Damages.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Stacey Mooney v. Illinois Education Associations

Case No.: 19-1774

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and MANION and ROVNER, Circuit Judges

Focus: Damages

Stacey Mooney is a public-school teacher in Eureka (Illinois) Community School District #140. She is not a member of respondent Illinois Education Association ("IEA"), the union that serves as the exclusive representative of her employee unit in collective bargaining with the school district. From the time she started as a public employee until June 2018, the District deducted from her paycheck and sent to the union a fair-share fee that contributed to the costs incurred by the union in its labor-management activities. Both the Illinois Public Relations Act, 5 ILCS 315/6, and existing Supreme Court precedent, Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Educ., 431 U.S. 209 (1977), authorized this fee arrangement.

The characterization of Mooney's claim presents a legal question on which our consideration is de novo. That said, we agree with the district court's analysis, which finds ample support in the law. Indeed, many years ago we held that a claim for a refund of an agency-fee overcharge under the Abood regime was a legal rather than an equitable claim. Gilpin v. Am. Fed'n of State, Cnty., & Mun. Employees, AFL-CIO, 875 F.2d 1310, 1314 (7th Cir. 1989) (citing Dobbs, Handbook on the Law of Remedies 224 (1973) ("The damages recovery is to compensate the plaintiff, and it pays him, theoretically, for his losses. The restitution claim, on the other hand, is not aimed at compensating the plaintiff, but at forcing the defendant to disgorge benefits that it would be unjust for him to keep.")). But see Laramie v. Cnty. of Santa Clara, 784 F. Supp. 1492, 150102 (N.D. Cal. 1992) (labeling a refund of nonchargeable fees under the Abood regime as restitution).

Mooney is bringing just such a...