OPINION and ORDER
This is a civil action for injunctive relief in which plaintiff Henry Krokosky, Jr. contends that defendant United Staff Union violated the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 29 U.S.C. §§ 401-531, and § 431 in particular, when it refused to disclose an itemized billing statement it paid in July 2002 for legal services rendered by Nola Cross. Section 431(c) provides that a union must disclose certain documents needed to verify the annual financial disclosure reports it files with the Secretary of Labor to its members if they show they have “just cause” to see the document. Jurisdiction is present under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 аnd 29 U.S.C. § 431(c). Venue is proper because defendant maintains its principal office in Onalaska, Wisconsin. 29 U.S.C. § 431(c).
Both parties have moved for summary judgment. Plaintiff contends that he had just cause to see Cross’s itemized bill under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act because there is a significant disparity in professional fee expenditures reported on defendant’s financial disclosure reports between two successive years. Alternatively, plaintiff contends that he has just cause because defendant’s board of dirеctors failed to follow proper procedures in hiring and paying Cross to investigate an employment dispute be *837 tween plaintiff and a co-worker. Defendant maintains that plaintiff has not shown just cause because his reasons for wanting to see the bill are pretextual and do not relate to the financial disclosure reports. Because plaintiff has not shown “just cause” to see the bill pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 481(c), defendant’s motion for summary-judgment will be granted and plaintiffs motion will be denied.
From the parties’ proposed findings of facts, I find that the following facts are both material and undisputed.
UNDISPUTED FACTS
Defendant United Staff Union is a membership association and labor union incorporated in the state of Wisconsin. Plaintiff Henry V. Krokosky and Debra Armitage are both dues-paying members of defendant in good standing, but each are members of different caucuses within defendant. Both work for the Wisconsin Education Association Council — -Fox Valley.
In April 2001, Armitage filed a sexual harassment complaint against plaintiff and Roger Palek, another co-worker. John Carl Davis, who was defendant’s president at thе time, and Anne Boley, who was then defendant’s vice president and grievance chair, agreed that the most appropriate way to respond to Armitage’s complaint would be to hire outside counsel to investigate. They hired Nola Cross, a lawyer who was providing unrelated legal services for defendant. Cross performed legal work relating to Armitage’s claim between April 2001 and April 2002 that led plaintiffs employer to issue a warning letter to plaintiff, Palek and Armitage.
Cross did not bill defendant for any of her services relating to the Armitage claim until either May or June of 2002. The bill she finally submitted included $12,906.61 in legal fees, of which $6,300 was for services relating to Armitage’s claim. Davis approved payment of the bill in June 2002. Neither Boley nor Davis notified the board of directors that legal fees relating to Ar-mitage’s claim had been accruing until a board of directors meeting in September 2002. At that meeting, defendant’s treasurer, Debrah Byers, informed the board that Cross’s bill had been paid. No board member questioned the bill or otherwise objected.
Defendant has a policy that provides that any mеmber may get information about defendant’s expenditures, specifically “amount paid, to whom, for what, amounts spent/remaining in budgetary categories etc.,” upon a written request to the treasurer. Plaintiff made a demand to see Cross’s bill on December 2, 2002. Defendant has refused to provide an actual copy of the bill under this policy. However, it has informed those members who have requested a copy, including plaintiff, that it paid the $12,906.61 to Cross in July 2002 for work performed between April 6, 2001 and April 16, 2002. Byers also informed plaintiff that he was not entitled to see the Cross bill unless he could show just cause pursuant to the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. Plaintiff has made three additional demands to see the bill. In response, defendant has repeatedly informed plaintiff that it will not produce the bill without a showing of just cause.
Plaintiff was not the only union member who demanded to see the bill during this time. On December 13, 2002, Palek sent an email to Byers regarding plaintiffs earlier demand. Byers responded to both Palek and plaintiff three days later by again requesting a just cause showing. Palek responded to Byers, stating: “[Ojffi-cers have a fiduciary responsibility that [union dues] are only spent in [an] appropriate manner. I have asked Anne [Boley] for an explanation of why attorney’s fees *838 were paid for Ms. Armitage. She has not provided an explanation.” Byers and Pa-lek exchanged more emails in which Byers characterized Palek’s reasons as “rhetoric on why I should not deny the request” and Palek reiterated his concern that “money could have possibly been inappropriately paid out.”
Defendant reportеd on its financial disclosure report for its 2000-01 fiscal year that $6,974 had been expended for professional services; it reported $15,307 on its 2001-02 report, which includes the entire $12,906.61 payment to Cross. Plaintiff has not requested any documentation of the $15,307 professional fee expenditures reported on the 2001-02 report other than the $12,906 Cross bill.
