It's quite rare for an appellant to ask a court to affirm the decision below. Yet that is what happened in Ocol v. Chicago Teachers Union (7th Cir 12/09/2020).

Joseph Ocol is a math teacher in the Chicago public school system. After he was booted out of his union for failure to support a strike in 2016, he kept paying fair-share fees to the union. Those payments were required by the collective bargaining agreement, as authorized by a state statute.

Then the US Supreme Court decided Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018), which held that forcing payment of fair share dues violates the constitution.

Ocol sued to get a refund of the dues he had paid prior to Janus, and mounted a First Amendment challenge to exclusive representation. The trial court held against him.

On appeal to the 7th Circuit, Ocol admitted that both claims are squarely foreclosed by precedent and requested that the 7th Circuit summarily affirm judgment in the defendants’ favor so that he may appeal to the Supreme Court.

The 7th Circuit was only too happy to comply. After all, every appellate court that has taken up the question has reached the same answer: A private party acting under color of state law for § 1983 purposes is entitled to a good-faith defense. And, in Minnesota State Board for Community Colleges v. Knight, 465 U.S. 271 (1984), the Supreme Court rejected a First Amendment challenge to a similar exclusive representation provision applicable to state colleges in Minnesota.

Looks like Ocol will petition for certiorari. My bet is that cert will be denied, mainly because there is no split of authority among the lower courts.