9th Cir.;
14-35504

The court of appeals affirmed a district court judgment. The court held that an adverse ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) did not render the Noerr-Pennington immunity doctrine inapplicable to a lawsuit filed to enforce a collective bargaining agreement.

ICTSI Oregon, Inc. operated a marine shipping facility. It employed longshoremen and mechanics represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). ICTSI was a member of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), a multi-employer collective bargaining association representing many types of maritime employers who hire dockworkers and longshoremen. PMA represented ICTSI in collective bargaining negotiations with ILWU. ILWU and PMA agreed that, with some exceptions, all work known as “reefer” work would be performed by ILWU for all PMA members. ILWU sought to perform the reefer work at ICTSI's facility, known as Terminal 6, but such work had historically been within the jurisdiction of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). ICTSI was ordered to assign the work to ILWU. ICTSI initiated a §10(k) proceeding under the National Labor Relations Act before the NLRB, challenging that decision. While the NLRB proceeding was pending, ILWU and PMA jointly filed suit against ICTSI in federal district court under §301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, seeking to compel ICTSI to comply with the recently issued decision. ICTSI counterclaimed, alleging that ILWU and PMA used the collective bargaining process to create a monopoly over longshoreman work on the West Coast: ILWU benefits because only its workers are able to perform longshoreman work for PMA-member employers, and PMA benefits because it collects fees for each hour worked by ILWU longshoremen. While the lawsuit was pending, the NLRB rendered judgment in favor of ICTSI in the §10(k) proceeding, finding that the ILWU workers were not entitled to the reefer work at Terminal 6.