Riffey v. Rauner

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying plaintiffs’ motion to certify class action in plaintiffs-personal home health care assistants’ claim against defendant-union, alleging that union’s collection of their “fair-share” fees violated their First Amendment rights, where: (1) plaintiffs did not want to join union; and (2) union did not provide plaintiffs with option of not paying said fees prior to their collection. While Supreme Court in Quinn, 134 S.Ct. 2618, agreed with plaintiffs that instant involuntary deduction and collection of fees violated their First Amendment rights, Dist. Ct. could still deny plaintiffs’ request for certification of class action of all non-union-member assistants from whom fair-share fees were collected from April of 2008 through June of 2014, since: (1) proposed class concerned potential of 80,000 members; (2) certain class members would not have experienced any injury to extent they would have happily paid said fess without complaint; (3) intra-class conflicts among class members as to whether to seek financial remedies from union precluded finding that instant proposed class representatives would be adequate; and (4) individual questions as to whether each class member suffered any loss would predominate over other questions so as to preclude class action treatment.