CALG’s Rex Heinke and Jessica Weisel obtained a Ninth Circuit reversal that gives developer Evans Hotels another shot at its unlawful secondary boycott suit, which seeks as much as $100 million in damages from two unions alleged to have scuttled a hotel development agreement with SeaWorld.
In Evans Hotels, LLC v. Unite Here! Local 30, the Ninth Circuit reinstated claims against two unions that threatened to oppose all future projects by SeaWorld unless it cancelled a joint venture development agreement with Evans Hotels. The district court dismissed the suit based on the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, which generally exempts lobbying efforts by private entities like unions from antitrust and labor law regulation. In reversing, the Ninth Circuit agreed with CALG that the unions’ threats were a form of objectively baseless “sham” petitioning that sought to use the governmental process, rather than the outcome of that process, to accomplish the unions’ objectives. Thus, the unions’ threats were not immunized from federal prohibitions on secondary boycotts and the lawsuit may proceed. The court affirmed other aspects of the district court’s ruling.
You can read the decision by clicking here.