Kirsti Parde v. Service Employees International Union, Local 721, et al.

Petitioner Kirsti Parde did not authorize her union or government employer to take her lawfully earned wages to fund expressive union speech after she resigned union membership and withdrew authorization to dues payments. Her employer nonetheless continued to extract union dues from her wages pursuant to a policy it implemented under California law which requires public employers to make unauthorized deductions without prior notice to employees or any evidence of their affirmative consent so long as the union demands such deductions. The Ninth Circuit found that these deductions caused Parde “concrete” constitutional injury but held that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 neither protects her from, nor provides a remedy for, such injury. This is because, according to Ninth Circuit precedents, the union shielded itself and the government from constitutional scrutiny by manufacturing an unauthorized union membership card Parde never signed. The questions presented are:

1. Whether, to properly plead a procedural due process claim under the Fourteenth Amendment, a plaintiff must allege a government actor had actual or constructive knowledge that he or she unlawfully deprived the plaintiff of life, liberty, or property.

2. Whether the government violates its employees’ First Amendment rights by seizing union dues from their paychecks without affirmative consent shown by clear and compelling evidence.

3. Whether a union engages in “state action” when it uses a statutory privilege granted to it by a (i)