In Lutter v. Jneso, No. 21-2205 (3d Cir. Nov. 6, 2023), the Third Circuit holds that by filing a supplemental complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(d), the plaintiff in this case reset the timeframe for evaluating standing – usually measured from the date of the original complaint – and thereby plead herself out of court for injunctive and declaratory relief.
The legal backdrop is the Supreme Court reversal of itself in Janus v. Am. Fed’n of State, Cnty., & Mun. Emps., Council 31, 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018), holding that “that the First Amendment prohibits public-sector unions from collecting agency fees from nonmembers without their clear and affirmative consent” (overruling Abood v. Detroit Board of Ed., 431 U.S. 209 (1977)).
Under New Jersey law – the Workplace Democracy Enhancement Act (WDEA), passed in anticipation of Janus – there was only a limited, ten-day window around the employees’ anniversary date each year during which they could resign from the union and thereby revoke their consent to collect such fees. Under this statutory framework, plaintiff Lutter would have had “to wait nearly a year to be eligible to revoke her authorization for the payroll deductions of her union dues. And even after that notice, those union dues could still be deducted from her paycheck for thirty days after her anniversary date.”
On July 12, 2018, outside of the window allowed by the WDEA, Lutter tendered her resignation, but the union took no action on the request. Then “[o]n June 1, 2019, as soon as her ten-day revocation window under the WDEA re-opened, Lutter sent a letter to Essex County, with a copy to JNESO, indicating that she wanted the payroll deductions of union dues to cease.” The union thereafter honored this second request.
On June 6, 2019, filed her federal action against the union and governmental defendants. Lutter then filed what she fashioned as an “amended complaint” on February 28, 2020. Therein, she “requested compensatory damages from JNESO for the union dues that were deducted from her paycheck for the ten months after her attempted resignation on July 12, 2018. She also sought an order enjoining JNESO from collecting further dues from her and preventing the New Jersey officials from enforcing the WDEA,” as well as declaratory relief.
“Shortly after Lutter filed her second complaint, JNESO attempted to refund the dues that she had requested. In correspondence sent to Lutter’s counsel on March 12, 2020, JNESO’s attorney enclosed a check in the amount of $1,209.58.” The check was never cashed.
One of the issues presented on appeal was whether the plaintiff had standing to seek injuctive and declaratory relief since, between the first and second complaints, she was no longer in the union. The defendants also asserted that tendering the dues back to the plaintiff mooted her claim for damages.
The Third Circuit holds that the plaintiff lost Article III standing to seek injunctive and declaratory relief because of the second complaint.
The decision turns on the difference between an amended complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a) and a supplemental complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(d), and its effect on standing. “As far as timing” for assessing standing, “the general rule is that a plaintiff in federal court must have Article III standing on the date the lawsuit was commenced . . . . But under Rule 15, the complaint initiating the lawsuit may later be amended and supplemented. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a), (d).”
The opinion explains that amended and supplemental complaints are not the same. “Although parties and courts often refer to any revision to a pleading as an ‘amendment,’ that is a potential misnomer because the text of Rule 15 treats amendment and supplementation differently.” While “[a]n amendment revises the allegations, claims, and prayers for relief in a complaint to reflect the state of things as of the date the action was commenced,” a supplemental complaint “adds or alters allegations, claims, or prayers for relief in the complaint based on events that occurred after the initiation of the lawsuit.”
As relevant in this case, “[a]mended complaints and supplemental complaints differ in their treatment of the date upon which a plaintiff must establish Article III standing. An amended complaint – while the operative pleading for purposes of evaluating the sufficiency of the allegations, the viability of the claims, and the requested relief – does not restart the date for assessing standing . . . . But, if a district court permits a supplemental complaint, then for the claims and requested relief substantively affected by the alleged post-suit developments, a plaintiff’s Article III standing is evaluated as of the date of the supplemental pleading.”
Looking past the caption on the plaintiff’s filing, the panel concludes that the pleading is both an amended and supplemental complaint, relating to events before and after the commencement of the case. The new pleading “added the date that she submitted a dues deduction authorization card, June 30, 2011. It also dropped another union as a party. Those revisions reflect the state of things as of her original complaint, and thus they are amendments. But Lutter’s second complaint removed the original allegation that Lutter ‘is a member of the JNESO,'” and otherwise referred to post-filing events.
“Critically for purposes of Article III standing, the supplemental allegations substantively affect all of Lutter’s claims and requested relief. She now proceeds as a non-member of a union who seeks relief for the prior deduction of union dues from her paycheck for nearly a year. Because the supplemented allegations substantively affect the entirety of her claims and relief sought, Lutter’s Article III standing should be evaluated as of February 28, 2020, the date she filed the second complaint.”
Based on that timeframe, the panel holds that the second complaint wiped out standing for injunctive and declaratory relief because the plaintiff in no longer in the union. “Lutter does not plausibly allege an imminent injury-in-fact. At the time of her second complaint, Lutter was no longer a member of JNESO, so neither her inability to immediately resign from a union nor the deduction of future JNESO union dues from her paycheck was ‘certainly impending’ or subject to a ‘substantial risk’ of reoccurring.”
While plaintiff could continue to seek damages (not mooted by the union’s tender of the past dues), Essex County was no longer deducting union dues from plaintiff’s paycheck. “Because those deductions had already occurred and were not likely to reoccur – at least without Lutter’s consent – a preventive injunction was unlikely to remedy the compelled past deductions of union dues from her paycheck.”
“In short, based on her supplemental allegations, Lutter’s operative complaint plausibly alleges Article III standing for only her damages claim against JNESO (as well as for her ancillary request for attorney’s fees and costs from JNESO).”
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