The Icon at Panorama, LLC v. Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters

CourtDistrict Court, C.D. California
DecidedJanuary 31, 2020
Docket2:19-cv-00181
StatusUnknown

This text of The Icon at Panorama, LLC v. Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters (The Icon at Panorama, LLC v. Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, C.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
The Icon at Panorama, LLC v. Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, (C.D. Cal. 2020).

Opinion

1 Susan M. Walker (130748) DENTONS US LLP 2 |}601 South Figueroa Street, Suite 2500 noe ei) ifornia 90017-5704 3 |{Telephone: A d t fe deleted at sesimile: (213) 623-9924 shea MRW 4 lsusan.walker@dentons.com Paragraph 0-0. 5 |IKarl M. Tilleman (Admitted Pro Hac Vice) ID qug a8 D. Janicik (Admitted Pro Hac Vice) 6 |Erin N. pags eee) DENTONS US LLP 7 2398 East Camelback Road, Suite 850 Phoenix, Arizona 85016-9007 8 |[Telephone: (602) 308-3900 Facsimile: (602) 308-3914 9 |karl.tilleman@dentons.com erin.bass@dentons.com 10 |doug.janicik@dentons.com 11 |Attorneys for Plaintiff The Icon at Panorama, LLC 12 13 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 14 CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 15 16 ig. (ene teoneat Panorama, 2G, Case No. 2:19-cv-00181-CBM-MRW ig Plaintiff, vs, STIPULATED [PROPOSED] 19 PROTECTIVE ORDER Southwest Regional Council of 20 |Carpenters, et al., C1 Check if submitted without 1 Detedants. material modifications to MRW form

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1] 1. INTRODUCTION 2 1.1 PURPOSES AND LIMITATIONS 3 Discovery in this action is likely to involve production of confidential, 4 || proprietary, or private information for which special protection from public 5 || disclosure and from use for any purpose other than prosecuting this litigation may 6 || be warranted. Accordingly, the parties hereby stipulate to and petition the Court to 7 || enter the following Stipulated Protective Order. The parties acknowledge that this g || Order does not confer blanket protections on all disclosures or responses to 9 || discovery and that the protection it affords from public disclosure and use extends 10 || only to the limited information or items that are entitled to confidential treatment 11 || under the applicable legal principles. The parties further acknowledge, as set forth 12 || in Section 12.3, below, that this Stipulated Protective Order does not entitle them to 13 || file confidential information under seal; Civil Local Rule 79-5 sets forth the 14 || procedures that must be followed and the standards that will be applied when a 15 || party seeks permission from the court to file material under seal. 16 1.2 GOOD CAUSE STATEMENT 17 a. Plaintiff Icon: As alleged in the Second Amended Complaint, this 1g || case involves a much-needed (and much-supported) mixed-use complex in 19 || Panorama City that plaintiff The Icon at Panorama, LLC (“Icon”) seeks to build. 20 || However, the Union Defendants (Carpenters and Laborers and associated 21 || individuals), with the help of the Union Defendants’ consultants — defendants 22 || SWAPE, LLC (SWAPE) and Smith Engineering & Management, Inc. (“SEM”) — 23 || have prevented Icon from building the Project by repeatedly filing bogus 24 || environmental challenges under the California Environmental Quality Act 25 || (“CEQA”) unless and until Icon caves to the Unions’ demands to use exclusively 26 || union labor on its projects. The Unions also used their other unlawful agreements 27 || with contractors and developers to pressure Icon to cede to their demands. The 28

