Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Union’s Deal With Casino Goes to Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (CN) - A Florida casino and the union with which it made a deal nearly 10 years ago can bring their dispute with a union-opposed worker to the Supreme Court, the justices said Monday.

Martin Mulhall had sued Hollywood Greyhound Track dba Mardi Gras Gaming and Unite Here Local 355 over a deal that the pair made in 2004.

The agreement included promises by the Greater Miami casino to give the union some concessions in exchange for the union's financial support of a ballot initiative regarding casino gaming.

In addition to spending more than $100,000 campaigning for the ballot initiative, the union promised that it would refrain from picketing, boycotting, striking, or undertaking other actions against Mardi Gras if the workers picked it as their exclusive bargaining agent.

Per its concessions to the union, meanwhile, Mardi Gras Gaming said it would make its site available to the union for organizing during non-work hours. It would also provide the union with a list of employees, their job classifications, departments, and addresses; and it would remain neutral on the subject of unionizing employees.

Mulhall, a Mardi Gras worker who is opposed to being unionized, claimed that this deal violates Section 302 of the Labor Management Relations Act. This statute makes it unlawful for an employer to give or for a union to receive any "thing of

value," subject to limited exceptions.

Though a federal judge found that the assistance promised in the agreement could not constitute a thing of value under Section 302, the 11th Circuit disagreed and revived Mulhall's suit in January 2012.

Mardi Gras and the union then petitioned the Supreme Court to grant it a writ of certiorari, which the justices granted without comment Monday.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...