CIVIL CASE INFORMATION SHEET

Transcription

1 CIVIL CASE INFORMATION SHEET CAUSE NUMBER (FOR CLERK USE ONLY): COURT (FOR CLERK USE ONLY): STYLED City of San Antonio, Texas v. San Antonio Fire Fighters' Association, Local 624 (e.g., John Smith v. All American Insurance Co; In re Mary Ann Jones; In the Matter of the Estate of George Jackson) A civil case information sheet must be completed and submitted when an original petition or application is filed to initiate a new civil, family law, probate, or mental health case or when a post-judgment petition for modification or motion for enforcement is filed in a family law case. The info1mation should be the best available at the time of filing. I. Contact information for person completin2 case information sheet: Names of parties in case: Person or entity completine sheet is: l!)attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner Name: Plaintiff( s )/Petitioner( s ): [)Pro Se Plaintiff/Petitioner Bettye Lynn Lynn@laborcounsel.net City of San Antonio, Texas [)Title N-D Agency [!Other: Address: Telephone: 306 West Broadway Avenue Additional Pmties in Child Supp01t Case: Defendant( s )/Respondent( s ): Custodial Parent: City/State/Zip: Fax: San Antonio Fire Fighters' Fort Worth, Texas Non-Custodial Parent: Association, Local 624 Signature: State Bar No: Presumed Father: [Attach additional page as necessary to list all parties] 2. Indicate case type, or Identify the most Important issue in the case (select 011lv 1): Civil FamilvLaw Post-judgment Actions Contract Injury or Dama2e Real PI"Operty Marriage Relationship (non-title IV-D) Debt/Contract CIAssault/Battery CIEminent Domain/ DAnnulment l:]enforcement CIConsumer/DTP A CIConstn1ction Condemnation [!Declare Marriage Void CIModification-Custody []Debt/Contract []Defamation CIPartition Divorce CIModification-Other CIFraud/Misrepresentation Malpractice CIQuiet Title [!With Children Title IV-D [!Other Debt/Contract: Cl Accounting []Trespass to Try Title [!No Children []Enforcement/Modification [I Legal Cl Other Prope11y: CIPatemity Foreclosure [JMedical []Reciprocals (UIFSA) CIHome Equity-Expedited [!Other Professional [!Support Order [!Other Foreclosure Liability: Cl Franchise Related to Cl"iminal Cl Insurance []Motor Vehicle Accident Matters Other Family Law Parent-Child Relationship. []Landlord/Tenant []Premises [IExpunction DEnforce Foreign []Adoption/Adoption with CINon-Competition Product Liability CIJudgment Nisi Judgment.. ~.'-Te1minatioll.. IJPa1tnership [!Asbestos/Silica CINon-Disclosure [!Habeas Cmpus.. tlchild Protectioli El Other Contract: [IOther Product Liability CISeizure/Forfeiture [JName Change [IGhild Suppoli CBA -- Evergreen List Product: CIWrit of Habeas Co1pus- CIProtective Order. [Jcusfody or visi!~h.:m Pre-indictment []Removal of Disabilities Cl(}(:stational Parelltll!.g [)Other Injury or Damage: CIOther: of Minority Cl(}1'lindparent Access. []Other: l:lc~t~ntage/pate1liilf Employment Other Civil [IDiscrimination [!Administrative Appeal CILawyer Discipline []Je1mination of Pai-enfal Rights.. [IOiher Parent-Child:. Cl Retaliation [IAntitrnst/Unfair [1Pe1petuate Testimony [)Te1mination Competition CISecurities/Stock - [JWorkers' Compensation [JCode Violations CIT01tious lnte1ference CIOther Employment: CIForeign Judgment El Other:.. []Intellectual Prope11y - Tax Probate & Me11tal Health l:)tax Appraisal Probate/Wills/Intestate Administ1 atio11 IJGuardianship--Adult [!Tax Delinquency []Dependent Administration Cl Guardianship-Minor ClotherTax [IIndependent Administration [)Mental Health [!Other Estate Proceedings []Other: 3. Indicate nrocedure 01 remedy, if applicable (may select more tha11 l): 0Appeal from Municipal or Justice Court lijdeclaratory Judgment. 0Prejudgment Remedy 0Arbitration-related 0Gamishment 0Protective Order 0Attachment 0Inte1pleader 0Receiver 0Bill of Review 0License 0Sequestration 0Certiorari 0Mandamus 0Tempora1y Restraining Order/Injunction 0Class Action 0Post-judgment DTnmover 4. Indicate damages sou2ht (do 11ot select if it is a fa111ilv law case): [:JLess than $100,000, including damages of any kind, penalties, costs, expenses, pre-judgment interest, and attorney fees I!) Less than $100,000 and non-monetaty relief Clover $100, 000 but not more than $200,000 [Jover $200,000 but not more than $1,000,000 [lover $1,000,000

