firm victories

Parde V. SEIU -- LCW Wins Dismissal Of A First Amendment Claim Regarding Union Dues.

LCW Partner Geoff Sheldon, Senior Counsel Dave Urban, and Associate Daniel Seitz convinced the U.S. District Court to grant a motion to dismiss without leave to amend on behalf of the County of Los Angeles. Typically, when a court grants a motion to dismiss, it provides the entity or person who filed the lawsuit with leave to amend to write a better lawsuit. In this instance, LCW Attorneys presented arguments that persuaded the judge to dismiss the case against Los Angeles County outright, without giving Parde a second chance.

Parde contended that the defendants, including Los Angeles County, violated her First Amendment rights, procedural due process rights, and substantive due process rights by: 1) causing dues deductions from Parde’s pay pursuant to her allegedly forged signature to ensure she stayed a union member despite her resignation from the union; and 2) continuing to deduct union dues from her paycheck following her resignation.

Parde had argued that Los Angeles County, which had contracted with Parde’s employer to handle payroll, was complicit in the withholding the dues without proper authorization. The County generally deducts union dues from employees’ paychecks automatically, so long as the County has a signed authorization.

LCW argued that Los Angeles County was never aware of, and could not have been aware of, any alleged forgery because Parde had never notified the County of any dispute as to the veracity of the signature. Because Parde could not show that Los Angeles County knew or should have known of this alleged malfeasance, the court dismissed her case.

LCW Wins Dismissal Of A First Amendment Retaliation Lawsuit.

LCW Partner Morin Jacob led a team to win the dismissal of a lawsuit against a county before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In this case, a variety of county employees were disciplined after speaking ill of certain supervisors and co-workers. These employees, once disciplined, alleged that they were being retaliated against for exercising their First Amendment rights. LCW had already won the dismissal of the suit at the trial court level, but the employees appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit.

The employees had: 1) disparaged other employees at a training the county had run; 2) disparaged their supervisors at various meetings; and 3) refused to amend a performance review in defiance of their supervisor’s order. It is important to note that the employees’ speech related, to, and occurred because of, their official duties as county employees. The employees “spoke” as public employees, so their speech did not have First Amendment protection.

This victory showcases LCW’s work at the appellate level of the U.S. judicial system and provides a useful reminder of the framework for analyzing First Amendment claims. If employees’ speech is related to or occurred because of their official duties as public employees, then the speech is not protected by the First Amendment.