Rebecca Friedrichs in Mourning
| Friedrichs: Please, pay me less. |
Untold story: How Scalia's death blew up an anti-union group's grand legal strategy
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-scalia-s-death-anti-union-group-legal-strategy-20160214-column.html
The anti-union lawsuit known as Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Assn. is widely viewed as one of the leading casualties of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death.
What's less well-known is how the anti-union plaintiffs connived to fast-track the case through the federal judiciary in order to get it before the court while it still harbored a conservative majority. Their method was to encourage the lower courts to rule against them, so they could file a quick appeal. But Scalia's passing is likely to leave a 4-4 deadlock over the case, so the last ruling, in which the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the teachers union, remains in force.
This wasn't how the anti-union group behind the lawsuit, the Center for Individual Rights, expected things to work out. As we write, the group's website still features a photograph of nominal plaintiff Rebecca Friedrichs and the center's lawyers standing in front of the Supreme Court on Jan. 10, looking plenty chuffed about that morning's oral arguments, which plainly went their way. The poet Robert Burns had a line for the subsequent developments: "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley."*
What's less well-known is how the anti-union plaintiffs connived to fast-track the case through the federal judiciary in order to get it before the court while it still harbored a conservative majority. Their method was to encourage the lower courts to rule against them, so they could file a quick appeal. But Scalia's passing is likely to leave a 4-4 deadlock over the case, so the last ruling, in which the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the teachers union, remains in force.
This wasn't how the anti-union group behind the lawsuit, the Center for Individual Rights, expected things to work out. As we write, the group's website still features a photograph of nominal plaintiff Rebecca Friedrichs and the center's lawyers standing in front of the Supreme Court on Jan. 10, looking plenty chuffed about that morning's oral arguments, which plainly went their way. The poet Robert Burns had a line for the subsequent developments: "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley."*
Here's the background, drawn in part from our previous coverage here and here.
The target of the Friedrichs lawsuit, and several others just like it, is the "agency" or "fair share" fee. Under the law and Ed Notes Online: Rebecca Friedrichs in Mourning:
The target of the Friedrichs lawsuit, and several others just like it, is the "agency" or "fair share" fee. Under the law and Ed Notes Online: Rebecca Friedrichs in Mourning: