In March, SEIU 503 published on its website a set of bullet points intended to scare home healthcare providers represented by the union in Oregon away from contact with the Freedom Foundation.

Among the accusations included in the post, SEIU 503 said we were:

• Employing phony attorneys: Foundation “litigation counsel” Nick Dagostino is not even an authorized attorney in Oregon or Washington state and is violating the law by presenting himself as such.
• Breaking Election Laws: Washington state Attorney General (Bob Ferguson) is suing the foundation for breaking state election laws.
• Breaking Non-Profit Laws: Officials are investigating violations of federal and state nonprofit laws.

Based on two conclusive rulings handed down this past week, all three charges were shown to completely bogus, but we’d advise against holding your breath waiting for the union to admit it straight-up lied.

The first charge was based on a complaint filed with the Oregon State Bar Association in February by SEIU attorney Marc Stefan alleging that Dagostino wasn’t legally permitted to practice law in the state of Oregon, despite having graduated from law school, passed the bar exam and practiced law for several years in his native Alabama.

As Stefan no doubt realized, of course, out-of-state attorneys are permitted to do legal work in Oregon so long as they are working with an Oregon-authorized attorney. Dagostino was simply assisting Portland attorney Jill Gibson, and he has subsequently passed Oregon’s bar exam and is fully licensed to practice independently in Oregon.

But don’t take our word for it. In response to Stefan’s complaint, Dagostino received a letter this week from Mark Johnson Roberts, deputy general counsel and bar Liaison to the state’s UPL Committee, informing him that: “After investigation, the committee has not found evidence to prove that you engaged in the unlawful practice of law. Accordingly, this matter is now closed.”

That seems definitive enough.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, a Superior Court judge in Washington’s Thurston County dispatched the other two charges in emphatic style. On May 13, Judge Gary Tabor granted a motion to dismiss the referenced lawsuit by the Attorney General on grounds there wasn’t a scrap of proof the Freedom Foundation did anything wrong.

The Washington case dates back two years, to the summer of 2014, when Freedom Foundation lawyers agreed to represent community activists in Sequim, Shelton and Chelan. The activists – none of whom had any direct tie to the Freedom Foundation – had earlier that year sponsored a pair of labor-reform initiatives, submitting more than enough signed petitions to warrant a spot on the local ballot in November.

But even while acknowledging that state and local elections laws had been followed to the letter, the city councils in each community allowed themselves to be bullied by the public-sector labor unions into killing the ballot measures.

In typically thuggish style, the unions then attempted to punish the Freedom Foundation by filing a lengthy complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission alleging we committed a long list of campaign finance law violations.

The PDC conducted an investigation and concluded that all but one of the union charges were bogus.

Ferguson, with much fanfare, announced earlier this year he would file a lawsuit against the Freedom Foundation on the single charge of failing to report as an “in-kind political contribution” the approximately $14,000 worth of legal services our lawyers provided pro bono to the local plaintiffs.

Last Friday, Judge Tabor granted a 12(b)6 motion to dismiss – a legal instrument with even lower evidentiary standards than a summary judgment. By law, a 12(b)6 motion can be rejected even by “hypothetical facts.” So in essence, Tabor ruled that the Freedom Foundation wouldn’t have broken the law even if the unions had completely lied to prove their case.

Which they frequently do, as was the case in the email SEIU 503 sent to its members. Apparently when your power and political influence have gone unchecked for decades, it’s easy to start thinking of yourself as the judge, jury and executioner and believe that throwing out irresponsible charges amounts to a conviction in the eyes of the law.

It doesn’t. In this case, once again, it simply amounts to SEIU lying through its teeth to keep its already-disgusted members from finding out they owe the union nothing.