2 CAUSE NO. CITY OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS IN THE DISTRICT COURT Plaintiff, v. DISTRICT SAN ANTONIO FIRE FIGHTERS ASSOCIATION, LOCAL 624 Defendant. BEXAR COUNTY, TEXAS PLAINTIFF S ORIGINAL PETITION FOR DECLARATORY JUDGMENT TO THE HONORABLE COURT: COMES NOW THE CITY OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS ( Plaintiff or the City ) and files this, its Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment under Chapter 37 of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code (also entitled the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act), for the construction of a contract as follows: I. DISCOVERY CONTROL PLAN 1. Plaintiff intends to conduct discovery under Level II of Rule of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. II. PARTIES 2. Plaintiff is the CITY OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, a political subdivision under the laws of the State of Texas. 3. Defendant is a Union, and it is the sole and exclusive bargaining representative of the fire fighters employed by the City of San Antonio Fire Department pursuant to Chapter 174 of the Texas Local Government Code. Defendant may be served with process by personally serving its President, Chris Steele, at the office of the San Antonio Fire Fighters Association, 8925 IH 10 Plaintiff s Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment 1 of 10

3 West, San Antonio, Texas III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE 4. Venue of this case is proper in Bexar County, Texas pursuant to the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code (a)(3), in that Plaintiff s principle office is located in Bexar County. IV. BOND 5. No bond is due from Plaintiff. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code V. FACTUAL BACKGROUND 6. Plaintiff is the City of San Antonio and it recognized Defendant as the exclusive collective bargaining representative of the City s firefighters in the 1970 s. The relationship between the parties has been controlled by a Collective Bargaining Agreement CBA since that time. The most recent CBA between the parties became effective on October 1, 2009 and its initial term was for five years, extending through September 30, By its own terms, the CBA continues to bind the parties due to its Evergreen Clause, See, 8, infra. A copy of the Collective Bargaining Agreement is attached hereto as Exhibit On February 19, 2014, the City Manager communicated with the President of the Union requesting the parties meet to engage in collective bargaining on March 17 or 19, The Union rejected the City s invitation and, as of the date of the filing of this Petition, has continually refused to engage in collective bargaining with the City. 8. Article 38 1 of the CBA, entitled DURATION OF AGREEMENT, provides as Plaintiff s Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment 2 of 10

4 follows: Except as specifically provided herein, this Agreement shall be effective upon approval and signing by both parties. It shall remain in full force and effect until the 30 th day of September, 2014 and shall continue in effect from year to year until replaced by a successor agreement or until terminated by mutual agreement. In no event shall this Agreement continue in effect after September 30, Thus, the CBA does not have an absolute expiration date until September 30, 2024, i.e. nearly ten years from the date this Original Petition is filed. The Clause enlarging the duration of a CBA is commonly known as an Evergreen Clause, and it will be referred to by that name in this Petition. 9. In recent years, the cost of City-provided health benefits has escalated and continues to escalate annually, thereby burdening the General Fund of the City. Plaintiff s projected costs of health benefits for Firefighters is over $27,000,000 for FY 2015, and this cost will increase greatly over the next 10 years, if changes are not made to the plan s benefit structure as well as to contributions made by the City on behalf of Firefighters. 10. Currently, funding for emergency (Public Safety) services in the City (Police and Fire Departments) consumes 66% of the General Fund. Public Safety expenditures are growing at a faster rate than General Fund revenues, thus crowding out other essential services such as Street Maintenance, Parks and Libraries. The City Council has implemented a limitation of Public Safety expenditures to 66% of the General Fund, to avoid crowding out other General Fund services. 11. The City has adopted its budget for its Fiscal Year 2015, which began on October 1, The City needs to have a resolution of the health benefits matter immediately, as the City Council has adopted a Fiscal Year 2015 budget for the Fire Department which included budget cuts, and which allocated $10,000 per uniform employee for health benefits during FY Plaintiff s Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment 3 of 10

