstances. See OLMS Interpretive Manual §§ 254.100, 256.100 (Feb. 2022)

(stating that “section 203(e) applies only to expenditures made for services which

are performed by employees in the regular and ordinary course of their

employment” and providing examples of payments made to employees that are

reportable). By investigating whether the payments at issue here are reportable

under this standard, OLMS has not thereby adopted a new interpretation of the

LMRDA.

3. Amazon argues that issuance of the subpoena constitutes an improper

attempt to circumvent the LMRDA’s enforcement provisions, and accordingly, the

subpoena was issued for an improper purpose. According to Amazon, if OLMS

4 24-3260 wishes to obtain this information, it must do so through an enforcement action

alleging a violation of the LMRDA’s reporting requirements, rather than through

its investigative subpoena power.

The LMRDA contains a broad grant of investigatory power to OLMS that,

by its terms, includes the power to subpoena information that otherwise must be

reported under the LMRDA. See 29 U.S.C. § 521(a)–(b). The statute expressly

prohibits investigations into the violation of certain portions of the LMRDA but

does not limit investigations into violations of the reporting requirements at issue

here. See id. If Congress intended to prohibit subpoenas investigating violations of

the reporting requirements, as Amazon contends, it clearly knew how to do so.

Similarly, the agency’s refusal to accept Amazon’s stipulation does not

demonstrate an improper purpose. It was not an abuse of discretion for the district

court to conclude that “Amazon’s compromise offer” was “an inadequate ground

on which to narrow or limit the subpoena” because the stipulation would

“unreasonably limit[]” OLMS’s ability to evaluate whether a statutory violation

occurred. OLMS is not required to accept Amazon’s characterization of the facts

but instead has the authority to obtain documents to ensure the law is not being

violated. See United States v. Morton Salt Co., 338 U.S. 632, 641–43 (1950); 29

U.S.C. § 521.

AFFIRMED.

5 24-3260