illustration of camera lens

Lt. Daniel Kaffee: So this is what a courtroom looks like.

—A Few Good Men

Hollywood loves a courtroom scene: the drama, the opposing players, the constant audience.

The American courtroom is so ubiquitous in our movies and TV that, according to an article by two German film scholars, people around the world are more familiar with America’s trial procedures than those of their home countries. Spanish and German interviewees admitted they were shocked when they realized trials at home were different from what they’d seen in American movies and TV. A young barrister in England even tried to argue before an English court “in a manner that is possible only in the United States,” the scholars report. Hollywood has made America’s version of courtroom justice—with our rules of evidence, judges, juries, and protections for the accused—the standard that people expect.

That makes what happened to movie producer David Wulf particularly ironic.

Judge Chamberlain Haller: There are only two ways to answer: guilty or not guilty.

Vinny Gambini: But your honor, my clients didn’t do anything.

Judge Chamberlain Haller: Once again, the communication process has broken down.

—My Cousin Vinny

The only thing Hollywood might like more than a courtroom movie is a mob movie. In a mob movie, a stranger will go to a businessman and put pressure on him: Do things my way or you’ll regret it. That’s essentially the way this story begins.

David Wulf is a Utah-based movie producer. In 2021, he was days away from starting production on a new movie—a romantic comedy set on a farm—when he got a voicemail from a Teamsters representative who wanted to discuss unionizing the drivers on his shoot.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union founded in Chicago in 1903. It has a storied past: Jimmy Hoffa, Teamsters president from 1957 until 1971, had ties to organized crime and was eventually convicted of jury tampering, bribery, and other crimes before disappearing in 1975. He’s generally believed to have been murdered by the Mafia. But while he was president, Hoffa grew the Teamsters into one of the largest and most powerful unions in America.

“We are getting off on the wrong foot by you refusing to talk to us.”

What a Teamsters rep told David Wulf

The Teamsters’ power comes directly from the government: A 1989 Reason article by lawyer Michael McMenamin aptly refers to the Teamsters as “the government’s creation, its own Frankenstein monster,” because the organization exploits government regulations to control labor markets. “It was the government that created the conditions that allowed the Teamsters to achieve unprecedented market power,” McMenamin writes. Today the Teamsters have over 1.3 million members.

David didn’t return the Teamsters’ voicemail: He was focused on getting ready to film. As he later testified, “The closer you get to a shooting start date, it’s incredibly busy with all the moving parts. So you know, any sort of unsolicited call, you wouldn’t have time to take that particular day.”

The Teamsters rep followed up in an email, pushing for “a possible one-off project labor agreement.”

At that point, David’s transportation coordinator texted a “captain” on the transportation crew, along with another Teamster, a Los Angeles-based rep named Joshua.

The transportation coordinator wanted to know if the production’s drivers were talking to a union. He warned the captain and Joshua that if the production were unionized, David would probably move future productions to Canada.  

Later, the coordinator would testify under oath that David did not tell him to make that threat. As David’s lawyers at Pacific Legal Foundation wrote in a brief, “The record contains no evidence whatsoever that [David] ever talked or even thought about moving any productions to Canada.”

But based on those texts, Joshua, back in Los Angeles, filed an “unfair labor practices” charge against David with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Rudy Baylor: I’m alone in this trial. I’m seriously outgunned and I’m scared, but I’m right.

—The Rainmaker

Every year the NLRB receives over 15,000 charges of unfair labor practices from people around the country.

Anyone can file a charge against employers, accusing them of violating the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Possible infractions include refusing to provide requested information, threatening to close if employees unionize, firing employees for joining a union, and “questioning employees about their union sympathies.”

NLRB regional offices investigate these charges. Many are dismissed or withdrawn. More than 5,000 per year end in settlements. If the employer won’t settle, the NLRB can issue a formal complaint, and the case will go before an NLRB administrative law judge.

Sometimes this process plays out like an odd, McCarthyite farce. For example: In 2019, after employees at left-leaning news website Vox staged a high-profile labor walkout, Ben Domenech, then publisher of right-leaning news website The Federalist, tweeted: “FYI @fdrlst first one of you tries to unionize I swear I’ll send you back to the salt mine.”

A Boston lawyer with no connection to The Federalist filed an unfair labor practices charge with the NLRB over the tweet. Despite Domenech’s noting it was clearly a joke—he does not own a salt mine—an NLRB administrative law judge said Domenech broke the law. The Federalist fought the ruling, and in 2022, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the publication and overruled the NLRB.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is currently fighting an unfair labor practices charge. The NLRB says the company—which has 13,000 employees—improperly fired nine employees in 2022. In response, SpaceX filed a federal lawsuit challenging the NLRB’s biased process for adjudicating charges.