Defendant’s by-laws require that any expenses exceeding budgeted amounts must be approved by the board of directors and that “the general membership [must] be notified of the amount and rationale for such authorization.” Defendant’s proposed annual budget for 2002-03 shows that it budgeted $10,000 per year for legal services for the two fiscal years (2000-01, 2001-02) in which Cross performed legal work relating to Armitage’s claim and it had no expenditures for legal fees in the fiscal year 2000-01 and $14,064 in 2001-02. (There is some discrepancy regarding defendant’s legal fee expenditures for the fiscal year 2001-02. Byers has testified that defendant spent $14,064 for that period, but defendant’s May 2003 budget report indicates that the total defense spending was only $13,945, including legal fees. Both parties hаve accepted the $14,064 figure and neither has explained what additional professional services it paid for in 2001-02.) By comparison, defendant’s legal fee expenses were $10,889 in the fiscal year 1995-96, $17,433 in 1996-97, $73,375 in 1997-98, $10,181 in 1998-99 and $1,432 in 1999-2000.
Defendant has a general policy that provides as follows:
1) It is the policy of USU to provide representation to its members in disputes with the employer through internal volunteer representatives. 2) It is the policy of USU not to provide representation to its members in disputes with the employer through outside retained attorneys unless: a) No internal union representatives are available, or b) The relevant proceedings or forum requires legal representation (e.g. judicial proceedings). 3) It is the policy of the USU that the USU is obligated for no attorney fees incurred by any members unless the use of a retained attorney has been approved in writing in advance by the USU Board of Directors (or in an emergency when Board Directors’ action is not possible, by the President).
OPINION
A. Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
The purpose of § 431(c) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act is to provide union members with the information necessary to take action in regulating the affairs of the union and deterring abuse of union funds.
Antal v. District 5, United Mine Workers of America,
Subsection (a) of 29 U.S.C. § 431 requires labor unions to file a report with the Department of Labor containing certain administrative information such as name, location, dues assessments and officer information. Subsection (b) requires unions to file annual LM-2 financial disclosure reports, on which legal service expenditures must be reported. Subsection (c) then requires unions to 'make available to its members all information in these rеports and to permit them “for just cause to examine any books, records, and accounts necessary to verify such reports.”
Defendant files annual LM-2 reports in compliance with these provisions. Defendant’s LM-2 reporting period and fiscal year both run from September 1 through August 31. The Department of Labor’s instructions for reporting professional fees require unions to “enter [the] organization’s total disbursements for outside legal and other professional services ... not including] direct and indirect disbursements to officers and emplоyees.”
In deciding this issue, I note that there are a number of genuine factual disputes relating to the potential violation by defendant of its policies and by-laws in the hiring and payment of Cross. However, violations of these rules would not establish just cause even if proved and for that reason, they do not preclude a grant of summary judgment.
Donald v. Polk County,
B. Notice
Before determining the issue of just cause, I must decide whether plaintiff can bring this action without making a good faith showing to the union. Some courts have еxtrapolated such a requirement from § 431(c).
See, e.g., Fruit & Vegetable Packers and Warehousemen Local 760 v. Morley,
*840
In
Kinslow,
however, the court did not conclusively reject the notice requirement because it found that all three of the recognized exceptions to advance notice were satisfied.
Kinslow,
C. Just Cause
The text of § 431(c) provides specifically:
Every labor organization required to submit a report under this subchapter shall make available the information required to be contained in such report to all of its members, and every such labor organization and its officers shall be under a duty enforceable at the suit of any member of such organization ... to permit such member for just cause to examine any books, records, and accounts necessary to verify such report.
Just cause is not defined elsewhere in the statute, leaving to the courts the task of trying to determine what it mеans. “As the various theories of the parties and the rather tangled web of judicial decisions concerning [this] subsection make plain, its language is simply too general and ambiguous” to determine its exact meaning.
Mallick,
In the absence of a clear statutory directive, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has recognized that just cause is shown either (1) when “the union member had some reasonable basis to question the accuracy of the LM-2 or the documents on which it was based,” or (2) when “information in the LM-2 has inspired reasonable quеstions about the way union funds were handled.”
Kinslow,
To establish just cause, a union member need have only minimal suspicion that the reports or underlying documents are inaccurate.
Morley,
*841
The second means for establishing just cause recognized in this circuit (where “information in the LM-2 has in spired reasonable questions about the way union funds were handled”) was adopted from a decision by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Kinslow,
1. Professional fee disparity between 2000-01 and 2001-02 LM-2
Plaintiff points to the jump in professional fee expenses reported on defendant’s 2000-01 LM-2 and its 2001-02 LM-2 as grounds for just cause. Not every change in figures reported on LM-2 reports establishes just cause. Only when a change is “sudden, apparently significant and unexplained” is it regarded as suspicious enough to put a reasonable union member to further inquiry.
