Int'l All. of Theater Stage Emps. Local 927 v. Fervier

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INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF THEATER STAGE EMPLOYEES LOCAL 927, Plaintiff, v. JOHN FERVIER, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 1:23-CV-04929-JPB

United States District Court, N.D. Georgia, Atlanta Division

July 31, 2024

ORDER

J. P BOULEE, United States District Judge

This matter is before the Court on International Alliance of Theater Stage Employees Local 927's (“Plaintiff”) Motion for Preliminary Injunction [Doc. 83] and Motion for Leave to File Supplemental Declarations [Doc. 98]. This Court finds as follows:

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff is a labor union comprised of approximately 200 members who work behind the scenes running the lights, sound, sets and props for live and recorded productions throughout Georgia and the world. [Doc. 83-3, p. 3]. Specifically Plaintiff's members work on television shows, touring Broadway productions, live theater, operas and ballets. Id.

Plaintiff's mission is to protect its “members' physical social, and economic well-being by working for the passage and enforcement of laws which strengthen [the] rights to collectively bargain, defend pension and healthcare benefits, enforce strong copyright protections, promote safe working conditions, and seek funding for the arts.” Id. Stated another way, Plaintiff is “dedicated to protecting the dignity and both the financial and physical well-being of its members,” and Plaintiff accomplishes that mission by “advocating for safe working conditions, fair wages, and [the] just treatment of all of its members.” [Doc. 62, p. 5].

Based on the limited record before the Court, Plaintiff has some involvement in politics. Indeed, at least once a year, Plaintiff visits with the legislature during its lawmaking session to discuss the needs of its members. [Doc. 83-3, p. 4]. For example, in 2022, Plaintiff “spoke with lawmakers to encourage them to vote” for a bill that helped “clearly define the differences between employees and contract workers, a distinction that is critical to ensuring [that] members get their due pay, benefits, and workplace safety protections.” Id. In addition to communicating with lawmakers, Plaintiff distributes a “monthly newsletter to encourage [its] members to vote for pro-labor candidates and to cast votes on other important issues that appear on the ballot.” Id.; see also [Doc. 62, p. 5-6] (Plaintiff “advocates for the election of candidates at all levels of government who support both the rights of workers and the cultural traditions and institutions that have brought Atlanta international renown.”).

Plaintiff brought this case against State Defendants^[1] and County Defendants^[2]on October 26, 2023. [Doc. 1]. Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (“Amended Complaint”) on January 29, 2024. [Doc. 62]. In the Amended Complaint, Plaintiff seeks to protect its members' voting rights by challenging the provision of Senate Bill 202 (“S.B. 202”) which states that absentee ballot applications cannot be submitted earlier than seventy-eight days before the election and will not be accepted if submitted fewer than eleven days before the election. O.C.G.A. § 21-2-381(a)(1)(A). According to Plaintiff, this provision violates § 10502(d) of the Voting Rights Act (“VRA”), which provides that:

[E]ach State shall provide by law for the casting of absentee ballots for the choice of electors for President and Vice President, or for President and Vice President, by all duly qualified residents of such State who may be absent from their election district or unit in such State on the day such election is held and who have applied therefor not later than seven days immediately prior to such election and have returned such ballots to the appropriate election official of such State not later than the time of closing of the polls in such State on the day of such election.

52 U.S.C. § 10502(d). In short, Plaintiff contends that Georgia's eleven-day deadline for submitting absentee ballot applications violates the seven-day period found in the VRA.

On April 30, 2024, Plaintiff filed the instant Motion for Preliminary Injunction. [Doc. 83].^[3] In the motion, Plaintiff argues that its members, who are often required to travel for work on short notice, will be irreparably harmed by S.B. 202 because they have less time to apply for an absentee ballot. The motion is now ripe for review.

LEGAL STANDARD

A plaintiff seeking preliminary injunctive relief must show (1) a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; (2) irreparable injury absent an injunction; (3) that the balance of equities is in its favor; and (4) that an injunction would not be adverse to the public interest. Sofarelli v. Pinellas County, 931 F.2d 718, 723-24 (11th Cir. 1991). Because a preliminary injunction “is an extraordinary and drastic remedy,” the Court may not issue such relief “unless the movant clearly establish[es] the burden of persuasion as to each of the four prerequisites.” Siegel v. LePore, 234 F.3d 1163, 1176 (11th Cir. 2000) (internal punctuation omitted) (quoting McDonald's Corp. v. Robertson, 147 F.3d 1301, 1306 (11th Cir. 1998)). Granting a preliminary injunction is thus the exception rather than the rule. See id.

DISCUSSION

Article III of the Constitution limits the subject-matter jurisdiction of federal courts to “Cases” and “Controversies.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2. To satisfy this case and controversy requirement, litigants must have standing. Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). The standing doctrine requires a plaintiff to show that it: (1) suffered an injury-in-fact (2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant and (3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision. Id. at 560-61. “These three elements ‘are not mere pleading requirements but rather an indispensable part of the plaintiff's case.'” Ga. Ass'n of Latino Elected Offs., Inc. v. Gwinnett Cnty. Bd. of Registration & Elections, 36 F.4th 1100, 1113 (11th Cir. 2022) (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561).

Plaintiff in this case is a labor organization and asserts that it has associational standing. An organization has associational standing (1) “when its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right”; (2) “the interests at stake are germane to the organization's purpose”; and (3) “neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit.” Fla. State Conf, of NAACP v. Browning, 522 F.3d 1153,1160 (11th Cir. 2008) (quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Env't Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 181 (2000)). In the analysis that follows, the Court focuses on the second prong.

As stated above, as part of the standing determination, Plaintiff must demonstrate that the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization's purpose. “The germaneness requirement is ‘undemanding' and requires ‘mere pertinence' between the litigation at issue and the organization's purpose.” Schalamar Creek Mobile Homeowner's Ass'n, Inc. v. Alder, 855 Fed.Appx. 546, 553 (11th Cir. 2021). At the pleading stage, “[a] court must determine whether [an organization's] lawsuit would, if successful, reasonably tend to further the general interests that individual members sought to vindicate in joining the association and whether the lawsuit bears a reasonable connection to the association's knowledge and experience.” Bldg. & Const. Trades Council of Buffalo v. Downtown Dev., Inc., 448 F.3d 138, 149 (2d Cir. 2006).^[4]

While the germaneness requirement is not demanding, it exists “for ‘the modest yet important' purpose of ‘preventing litigious organizations from forcing the federal courts to resolve numerous issues as to which the organizations themselves enjoy little expertise and about which few of their members demonstrably care.'” Ctr. for Sustainable Econ. v. Jewell, 779 F.3d 588, 597 (D.C. Cir. 2015).^[5] The germaneness prong thus “serves as a backstop” against suits where members of an organization claim a cognizable injury despite the “wholesale mismatch between litigation topics and organizational expertise.”^[6]Humane Soc'y of the U.S. v. Hodel, 840 F.2d 45, 57 (D.C. Cir. 1988).^[7] Because of the germaneness requirement, an organization does not have free rein to bring suit each time one of its members suffers an injury. See McKinney v. U.S. Dep't of Treasury, 614 F.Supp. 1226, 1239 (Ct. Int'l Trade 1985) (“The Court does not interpret the rule that ‘an association must allege that its members, or any one of them, are suffering immediate or threatened injury as a result of the challenged action' . . . to mean that any rights of an individual may be asserted by an organization to which he belongs regardless of the relationship between that organization and the injury alleged.”).

In this case, the record on the standing issue consists only of the Amended Complaint and the affidavits^[8] submitted in support of the Motion for Preliminary Injunction. In the Amended Complaint Plaintiff asserts that it is an organization “dedicated to protecting the dignity and both the financial and physical well-being of its members.” [Doc. 62, p. 5]. Plaintiff accomplishes this mission by “advocating for safe working conditions, fair wages, and [the] just treatment of all its members.” Id. Plaintiff also “advocates for the election of candidates at all levels of government who support both the rights of workers and the cultural traditions and institutions that have brought Atlanta international renown.” Id. at 6. To support its Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Plaintiff submitted two affidavits of its Political Director, Allan Herman, to describe Plaintiff's purpose and activities. [Doc. 83-3]; [Doc. 98-1]. Herman confirmed that Plaintiff's purpose...