5 2015.Without this change, the City s costs are estimated to total more than $27,000,000 for the members of the firefighters bargaining unit during the current Fiscal Year. 12. Because the Union has refused to meet to negotiate changes in health benefits and other changes to the CBA, the City is now faced with serious budgetary challenges. Unless the Evergreen Clause is declared void by the Court, there will be significant impact on other essential services provided to residents. 13. As a result of the Evergreen Clause, the CBA automatically rolled over on October 1, 2014 into the next year without the Union having met once with the City, despite numerous invitations to engage in bargaining. The CBA will continue to roll over for ten more years, until September 30, Unless the Evergreen Clause is declared null, void, invalid and unenforceable by the Court, there will be significant impact on other essential services provided to residents. 14. If the CBA continues in effect, bargaining unit employees will not be obligated to pay a penny of escalating health benefits costs (they currently do not pay any premiums for employee and/or dependent coverage, and the City pays 100% of the costs for both employee and dependent health benefits) until September 30, The City will be obligated to pay millions of dollars during this time period for firefighters health benefits and other contractually required benefits -- dollars which are not now available to the City, are not currently budgeted by the City, and for which no funding mechanism has been established. Starting January, 2015, the Public Safety budget shortfall for health benefits over what has been budgeted by the City Council is calculated to be $1.6 million per month. 15. Without effective changes to the CBA s health care plan, the City also faces a 40% federal excise tax starting in 2018 that the City will be obligated to pay to the Federal government due to the Affordable Care Act. The CBA requires the City to maintain a high-cost employer- Plaintiff s Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment 4 of 10

6 sponsored health benefit plan commonly called a Cadillac Plan. The Cadillac Plan tax due as a result of a rich health benefit plan contained in the Fire Fighters CBA is estimated to total over $35 million dollars through The purpose of this lawsuit is to request the Court s determination as to the constitutionality of the Evergreen Clause. It is not for the purpose of delaying collective bargaining, because the Union has, as of the date of the filing of this Petition, refused to engage in bargaining. VI. SUIT FOR DECLARATORY JUDGMENT 17. Pursuant to Chapter 37, Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code, Plaintiff seeks a judgment declaring the Evergreen Clause null, void, invalid and unenforceable. A. THE EVERGREEN CLAUSE VIOLATES THE TEXAS CONSTITUTION. 18. The Union s CBA s ten-year Evergreen Clause is illegal as it violates Article 11, 5 of the Texas Constitution by creating an unconstitutional unfunded debt. See McNeal v. City of Waco, 89 Tex. 83, 33 S.W. 322, 324 (1895); T.&N. O.R.R. Co. v. Galveston County, 141 Tex. 34, 169 S.W.2d 713 (1943); Guerra v. McClellan, 250 S.W.2d 241 (Ct. App. San Antonio) aff d 152 Tex. 373 (1953)(same result under Article 11, 7 regarding counties); White v. Thos. Y. Pickett & Co., 355 S.W.2d 848 (Ct. App.-San Antonio, 1962) writ ref d, n.r.e.; City-County Solid Waste Control Board v. Capital City Leasing Inc., 813 S.W.2d 705, 717 (Ct. App.-Austin, 1991), writ denied; Atty. Gen. Op. Daniel ( debt is any obligation which is not to be satisfied out of lawful current revenues or out of some fund within immediate control of the Commissioner s Court and such debt is not payable out of current funds; debt is void without levy of tax). 19. The Evergreen Clause included in the parties CBA unconstitutionally binds the Plaintiff s Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment 5 of 10