See Mallick,
However, “changes in certain expense items that were ... readily explainable by information known by plaintiff when he first reviewed the LM-2 reports ... do not constitute just cause ... because they would not put a reasonable union member to further inquiry.”
Campbell,
151 L.R.R.M. at ¶ 28. At the time plaintiff filed this suit (and before he had seen the 2001-02 LM-2) he knew that the union had paid Cross’s $12,906.61 bill in its entirety sometime late in the 2001-02 fiscal year.
Compare Mallick v. Intern. Brotherhood of Elec. Workers (Malick II),
Plaintiff also argues that defendant’s failure to account for legal fees as they accrue might generate reasonable suspicion. However, plaintiff was aware that defendant did not know the amount that had accrued to Cross during the 2000-01 fiscal year until Cross submittеd her bill in April 2002.
Further, the disparity is not sufficiently significant. Those courts deriving just cause from significant changes in numbers reported from one year to the next did so where the disparities were of a much greater magnitude than the change in the present case. In this case, the difference in professional fees reported on defendant’s 2000-2001 LM-2 compared with its 2001-2002 LM-2 amounts to $8,333. By contrast,
Mallick,
Finally, this case can be distinguished from
Mallick
in a third way. In
Mallick,
2. Potential violation of internal union policy
Plaintiff asserts that the hiring, supervision and payment of Cross may have violated three of defendant’s internal rules. First, he contends that defendant’s hiring of Cross violated its policy that it is “not to provide representation to its members in disputes with the employer through outside retained attorneys unless no internal union representatives are available or the relevant proceedings or forum requires legal representation.” Second, plaintiff argues that defendant violated its by-law requiring board approval of any expenses exceeding budgeted amounts and notification to the general membership of the *843 amount and rationale for such authorization. Third, plaintiff contends that the money paid to Cross relating to the Armi-tage bill was misappropriated because the work she performed violated defendant’s general policy against providing outside legal representation for members in dispute s with their employers.
Plaintiffs assertion demonstrates his lack of just cause under § 431. He does not allege that the violation of these internal rules causes him to suspect that the LM-2 reports are inaccurate or that information on the LM-2 has inspired reasonable questions about the way defendant handled its funds except in the most generalized way.
See Kinslow,
Other circuits have stated more explicitly that just cause must relate to the LM-2.
See Flaherty,
Plaintiff has cited both
Morley
and
Sonsten v. Melendrez,
*844
Even if these rule violations could establish just cause to see
some
documents, plaintiff has failed to identify what he suspects he may discover by examining Cross’s bill that relates to the infractions. The legislative history of the just cause requirement shows that the Senate intended judicial borrowing from the laws of shareholder’s rights to examine corporate books.
Mallick,
Plaintiff has argued only that he should be afforded access to Cross’s bill “in order to ensure the appropriate and democratic operation of his union” or because he wishes to ensure that money has not been inappropriately paid out. He has never asserted that Cross overcharged for her work, such as by billing at too high an hourly rate, billing for work she never performed or failing to use good judgment in deciding what work to do. Plaintiff has all the information he needs to pursue his contention that defendant violated its internal rules when it hired Cross to investigate Armitage’s charges against him and Palek. Plaintiff has argued that “it is completely immaterial what [he] would chose to do with the bill.” However, it is entirely material that he be able to use the document to advance his just cause if he so chooses.
See Fleisher,
Reading
Kinslow
to mean that just cause is established
only
where “the union member had some reasonable basis to question the accuracy of the LM-2 or the documents on which it was based, or that information in the LM-2 has inspired reasonable questions about the way union funds were handled,” would be consistent with the holdings in other circuits and the statute’s structure. Because plaintiff does not question the accuracy of the LM-2 or point to anything on the LM-2 that would inspire reasonable suspiciоn that union funds were being mishandled, he has not shown just cause pursuant to § 431(c) as understood in this circuit. Although the just cause requirement ought to remain minimal to permit liberal access to union records and disclosure may frequently be desirable for better oversight of union affairs generally, a union member may not use § 431(c) as a subterfuge to get documents for purposes Congress did not intend.
Flaherty,
ORDER
IT IS ORDERED that defendant’s motion for summary judgment is GRANTED and plaintiffs motion for summary judgment is DENIED. The Clerk of Court is directed to enter judgment in favor of defendant and close this case.