(The Center Square) – San Bernardino County paid $75,000 in legal fees after failing to provide requested public records to the Freedom Foundation. The Freedom Foundation, a free-market nonprofit, had been seeking to inform public sector union members they are no longer required to pay union dues as a result of the Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision.
After San Bernardino County refused to furnish contact information and union affiliation for public employees, Freedom Foundation filed a lawsuit in 2020 requesting the information be provided, as required. Several years of litigation later, the Superior Court of San Bernardino County ruled Freedom First was entitled to some of the requested information, and ordered the county to pay legal fees incurred by the lawsuit.
In a response to an inquiry regarding the litigation, San Bernardino County Public Information Officer David Wert said that Freedom Foundation asked for the birth date, email address, work location, and union membership of every employee represented by a union. Wert also noted Freedom Foundation lost on each count except for its request for County employee information except for their place of work. Responding to the outcome of the Freedom Foundation case, the County spokesperson said, “once the decision became final, the County promptly entered into negotiations with Freedom Foundation and paid them the fees the law requires the County pay when a person is even minimally successful in a Public Records Act lawsuit.”
Freedom Foundation chief litigation counsel Eric Stahlfeld, on the other hand, suggested the County was simply trying to delay the outcome as long as possible.
“In cases like this, government agencies know they’re playing with house money,” Stahlfeld explained in a statement. “They couldn’t care less how much the process costs or how long it takes. That’s why ordinary people either don’t bother suing the government or don’t stick with it very long. They don’t have endless streams of money to pay lawyers.”
Now that Freedom Foundation has the requested information, their California office is proceeding with contacting public employees regarding their right to no longer be required to pay union dues at public, unionized workplaces.
“I still get dozens of calls a day asking if public employees can opt out of paying union dues,” said Freedom Foundation’s California Outreach Director, Orlando Ibarra in a phone interview. “It’s still a very niche issue and it’s not very well known, which is why our nonprofit is dedicated to informing them of their rights.”