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1 || Unions used this unlawful playbook over and over again to dominate the labor 2 || market on large projects in and around Los Angeles County. 3 Since April 2017, the Unions have filed more than 27 challenges to the 4 || Project before 4 different government agencies. The Unions lost at every step of the 5 || administrative process; after more than two years of litigation the Unions prevailed 6 || on two narrow grounds (that the City did not follow CEQA in approving the 7 || Project) that were not raised by the Unions until the final stages of review. 8 Icon alleges that the Unions are attempting to and engaging in a conspiracy 9 || to monopolize the labor market in violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act; directing a 10 || group boycott in violation of § 1 of the Act; and engaging in a conspiracy to enter 11 || into an exclusive dealing arrangement in violation of § 1 of the Act. Icon further 12 || alleges that the Unions committed unfair labor practices (for which they are liable 13 || in money damages under the Labor Management Relations Act) by unlawfully 14 || inducing contractors to boycott Icon in violation of the National Labor Relations 15 || Act (SNLRA”) § 8(b)(4)(i) and coercing Icon to sign a union-exclusivity agreement 16 || in violation of NLRA § 8(b)(4)(ii). 17 The above claims raise the following issues on which discovery will be 18 || taken: 19 ° Defendants’ CEQA challenges are objectively and subjectively 20 baseless, and therefore, not protected by the First Amendment. Put 2] differently, they are within the “sham” exception to the Noerr- Pennington doctrine and are not immune from antitrust liability. 23 ° Defendants are attempting and conspiring to monopolize the labor 24 market for large construction projects in and adjacent to Los Angeles 25 County. Through their anticompetitive tactics, the Unions (with the 26 help of the other Defendants) seek to boost their own membership rolls a7 (and thus their revenue from dues) by excluding nonunion contractors 28

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1 from the labor market for such construction projects in and adjacent to 2 Los Angeles County. 3 ° The Relevant Market is the sale of labor on large real estate projects 4 within or adjacent to Los Angeles County, California. Such large real 5 estate projects include (but are not limited to) those that fall within the 6 purview of the Department of City Planning’s “Major Projects Unit,” which enables the Department to conduct a more thorough and focused 8 analysis of large, complex projects that have the potential to generate 9 the most significant effects on the City’s infrastructure, local economy, 10 and environment. 11 ° The Unions (with the help of the other Defendants and third parties) 12 have orchestrated a group boycott whereby participating general 13 contractors will not work with any developer who does not agree to 14 use exclusively union contractors. 15 . Through the use of “most-favored nation” and similar clauses, 16 Defendants are attempting to and conspiring to enter into unlawful 17 exclusive dealing arrangements with developers and contractors in the 18 Relevant Market. 19 ° Defendants are not entitled to invoke the statutory and nonstatutory 20 labor exemptions to antitrust liability because they have joined with 21 non-labor groups, are not engaged in a legitimate union activity (i.e., 22 seeking to organize Icon’s employees), and seek to coerce agreements 23 to use exclusively union contractors outside the context of collective 24 bargaining. 25 ° Defendants antitrust violations have caused a “competitive injury” to 26 the Relevant Market, including but not limited to foreclosing nonunion 27 contractors, higher labor costs, and a shortage of low cost housing. 28

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| . The agreement Defendants sought from Icon (and obtained from other 2 developers) violates the NLRA and would have forced Icon to stop 3 doing business with nonunion contractors. The agreement Defendants 4 sought does not fall within the construction industry proviso of Section 5 8(e) of the NLRA because there is no collective bargaining 6 relationship at issue, particularly where Icon has no employees for the 7 Unions to represent, and because Icon is not an “employer in the 8 construction industry.” 9 Additionally, Icon seeks past and future damages resulting from Defendants’ 10 || anticompetitive and otherwise unlawful conduct in violation of federal antitrust 11 || statutes and the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 187. Icon contends 12 || it has suffered, continues to suffer, and will suffer harm related to increased labor 13 || costs, project delays, and defending itself against the Unions’ sham litigation 14 || tactics, including but not limited to project carrying costs, lost opportunity costs, 15 || lost profits and attorneys’ fees.

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The Icon at Panorama, LLC v. Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/the-icon-at-panorama-llc-v-southwest-regional-council-of-carpenters-cacd-2020.