Stacy Penning v. Service Employees International Union, Local 1021, et al.

Petitioner is a municipal employee in the State of California who declined to join a public union. He seeks a refund of the fair-share fees that public-sector unions forcibly took from him and that this Court invalidated in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018). The Ninth Circuit rejected Petitioner’s claims and allowed the Respondent unions to keep their ill-gotten gains, concluding that 42 U.S.C. 1983 provides the unions with a good-faith defense. That ruling presents three, distinct questions for this Court’s review:

1. Whether the proper remedy for the collection of an illegal fee is refund or restitution, regardless of the purported good faith of the fee collector.

2. Whether this Court’s application of a rule of federal law to the parties before it requires every court to give retroactive effect to that decision.

3. Whether 42 U.S.C. 1983 provides a good-faith defense for private entities who violate private rights if the private entities acted under color of a law before it was held unconstitutional.