SEIU-UHW’s Dave
Regan lost yet another legal battle to the California Hospital Association (CHA) over his secretive,
sweetheart deal with hospital CEOs.
On January
13, 2017, a Sacramento County (Calif.) Superior Court judge effectively tossed
out Regan’s personal lawsuit against CHA’s CEO, Duane
Dauner, and three other CHA officials. Instead, the judge ordered Regan’s
allegations to be sent to binding arbitration, as required by Regan’s secret
2014 “partnership” deal with the CHA.
A copy of
the judge’s decision is below.
Regan’s suit,
initially filed
on November 24, 2015, alleges that four top leaders of the CHA violated
their “fiduciary duties,” committed “dishonest acts and gross abuses of
authority and discretion,” and carried out “unlawful conduct” by “undermining”
Regan’s scheme to secure billions more dollars of Medicaid funding for
California’s hospital corporations.
Why was
Regan trying to put more taxpayer money in hospital corporations’ pockets?
It was one
of the requirements of his secret deal with the CHA. Specifically, hospital
CEOs required Regan to deliver $6 billion a year in additional revenues to
California hospital corporations as the price for “buying” special treatment
from CEOs during SEIU unionization campaigns.
And that’s
not the only concession Regan gave to hospital CEOs.
 |
| Dave Regan and Duane Dauner |
He also agreed
to force any newly organized workers into cheap, pre-negotiated SEIU-UHW labor
contracts that included a ban on strikes and a far-reaching gag
clause barring SEIU-UHW from criticizing hospital companies and their
gold-plated executives.
Regan’s
lawsuit is yet another piece of the paper trail documenting “Wall Street” Dave’s
backroom deals with hospital CEOs.
The suit also
offers a window into the internal battles raging between SEIU’s officials. For
example, Regan’s lawsuit says Dauner met “secretly” with officials from SEIU to
“undermine” Regan’s Medicaid funding scheme.
Which SEIU
officials?
LaPhonza
Butler (President of SEIU Local 2015) and Jon
Youngdahl (former Executive Director of SEIU California State Council),
says Regan.
According to
Regan’s suit, SEIU officials undercut him by telling Dauner that “UHW and its
president, Plaintiff Regan, would soon lose half its membership and that
Defendant Dauner needed to deal with Butler and the SEIU State Council – not
Regan and UHW – if he wanted to accomplish any legislative and policy goals
that were important to CHA’s members.”
 |
| Jon Youngdahl |
Last spring,
Tasty published a leaked
30-page document containing the questions that SEIU-UHW attorneys posed to Dauner
during a closed-door legal proceeding, including grilling him about Dauner’s meetings
with SEIU’s LaPhonza Butler and Jon Youngdahl.
Elsewhere in
the suit, Regan alleges that Dauner “sabotaged” him and “hid” his activities
from Regan and others.
Regan’s suit
seeks Dauner’s removal from the board of directors of “Caring
for Californians,” a partnership organization jointly established by CHA
and SEIU-UHW following their 2014 deal. The organization was funded with $50
million that Regan and Dauner diverted from their organizations’ coffers.
Regan and Dauner
are the Co-Chairs of “Caring for Californians.” The remaining seats on its
Board of Directors are split evenly between CHA and SEIU-UHW. That’s why Regan
also sued Greg Adams (Group
President at Kaiser Permanente), Mark
Laret (CEO of UCSF Medical Center), and James Holmes (CEO of Redlands Community Hospital). They’re CHA’s appointees
to the “Caring for Californians” board, and Regan alleges they, too, committed “unlawful
conduct” and violations of their fiduciary duties.
So who did
Regan appoint to fill SEIU-UHW’s seats on the board?
With last
month’s ruling in Sacramento Superior Court, Regan has maintained a perfect winless
record in the multiple lawsuits that followed the collapse of his secret deal
with the CHA.
In June of
2016, for example, a Superior Court judge
ordered SEIU-UHW to withdraw a statewide initiative from the California
ballot or face millions of dollars in penalties. In November 2016, the court
ordered SEIU-UHW to submit to binding arbitration over Regan’s refusal to
return $34 million to CHA and SEIU-UHW.
 |
| LaPhonza Butler |
What’s next
for Dave?
Regan, who
is rumored to be stepping down from his position as SEIU-UHW’s president, apparently
will be wrapped up in lawsuits for the foreseeable future.
At least one
question remains unclear.
Who will fund Regan’s lawsuits after he steps down? In
the suit discussed in this post, Regan sued as an individual, not as SEIU-UHW. Should
SEIU-UHW’s members continue to pay tens of thousands of dollars to litigate
Regan’s personal lawsuit?
