DocketNumber: 33
Judges: Black, Stewart, Harlan
Filed Date: 12/5/1967
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 10/19/2024
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Illinois State Bar Association and others filed this complaint to enjoin the United Mine-Workers of America, District 12, from engaging in certain practices alleged to constitute the unauthorized practice of law. The essence of the complaint was that the Union had employed a licensed attorney on a salary basis to represent any of its members who wished his services to prosecute workmen's compensation claims before the Illinois Industrial Commission. The trial court found from facts that were not in dispute that employment of an attorney by the association for this purpose did constitute unauthorized practice and permanently enjoined the Union from “[ejmploying attorneys on salary or retainer basis to represent its members with respect to Workmen’s Compensation claims and any and all other claims which they may have under the statutes and laws of Illinois.”
As in the Trainmen case, we deal here with a program that has been in successful operation for the Union members for decades. Shortly after enactment of the Illinois Workmen’s Compensation Statute
The undisputed facts concerning the operation of the Union’s legal department are these. The Union employs one attorney on a salary basis to represent members and their dependents in connection with claims for personal injury and death under the Illinois Workmen’s Compensation Act. The terms of the attorney’s employment, as outlined in a letter from the acting president of the Union to the present attorney, include the following
The applications for adjustment of claim are prepared by secretaries in the Union offices, and are then forwarded by the secretaries to the Industrial Commission.
The Illinois Supreme Court rejected petitioner’s contention that its members had a right, protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, to join together and assist one another in the assertion of their legal rights by collectively hiring an attorney to handle their claims. That court held that our decision in Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia Bar, supra, protected plans under which workers were advised to consult specific attorneys, but did not extend to protect plans involving an explicit hiring of such attorneys by the union. The Illinois court recognized that in NAACP v. Button, supra, we also held protected a plan under which the attorneys recommended to members were actually paid by the association, but the Illinois court viewed the Button case as concerned chiefly with litigation that can be characterized as a form of political expression. We do not think our decisions in Trainmen and Button can be so narrowly limited. We hold that the freedom of speech, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth
We start with the premise that the rights to assemble peaceably and to petition for a redress of grievances are among the most precious of the liberties safeguarded by the Bill of Rights. These rights, moreover, are intimately connected, both in origin and in purpose, with the other First Amendment rights of free speech and free press. “All these, though not identical, are inseparable.” Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 530 (1945). See De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, 364 (1937). The First Amendment would, however, be a hollow promise if it left government free to destroy or erode its guarantees by indirect restraints so long as no law is passed that prohibits free speech, press, petition, or assembly as such. We have therefore repeatedly held that laws which actually affect the exercise of these vital rights cannot be sustained merely because they were enacted for the purpose of dealing with some evil within the State’s legislative competence, or even because the laws do in fact provide a helpful means of dealing with such an evil. Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147 (1939); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940).
The foregoing were the principles we invoked when we dealt in the Button and Trainmen cases with the right of an association to provide legal services for its members. That the States have broad power to regulate the practice of law is, of course, beyond question. See Trainmen, supra, at 6. But it is equally apparent that broad rules framed to protect the public and to preserve respect for the administration of justice can in their actual operation significantly impair the value of associational freedoms. Thus in Button, supra, we dealt with a plan under which the NAACP not only advised prospective
We think that both the Button and Trainmen cases are controlling here. The litigation in question is, of course, not bound up with political matters of acute social moment, as in Button, but the First Amendment does not protect speech and assembly only to the extent it can be characterized as political. “Great secular causes, with small ones, are guarded. The grievances for redress of which the right of petition was insured, and with it the right of assembly, are not solely religious or political ones. And the rights of free speech and a free press are not confined to any field of human interest.” Thomas v. Collins, supra, at 531. And of course in Trainmen, where the litigation in question was, as here, solely designed to compensate the victims of industrial accidents, we rejected the contention made in dissent, see 377 U. S., at 10 (Clark, J.), that the principles announced in Button were applicable only to litigation for political purposes. See 377 U. S., at 8.
It has been suggested that the Union could achieve its goals by referring members to a specific lawyer or lawyers and then reimbursing the members out of a common fund for legal fees paid. Although a committee of the American Bar Association, in an informal opinion, may have approved such an arrangement,
The decree at issue here thus substantially impairs the associational rights of the Mine Workers and is not needed to protect the State’s interest in high standards of legal ethics. In the many years the program has been in operation, there has come to light, so far as we are aware, not one single instance of abuse, of harm to clients, of any actual disadvantage to the public or to the profession, resulting from the mere fact of the financial connection between the Union and the attorney who represents its members. Since the operative portion of the decree prohibits any financial connection between the attorney and the Union, the decree cannot stand; and to the extent any other part of the decree forbids this arrangement it too must fall.
The judgment and decree are vacated and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.
In addition to the portion just quoted, the court’s decree enjoins the Union from:
“1. Giving legal counsel and advice
“2. Rendering legal opinions
“3. Representing its members with respect to Workmen’s Compensation claims and any and all other claims which they may have under the laws and statutes of the State of Illinois
“4. [Quoted above]
“5. Practicing law in any form either directly or indirectly.”
It is conceded that the Union’s employment of an attorney was the basis for these other provisions of the injunction, and it was not
Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 48, §138.1 et seq. (1963).
The Union’s present attorney, who was the only witness on this matter, testified that the application to be filed with the Industrial Commission was dictated by him to the secretaries, who prepared this form under his direction. R. 18, 40. See also R. 58 (Union’s answers to interrogatories).
The freedoms protected against federal encroachment by the First Amendment are entitled under the Fourteenth Amendment to the same protection from infringement by the States. See, e. g.,
It is irrelevant that the litigation in Trainmen involved statutory-rights created by Congress, while the litigation in the present ease involved state-created rights. Our holding in Trainmen was based not on State interference with a federal program in violation of the Supremacy Clause but rather on petitioner’s freedom of speech, petition, and assembly under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and this freedom is, of course, as extensive with respect to assembly and discussion related to matters of local as to matters of federal concern.
American Bar Association, Standing Committee on Professional Ethics, Informal Opinion No. 469 (December 26, 1961). The ABA committee did not in fact consider the problem presented where the union not only pays the fee but also recommends the specific attorney, and it strongly implied that it would reach a different result in such a situation: “there is nothing unethical in the situations which you describe so long as the participation of the employer, association or union is confined to payment of or reimbursement for legal expenses only.”
35 Ill. 2d 112, 118, 219 N. E. 2d 503, 506 (1966), quoting In re Brotherhood of R. R. Trainmen, 13 Ill. 2d 391, 150 N. E. 2d 163 (1958).