HEY SHANLEY.WHAT DO THEY MEAN??NO APPEAL??

BILLBOARD COMPANIES SUE UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS  AFTER FEDERAL JUDGE IN ST LOUIS DISMISSES UNION'S COMPLAINT

Jacob Barker

ST. LOUIS — Two billboard companies at the center of a dispute between the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the former Carpenters union chief in St. Louis have filed a lawsuit against the union, alleging it improperly terminated a contract they had with the now-dissolved St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters Regional Council.

The lawsuit, filed last week, comes after a federal judge on March 31 threw out the union's lawsuit against Al Bond, the former head of the regional council, and the companies — Foxpoint Interactive and Interrail Outdoor — over a $4 million advertising contract the union claimed Bond illegally inked with the companies. 

The maneuver is the latest litigation amid the fallout from the sudden dissolution of the regional council in September 2021. Officials at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters have said little about General President Douglas McCarron's decision to dissolve the regional council, but legal filings have indicated the national union was investigating “financial malfeasance” in St. Louis. Bond led the regional council from 2015 until his 2021 ouster.

 A lawyer for the union said Tuesday it plans to counter sue the billboard company and pursue its claims against Bond in state court. 

Litigation between the national union and Bond has provided some of the only explanations for the sudden termination of one of the region's most powerful labor organizations, whose 22,000 members across Missouri and southern Illinois made it a major player in both construction and local politics. After dissolving the regional council and firing Bond, the national union put area union carpenters under the Chicago district council, which was renamed the Mid-America Carpenters Regional council.

 A Post-Dispatch review of union financial records found the union was paying some employees from its benefit funds as well as union funds, a practice that could run afoul of federal labor law. And the local union had a large loan balance with area developers, making it an outlier among similar regional carpenter union offices. And last year, Bond's lawyer indicated in court filings the formerly powerful local union chief faced investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, though no charges have been filed.

In their federal lawsuit, filed last year, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the Mid-America Council zeroed in on a $4 million billboard advertising deal Bond inked with Interrail and Foxpoint, two companies owned by James Neumann. They accuse Bond of inking the contract to build three billboards and paying a Neumann company $3 million before seeking board authorization for the project nearly a year later. The union said that despite $4 million paid to Neumann companies, only one of the three billboards, in Wichita, Kan., has been built.

But U.S. District Judge Sarah Pitlyk on March 31 dismissed the union's lawsuits against Bond, saying the 1959 Labor Management Relations Disclosure Act they cite only allows union members — not unions themselves — to sue former union officers. She noted that the issue has divided the federal courts but opted for a plain reading of the law's text. 

Pitlyk's ruling came just weeks after a judge in Seattle made a similar ruling in a separate case the United Brotherhood of Carpenters brought against Evelyn Shapiro, another top official it recently ousted as head of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters. Bond lawyer John Goffstein cited that case in arguing the union couldn't go after Bond using the LMRDA. 

“The court correctly found that it did not have jurisdiction over the subject matter or the person that was sued under the prevailing law of the United States,” Goffstein told the newspaper. “That’s the bottom line.”

A lawyer for the union, Terrance McGann of Chicago, called the decision “inconsistent with the surrounding appellate circuits,” but said the union wouldn't appeal. 

“Instead, in our continuing effort to represent the members of the former St. Louis Kansas City Regional Council of Carpenters and their families, the Union will respond to Interrail and Foxpoint’s petition with a counterclaim and additional claims against Albert Bond and James Neumann in state court,” McGann wrote in an email.

The lawsuit from Neumann's companies says the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the Mid-America Council have kept it from completing construction on new billboards in St. Louis and Kansas City and hurt its business relationships with advertising agencies it was working with to sell space on the billboards. It seeks more than $125,000 in damages from the union.

 

In addition to the $4 million the union says Bond already approved for Neumann's companies, the deals included advertising revenue-sharing agreements stretching more than 30 years that the lawsuit says were projected to net the union $20 million. Those revenue-sharing deals allocated 60-70% of advertising revenue to the union after deducting brokerage fees and costs for ad design or production, installation and taxes.

Bond's lawyer has argued in court filings he had the authority to enter the billboard contracts and the advertising was needed to attract new members.

A lawyer for Neumann's companies, Laura Bentele of Armstrong Teasdale, declined to comment.

 READ IT HERE

"But U.S. District Judge Sarah Pitlyk on March 31 dismissed the union's lawsuits against Bond, saying the 1959 Labor Management Relations Disclosure Act they cite only allows union members — not unions themselves — to sue former union officers. She noted that the issue has divided the federal courts but opted for a plain reading of the law's text. 

Pitlyk's ruling came just weeks after a judge in Seattle made a similar ruling in a separate case the United Brotherhood of Carpenters brought against Evelyn Shapiro, another top official it recently ousted as head of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters. Bond lawyer John Goffstein cited that case in arguing the union couldn't go after Bond using the LMRDA."

HEY DANNY BOY SHANLEY.SEE YOU IN THE 9TH CIRCUIT.