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Eight oh five, the fifty five KRCD Talk station Havepy Friday Eve looking forward to the bottom. They are as always I heard. Media aviation expert Jay Ratlis joins the program on Thursdays at e thirty. In the meantime, I'm always happy to talk to folks from the Buck Eye Institute. You can find them online at Buckeyeinstitute dot org. Join me this morning, Jay Carson, senior litigator for the Buckeye Institute with a really troubling case he's working on, and
let me start. Jay Carson, welcome back to the fifty five KRC Morning Show to thank you and the Buckeye Institute for doing well helping out the little guys. Really, what this boils down to having been in litigation for sixteen years and it's been a while. I've been eighteen
years out of practice, but still keep my license. I know how expensive it is, and folks like Nicole Little John there is no way in God's green Earth she could afford to go out in independently higher tain counsel and fight against her former union who continues to take money out of her paycheck for union dues for a union that she doesn't belong with. Jay Carson, Welcome to the Morning Show. It's great having you on.
Thank you happy to be here.
Just you know, God bless the work you do, because you know, let me ask you real quick, just a parenthetical question. I know the hourly rate for lawyers is way across the spectrum. I mean, you may hire somebody for two hundred bucks an hour, and then there are lawyers out there in the world that charge more than
one thousand dollars an hour. And I just want to see, what's the largest hourly rate you've ever run across in your in your work with the buck Anstitute or elsewhere in your legal practice.
Jay, Oh, the largest that I've run across. I guess you know we do running the folks more of the big city on the coast. Yeah, we charged those nine hundred thousand dollars an hour rates. But what we do with buck guy is we take these cases pro bono pro bono, so folks who want to challenge them are out of pending.
And that's what's so damn important about the Bucker Institute and other similar organizations who will fight the good fight on behalf of these outrageous factual scenarios. Let's start with the background on this. When you represent Nicole little John, my understanding is in June twenty twenty two, she quit the afl CIO union that she belonged to. She's a hospital employee. She notified them and they accepted her resignation, but they keep taking dues out of her paycheck.
Yeah, so what happens actually this is this is the second time around she distractor break the union. She said, listen, no thanks, I'm this is not for me and I don't want to pay dues anymore. And look, you've got an absolute constitutional rate not to join a union. Screenpoint
said that decades ago. And then in twenty eighteen, in a case called Aganis the Screamport said, you know what, and the union can't make you pay if you're a public union member, the union can't make you pay what they call association for these fair share fees whatever you want to call them, which were essentially the same thing as union dus. What happened after Janice was a whole lot of folks said, yeah, I've had it with this. I don't support what the union's doing with my money.
I want to and keep this in my own paycheck because I'm not seeing any services coming from the union. And a case out of the Ninth Circuit in California came out said, well, yeah, they'll go up. Belk out can apply if you were already out of the union and if you never joined it in the first place.
But you know, if you signed up and signed a contract that says I'm going to be a member for so many years, then you have to still keep paying even though you can you can quit for constitutional purposes, right the union won't send you the newsletter or whatever services they will get over bucket, but you're still going to keep paying dues. And it's like it's like the gym membership that you can't get out of. Right, Yeah, that's that's really sort of what this is.
Well, I immediately thought the word that came to my mind is is theft? Like this you could make an argument to a prosecutor that this is actual theft. I mean, you have a civil case involving this little John, and you see the American Federation of State counting in thisbal employees. I get that, but I mean seriously, if they went over and they just pulled money out of her purses, it sat on her desk, you could get them in front of a judge on theft grounds.
Well, so the tath we've taken on this right because the federal court said, Hey, this is a contract issue. That's that's what this case out of the Ninth Circuit said a couple of years ago and said, look, this is this is not about free speech anymore like Janice was. This is just about a contract. And you know, somebody could waive their their constitutional rights through a contract, happening
every day. But this is not a job for the federal courts to be looking at from a First Amendment perspective. So what we did with with miss Littlegog's case in another case uh in Ohio Darling that we've got depending for the High Supreme Court right now, as we said, okay, uh, then let's take a look at is this a valid contract? Right? Let's go back to basic Ohio contract law. What's the
federal courts are saying? That's what we ought to do and say, look, this isn't a valid contract because one you didn't tell me what I was signing up for. U two, I'm not getting anything in return. Uh three. I you know, I was sort of forced into this. Or there's a what's what's called uh you know, a liquidated damages that are that are unfairly unrelated to the
actual damage that someone might get. Right, So we raised all these these contractual claims and defenses, and the first thing that had happened because of this Darling case was so, well you got to go first to the State Employee Relations fort.
So so that's like that is that like the court of original jurisdiction for these labor issues.
Well, you know, so this is this is again I don't want to get too much into the weeds, but but there's this jurisdictional fight of so you know, federally, you tried to bring the cases in federal court. They said no, no, this is state contract actor. Right. We brought a contract case in that Darland case I mentioned, and that court said no, no, you got to go to this board first because it might be an unfair
labor practice. And you know, again it's not it's contract No, I know, it says right there, you know, And so we go to the State Employment Relations Board and they say this is not an unfair labor practice Act, which we knew all alonge. Uh So now we said, okay, finally, now we're going to go to uh Common Police Court and say please rule this contract. And so that's that's sort of the games that we've been playing, right, It's kind of this whack a mole of where can you even bring this this claim?