7 City to fund a debt over the course of ten more fiscal years without the City having established a sinking fund. Thus, the Evergreen Clause results in an unconstitutional limitation on the legislative powers of the City s elected representatives, its City Council. B. THE EVERGREEN CLAUSE IS CONTRARY TO PUBLIC POLICY. 20. Evergreen Clauses in government contracts, like the one in the parties CBA, have been declared by Texas courts to be contrary to public policy and, thus, illegal and void. See Clear Lake City Water Auth. v. Clear Lake Utils. Co., 549 S.W.2d 385, (Tex. 1977). Clear Lake held the evergreen provision in the contract at issue had the potential to control, hamper or impede, the water authority in the exercise of its governmental powers, and invalidated the contract. Id. at 392. See also City of Corpus Christi v. Taylor, 126 S.W.3d 712, 719, 722 (Tex. App. Corpus Christi 2004, pet. dism d). 21. As a result of the ten-year Evergreen Clause, the City is saddled with the costs of providing richer health benefits to Union members than it does to other City employees. Such a result hinders and prohibits the City Council from exercising its legislative and governmental authority. Because the City s Public Safety budget consumes such a large percentage of the City s General Fund (66%), these expenditures nullify the City Council s authority to determine the appropriate allocation of General Fund monies to a wide array of essential City services. The Evergreen Clause poses a significant hindrance to the City Council s management of its finances, now and in the future. This situation was considered and addressed by the City s Legacy Task Force during the Fall of Because the Union has refused to engage in collective bargaining at all, despite numerous requests to do so, this situation begs for the Court s attention as the Evergreen Clause here extends for an unconscionable 10 years -- literally tying the hands of the currently elected City Council for a decade. The City Council is effectively prohibited from Plaintiff s Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment 6 of 10

8 adjusting General Fund expenditures to meet changing needs of the City and its citizens. VIII. PRAYER For these reasons, Plaintiff asks that Defendant be cited to appear and answer and the Court to do the following: 22. The Evergreen Clause should be immediately declared null, void, invalid and unenforceable as it violates Article 11, 5 of the Texas Constitution. The Evergreen Clause should be declared null, void, invalid and unenforceable, inasmuch as the Evergreen Clause in Article I of the current Evergreen Clause binds Plaintiff s future City Councils and prevents the City from exercising its legislative and other governmental authority for ten years. 23. The Evergreen Clause should be declared null, void, invalid and unenforceable because it has the effect of violating public policy by controlling (i.e., hampering and impeding) the legislative powers and duties of the City Council of the City of San Antonio. 24. The Evergreen Clause should be declared null, void, invalid and unenforceable because it purports to accomplish a surrender of the City s governmental and legislative functions. 25. The Evergreen Clause should be declared null, void, invalid and unenforceable because it purports to abdicate the governmental functions and police powers of the City as applied to its Firefighters. 26. The Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Union should be declared by the Court as expired and/or terminable at the will of the City. 27. Plaintiff prays that the Court award Plaintiff all other relief, in law and in equity, to which the Plaintiff may be entitled. Plaintiff s Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment 7 of 10

9 Respectfully Submitted, /s/ Bettye Lynn Bettye Lynn State Bar No LYNN, ROSS & GANNAWAY, LLP 306 West Broadway Avenue Fort Worth, Texas Telephone: (817) Facsimile: (817) Jeffrey C. Londa State Bar No OGLETREE, DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART, P.C. One Allen Center, 500 Dallas Street, Suite 3000 Houston, Texas Telephone: (713) Facsimile: (713) Michael Bernard State Bar No BRACEWELL & GIULIANI 300 Convent Street San Antonio, Texas Telephone: (210) Robert F. Greenblum, City Attorney State Bar No Martha G. Sepeda, First Assistant City Attorney State Bar No Kenneth Clark, Deputy City Attorney State Bar No Deborah L. Klein, Assistant City Attorney State Bar No Plaintiff s Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment 8 of 10

10 CITY OF SAN ANTONIO 100 Military Plaza, City Hall, Third Floor San Antonio, Texas Telephone: (210) Facsimile: (210) ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFF, CITY OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS Plaintiff s Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment 9 of 10

11 REQUEST FOR DISCLOSURES Pursuant to Rule 194 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, Plaintiff hereby requests Defendant to disclose within 50 days of service of this request, the information or material described in Rule (a)-(k) of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. /s/ Bettye Lynn Bettye Lynn Plaintiff s Original Petition for Declaratory Judgment 10 of 10