- Jurisdiction
- D.C.
I'm trying to understand a decision from the Court of Appeals for the DC circuit. At one point during the decision the court finds that "Appellant misreads Defries, arguing that a union officer necessarily breaches his fiduciary duty if he acts in bad faith notwithstanding his good-faith interpretation of his constitutional authority. The argument fails."
This was one of two citations to our briefs, but from what I can tell this does not represent the argument that was actually made. The section of our brief that was cited states that "this court directed that on remand, the district court consider appellant's evidence of bad faith in determining whether the in-town expense allowance was authorized by the union's constitution and governing documents. In particular, the Court referred the district court to Defries, which held that evidence that union officers had concealed the details of the severance plan was sufficient to support a jury verdict that the severance payments were unauthorized and thus violated the criminal provisions of section 501(c) of the LMRDA. The district court characterized the concealment evidence as probative of intent in Defries. But the evidence of concealment in Defries was probative that the payments were not authorized by the union's constitution and governing documents. Defries makes this explicit when, after holding that the concealment negated authorization, the court 'shifted from the authorization element of a section 501(c) violation to the question of intent to embezzle.' Based on this misconstruction, the district court improperly distinguished Defries on the ground that, unlike the union officials in Defries, -redacted- is not a defendant in this case. As a result, the court dismissed as not probative the evidence that -redacted- denied the existence of the in-town expense allowance to union membership at the 1976 convention and misrepresented that officers could not be reimbursed without the itemized receipts required by articles 6 and 11 of the union's constitution."
Am I missing something? Did our lawyers argue that the officers acted in bad faith despite their good faith interpretations, or does that sound completely made up? The idea of a bad faith act coupled with a good faith interpretation seems nonsensical. I don't even understand how that would work, much less how that's what we argued.
This was one of two citations to our briefs, but from what I can tell this does not represent the argument that was actually made. The section of our brief that was cited states that "this court directed that on remand, the district court consider appellant's evidence of bad faith in determining whether the in-town expense allowance was authorized by the union's constitution and governing documents. In particular, the Court referred the district court to Defries, which held that evidence that union officers had concealed the details of the severance plan was sufficient to support a jury verdict that the severance payments were unauthorized and thus violated the criminal provisions of section 501(c) of the LMRDA. The district court characterized the concealment evidence as probative of intent in Defries. But the evidence of concealment in Defries was probative that the payments were not authorized by the union's constitution and governing documents. Defries makes this explicit when, after holding that the concealment negated authorization, the court 'shifted from the authorization element of a section 501(c) violation to the question of intent to embezzle.' Based on this misconstruction, the district court improperly distinguished Defries on the ground that, unlike the union officials in Defries, -redacted- is not a defendant in this case. As a result, the court dismissed as not probative the evidence that -redacted- denied the existence of the in-town expense allowance to union membership at the 1976 convention and misrepresented that officers could not be reimbursed without the itemized receipts required by articles 6 and 11 of the union's constitution."
Am I missing something? Did our lawyers argue that the officers acted in bad faith despite their good faith interpretations, or does that sound completely made up? The idea of a bad faith act coupled with a good faith interpretation seems nonsensical. I don't even understand how that would work, much less how that's what we argued.