You illustrate my am, I pointed at the outset wonderfully. If they're trying to wage a battle of attrition, it's like law fair and I've been involved in this. I practice in Chicago Salt Earth litigation was by directive. Some of the type of litigation we practice make their lives miserable and see if we can push them into a financial situation where they aren't going to want to keep throwing money at the case. That's a fair play in litigation. It sucks, but that's one of the reasons it's so
damn expensive. That's what they're doing them, is Little John. That's the importance of the Buckeye Institute, because okay, we got to play this game. You will play this game on behalf of someone who could never afford to play it, so they make you go through the hoop of going in front of SERB. Fine, they throw it out and say it's not a this isn't a labor practice, it is a contractual issue. You're kind of back to square wo when you find your suit in Hamilton County Common Police Court.
Yep, exactly. And look the other thing that's that's troubling about the nature of these cases and the big scheme of things. They're kind of nickel on dime, right. You know the total that miss little John is seeking in compensation of money that she got to be paid back at after she west to union, it's about two thousand bucks. And again and for the hire a lawyer to go after two thousand bucks, there's just no way that makes sense economically, especially in these cases where I think the
unions tend to uh for the just the purpose. You know again they're they're they're well funded, uh and keep establishing the principle that you know they they're not gonna pay and you're gonna be stuck in this contract for another uh. You know, in most cases, right, you have this opt out date and it can be depending on your your collective Barney agreement a year or a couple of years in the future where you're still stuck paying
those dues. So I think they mostly look at, Okay, look, we'll keep everybody in and people aren't going to fight this because we'll figure out what's what's the point for a couple hundred bucks, a couple of thousand bucks for another another year, another two years. Uh, it's not worth me spending the money to do it. But but the thing is, you know, while they're doing that, they're they're taking your money and using it for purposes that that
you don't want it used for. And that's a that's a problem under a constitution.
But the consideration for the contractual relationship, she pays money and gets union representation along with the materials and the emails and whatever. They accepted her resignation. They didn't say, no, you have a contract that lasts for X number of time, we will not accept your resignation. Wait for the contract to expire and don't renew it, and then a relationship
is over. But the if they accepted her resignation and she's no longer in the loop anymore than the consideration that formed the basis for the contract has disappeared exactly.
Yep, that's yeah, you got it. You could you could come back to practice, right, Yeah, that's exactly an argument. It's one thing if you say, Okay, you're stuck with this, but you're still going to begin in the magazine or the Benefits or whatever you'd subscribe to. But no, in this case, you got she received the letter from the and saying, uh, sorry to see you go. We'll please consider coming back. UH. And you know you can't vote in union elections and you can't do this. You can't
do this, You've lost all these rates. Uh. And in the meantime, we're going to keep collecting the money.
How pervasive is.
That's that's that's the thing that's just sort of ludicrous.
That absolutely is How pervasive is this practice? I mean, is it just the A f l C, I O or other unions doing the unions doing the same thing.
Are there?
Is she been being treated exactly like everyone else in her situation?
I would I would tend to say, you know, it varies from from UH union to union. I would say, most of the public again, this this applies just to
public sector unions, right, UH have adopted these same type practices. Now, in my experience in liigating for buck Eye, we've had a number of cases where we've been able to either before filing suit or after filing suit, reach out to the union uh, and they will be reasonable and say, yeah, look, because you know the warriors who are representing them saying the amount of money that's worth a year, it's just not worth the fight. Plus there's the chance that they
might get unfavorable precedent. Right. So we've been able to settle a good number of these cases. But sometimes we get ones that the union is digging the heals in and you know, is not willing to settle. And this is one of those cases.
Well, since you're now in Hamilton County Common Police Court and of course they continue to fight this all the way up potentially the Hio Supreme Court, where I think the odds, given the makeup of the court are pretty substantial that you're going to win. Ultimately, you think this will also settle, settle in the final analysis or refunder money and maybe even pay you your attorney's fees.
Jay, We'll see, we'll see. My sense is on the attorney s fee, this is sort of downside, right if we were making the constitutional claim in federal court. You know, we would have a a stechered rate to play in the attorney sees under just a plain old greach of contract. In case you dealt right, you know we'll running up the flag pole.
Got to give it a shot. Jay Carson, Senior litigator with the Buck Eye Institute. Help them out. I mean, you can donate and help these wonderful organizations out. I see it right there red donate button on your website
Buckeyeinstitute dot org. Jay Carson, thank you on behalf of I know Ms. Little John probably really truly appreciates what you're doing for her, But you're doing this for all the union members out our former union members out there, fighting this good fight and hopefully getting some established precedent that is in favor of those who quit and letting them keep the damn money that they're entitled to keep.
Keep it up, Jake, Thanks very much for the time you spent today bringing my listeners up to speed on this and what you were doing at the Buckeye Institute. Thanks for having me my pleasure, my friend eighteen for you bu Kcity Talks. They to stick around. We've got Jay Ratliffe coming up just a few minutes. First word for my friends at US Antilation, and they will give you a free inspection. Remember it's free. So if you're post mid seventies build home now, new homes I think
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