United States Ninth Circuit

Jury verdict against defendant-union officials is affirmed, where: 1) section 501 of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act creates a fiduciary duty to the union as an organization, not merely to the union's rank-and file members; 2) in actively attempting to obstruct the international union executive committee's decision to consolidate all of its California unionized long term healthcare workers from three different local unions into one, the local union officials breached the fiduciary duty they owed their own union as an organization, and because the breach contravened the union's constitution, it could not have been authorized; 3) the district court did not err in excluding irrelevant evidence, nor in issuing a permanent injunction; and 4) the district court did not err in reading the verdict to impose several liability, and not joint-and-several liability, on the defendants.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/26/2013
• Published 03/26/2013

Judges

• TALLMAN

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel