Noble v. N.A. of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO

103 F.4th 45

David W. NOBLE, Jr., Appellant v. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS, AFL-CIO, et al., Appellees

No. 23-7012

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit

Argued November 17, 2023

Decided May 28, 2024

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:22-cv-01613)

Daniel F. Olejko argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Peter DeChiara argued the cause and filed the brief for appellees. Kate M. Swearengen entered an appearance.

Before: Henderson and Childs, Circuit Judges, and Edwards, Senior Circuit Judge.

Concurring opinion filed by Senior Circuit Judge Edwards.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge Henderson.

Childs, Circuit Judge:

The National Association of Letter Carriers ("NALC" or "the Union") is a national labor organization and the exclusive bargaining agent for 280,000 active and retired city letter carriers employed by the United States Postal Service ("the USPS"). NALC holds officer elections every four years. Since NALC's founding in 1889, only one challenger has ever defeated an incumbent president. The most recent election was held in October 2022, and the dispute here arises out of events leading up to that election.

Appellant David W. Noble, Jr. ("Noble") was a candidate for president in NALC's October 2022 election, running on a platform to "rid the union of an incompetent and corrupt leadership." JA000024. As part of his campaign, he sought to publish his campaign material in the February 2022 edition of NALC's magazine, the Postal Record. The Postal Record is mailed to every NALC member and may be viewed at any time on the NALC website. It is owned in equal shares by the Union membership. The magazine contains content such as messages from the president and other NALC officers, updates on the USPS Board of Governors, human interest pieces about NALC members, information about USPS-NALC agreements, and an in-memoriam section.

NALC allows officer candidates to place paid campaign advertisements in the Postal Record's designated election issue. NALC denied Noble's request to publish his campaign ads in multiple editions of the Postal Record pursuant to this internal policy. Noble sued NALC, asserting that the Union was required to publish his campaign material under Section 401(c) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act ("the LMRDA"). 73 Stat. 532, 29 U.S.C. § 481. NALC moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted, and the district court granted NALC's motion. On appeal, Noble argues that the district court's dismissal was based on an overly narrow interpretation of the LMRDA's Section 401(c). NALC not only responds that the district court's interpretation of the LMRDA was appropriate, but also that compelling the Union to publish campaign literature in any issue of the Postal Record, as opposed to just the dedicated campaign issue, would violate the First Amendment.

We hold that dismissal was premature because the district court failed to make sufficient findings to determine the reasonableness of Noble's request under the balancing of hardships required by International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots v. Brown, 498 U.S. 466, 111 S.Ct. 880, 112 L.Ed.2d 991 (1991). We further hold that NALC, as a non-media organization, does not have a free speech right to decline to print a campaign advertisement in the Postal Record, as it is merely hosting the speech in its magazine and is not accompanying the advertisement with speech of its own. We reverse and remand for further consideration of Noble's complaint.

I.

Noble was hired by the USPS in 1975 and joined NALC shortly thereafter. He was an officer candidate in the Union's 2022 election. The September/October issue of the Postal Record was the designated election issue for the 2022 officer election. In December 2021, Noble emailed NALC president Fredric Rolando, inquiring about the publication rates and the deadline to submit his campaign material for publication, starting with the February 2022 edition of the magazine. NALC denied his request in keeping with internal union policy which only allows political advertisements to be run in the Postal Record's designated election issue.

Noble brought the present lawsuit pro se in the district court, alleging that the Union violated the LMRDA's Section 401(c) by refusing to distribute his campaign material, seeking declaratory judgment and an injunction requiring NALC to publish his campaign material. Section 401(c) governs unions' responsibilities regarding union election campaign material. It requires that labor organizations:

shall be under a duty, enforceable at the suit of any bona fide candidate for office in such a labor organization . . . to comply with all reasonable requests of any candidate to distribute by mail or otherwise at the candidate's expense campaign literature in aid of such person's candidacy to all members in good standing of such labor organization.

29 U.S.C. § 481(c).¹ NALC moved to dismiss Noble's complaint, arguing that Noble failed to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) because Section 401(c) did not require NALC to publish Noble's campaign advertisement in the Postal Record. The district court agreed. In interpreting the statute, the district court concluded that Section 401(c) does not require a union to publish a candidate's campaign advertisements, but instead only requires that a union coordinate the delivery of a candidate's standalone, already-printed campaign material to its membership. The district court also concluded that Noble's request was unreasonable because the statute does not give union members "license to alter the nature of the Postal Record by requiring it to print advertising and campaign material it otherwise would not." Noble v. Nat'l Ass'n of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO, 2022 WL 17613057, at *6 (D.D.C. Dec. 13, 2022). Noble now appeals.

The district court had federal question jurisdiction to hear Noble's claims under 29 U.S.C. § 481(c) and 28 U.S.C. § 1331. We have jurisdiction to review the district court's final order dismissing Noble's complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review the district court's interpretation of the LMRDA de novo. Noble v. Dunn, 895 F.3d 807, 810 (D.C. Cir. 2018).

II.

Because his issue on appeal is one of statutory interpretation, we first analyze whether Noble's request to publish his ad in the Postal Record falls within LMRDA Section 401(c). Section 401(c) mandates that unions "distribute" any candidate's campaign material. NALC argues that "distribute" is distinct from "publish," because publishing is expressive conduct while distributing is not. We disagree.

"In addressing a question of statutory interpretation, we begin with the text." City of Clarksville v. FERC, 888 F.3d 477, 482 (D.C. Cir. 2018). The text must be read in the context of the entire statute. Sierra Club v. Wheeler, 956 F.3d 612, 616 (D.C. Cir. 2020); Petit v. U.S. Dept. of Educ., 675 F.3d 769, 781 (D.C. Cir. 2012). After examining the plain text, we move on to the statute's structure, purpose, and legislative history. Genus Med. Techs., LLC v. FDA, 994 F.3d 631, 641 (D.C. Cir. 2021). However, we need not address legislative history if "after analyzing the text, structure and context, we conclude that the language is unambiguous." Eagle Pharms., Inc. v. Azar, 952 F.3d 323, 338-39 (D.C. Cir. 2020).

The relevant statutory text in this case is Section 401(c), which provides that labor organizations:

shall be under a duty, enforceable at the suit of any bona fide candidate for office in such a labor organization . . . to comply with all reasonable requests of any candidate to distribute by mail or otherwise at the candidate's expense campaign literature in aid of such person's candidacy to all members in good standing of such labor organization.

29 U.S.C. § 481(c) (emphasis added). While our Circuit has said that "the very essence of publishing is making the decision whether to print or retract a given piece of content," Klayman v. Zuckerberg, 753 F.3d 1354, 1359 (D.C. Cir. 2014), we have also held that posting content is synonymous with distributing content, Cause of Action v. FTC, 799 F.3d 1108, 1123 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (clarifying that posting qualifies as publishing even if readers have to "affirmatively access" the content as opposed to having it "delivered to their doorsteps or beamed into their homes"); see also Nat'l Sec. Archive v. U.S. Dep't of Def., 880 F.2d 1381, 1386 (D.C. Cir. 1989) ("intended distribution of [the] document [ ] entails the kind of initiative we associate with 'publishing or otherwise disseminating' that information.") Because our Circuit views "distribute" and "publish" as synonymous, Noble's request that NALC "publish" his advertisement falls within the text of the statute.

NALC also argues that the words "or otherwise" in Section 401(c) refer to non-mail methods of distribution, not publication of campaign materials. The Union relies on a non-precedential district court decision, Dimondstein v. Am. Postal Workers Union, 964 F. Supp. 2d 37 (D.D.C. 2013), to support its argument. We find that the Union's reliance on the decision is misplaced. In Dimondstein, the district court held that a candidate's request to distribute campaign materials via email was reasonable, explaining that "a union must still abide by reasonable candidate requests to use alternative forms of distribution . . . if the union uses these alternative forms to disseminate information to its members." Id. at 43. Here, NALC regularly uses the Postal Record to disseminate information to its members - it published eleven volumes in 2022, and there are Postal Record archives dating back to 2010. Moreover, the words "or otherwise" indicate that courts should broadly interpret the statute. United States v. Fischer, 64 F.4th 329, 338 (D.C. Cir. 2023). First, the use of "or" is a strong indication that Congress...