US Supreme Court ruling in union dues impacts case in Oregon
Notable Attorneys
An Oregon state employee and a labor union have reached a settlement over her lawsuit seeking payback of obligatory union fees, marking the first refund of forced fees since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in late June that government workers can't be required to contribute to labor groups, the employee's lawyers said Monday.
Debora Nearman, a systems analyst with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in her lawsuit filed in April in federal court that the state's practice of forcing her to pay fees to fund union activity violated her First Amendment freedoms. She said the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, opposes her political and religious views and even led a campaign against her husband Mike when he successfully ran as a Republican candidate for the state Legislature in 2016.
Nearman is a member of a state-wide bargaining unit represented by SEIU but doesn't belong to the union. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which was involved in both the Supreme Court case and Nearman's, is handling some 200 other cases across the country, including a class-action lawsuit in California by 30,000 state employees, said Patrick Semmens, the group's vice president.
If the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules in favor of the plaintiffs in the California case, they stand to be refunded more than $100 million, Semmens estimated.
Nearman said in a telephone interview the mailers sent by a political action committee funded by the union were "disgusting."
One showed a photo of her husband superimposed in front of a police car with flashing lights, giving the impression that he was a criminal, she said. Another hinted he didn't care about disabled people, said Nearman, who suffers from a progressive neuro-muscular disease. "I was just heartbroken to see that," she said.
Related listings
-
Conservatives close in on dream: Tipping court right
Notable Attorneys 07/14/2018President Donald Trump’s selection of Judge Brett Kavanaugh as a new Supreme Court nominee last Monday culminates a three-decade project unparalleled in American history to install a reliable conservative majority on the nation’s highest ...
-
Judge to pick battlefield for court fight over Manson's body
Notable Attorneys 01/29/2018Charles Manson orchestrated murders in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, served time in a state prison in Corcoran and died in a hospital in Bakersfield.The legal battle for his body or possessions could land in any of three California counties wh...
-
Supreme Court limits ability to strip citizenship
Notable Attorneys 06/24/2017The Supreme Court on Thursday limited the government's ability to strip U.S. citizenship from immigrants for lying during the naturalization process. The justices ruled unanimously in favor of an ethnic Serb from Bosnia who lied about her husband's m...
CHICAGO BUSINESS & CORPORATE LITIGATION LAWYERS
When faced with a legal challenge, your attorneys should help you identify your goals at the beginning of the process. Thereafter, every action that follows must be undertaken with the aim of meeting those goals. Wasted effort equals wasted time and money, that’s something you cannot afford and your attorneys must respect this concept. At Roth Law Group, we counsel our clients to confront their legal challenges aggressively, but with purpose.
As a former Marine Corps Pilot, I learned that you must assess the situation, determine your mission, construct a plan to achieve the mission and execute that plan. As an attorney and small business owner, I apply the same concepts in taking on my client’s legal challenges. And while it is generally preferable to resolve cases early in the process whenever possible, if you have no choice but to fight, you need someone who is willing to aggressively advocate for you. Here at Roth Law Group, we never back down from a challenge and we fight to win. Let our experienced attorneys put you in control of your legal challenges so you can get back to running your business.