PLF submitted an amicus brief in January in support of SpaceX. Due process is “entirely absent” in the NLRB’s in-house proceedings, PLF argued. “[I]nstead of making its case to an independent judge—and jury—the NLRB here need only convince itself.”

Judge Rayford: Mr. Kirkland, you are out of order!

Arthur Kirkland: You’re out of order! You’re out of order! The whole trial is out of order!

—And Justice for All

On the same night that Joshua, the Teamsters rep, filed an unfair labor practices charge against David, he also sent an email to David.

“We are getting off on the wrong foot by you refusing to talk to us,” Joshua told David. He forwarded the charge he’d filed with the NLRB and told David that his transportation coordinator had “broken federal law several times on your behalf.” He then suggested making a deal.

The next day, Joshua told the captain of the transportation crew that an unfair labor practices charge can “work as leverage” and sent him a list of possible charges the crew could file.

“[T]he more we have, the better leverage,” Joshua informed him.

Courtroom scene
A courtroom scene from the 1951 movie A Place in the Sun starring Montgomery Clift, bottom left. (Source: Getty)

Then Joshua flew from Los Angeles to Utah. On the first morning of filming, Joshua and two other Teamsters reps arrived on the production set—where the drivers were setting up trucks, trailers, and equipment—and began talking to the drivers about striking. For six hours, the Teamsters stayed on the set, talking while the crew worked. When asked if they were allowed to organize on private property, Joshua said, “In my experience in California, it has never slowed me down.”

Joshua then held a vote among the drivers. They voted to strike and left the set, taking equipment—which David’s production company had bought and leased—with them.

But production didn’t shut down. David was forced to find new equipment and new drivers. For the next four days, production continued while the original drivers picketed the set, using bullhorns to disrupt filmmaking. At one point the sheriff moved the picketers off private property.

On the fifth day of picketing, a Teamsters rep emailed David with an offer to return all striking drivers to work. But David chose not to re-hire the striking drivers for the remaining two weeks of production. 

Juror #8: We have a reasonable doubt, and that’s something that’s very valuable in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless it’s sure.

—12 Angry Men

Based on Joshua’s charge, the NLRB general counsel accused David’s production company of violating federal law. According to the NLRB, the transportation coordinator broke the law when he “threatened” to move production to Canada, and the company also broke the law by refusing to reinstate the striking drivers and by “interrogating” employees.

In May 2022, the NLRB conducted a two-day hearing on David’s case. The hearing, held at the agency’s own regional office in Salt Lake City, was hardly a fair trial: The NLRB general counsel made the case against David before the NLRB’s own administrative law judge, who—unsurprisingly—ruled for the NLRB.

As PLF said in the SpaceX case, the NLRB needed only to convince itself that David was guilty.

Then the NLRB—again, unsurprisingly—affirmed the ruling of its administrative law judge and ordered David to compensate the striking drivers not only for lost wages, but also for any “direct or foreseeable” financial harm suffered. His former employees’ missed credit card payments or late fees on rent would become David’s responsibility.

There was no jury, no independent judge, no real courtroom. It was just a federal agency, on its own turf, acting as prosecutor, judge, and jury all at once.

Atticus Finch: Now, gentlemen, in this country, our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal.

—To Kill a Mockingbird

“[I]t is well settled that there are wide differences between administrative agencies and courts,” the Supreme Court said in a 1983 decision about the NLRB’s power. At an NLRB proceeding, according to the Code of Federal Regulations, the Federal Rules of Evidence and of Civil Procedure need apply only “so far as practicable.”

That means there is not sufficient legal protection for targets like David, who can find themselves condemned as guilty without a fair chance to defend themselves. And in Hollywood, where unions command social, political, and economic power, a guilty ruling from the NLRB can be particularly damaging.

PLF began representing David earlier this year. We’re asking the Tenth Circuit to overturn the NLRB’s ruling: Not only is the ruling unsubstantiated by evidence, our brief argues, but the NLRB’s in-house proceeding also violated David’s right to a fair trial before an independent judge and a jury.

Over the past decade and a half, David has produced over 40 movies. Of those movies—which span genres and star well-known actors—one is a romantic comedy where two lawyers fall in love.

The climactic scene, of course, takes place in a courtroom.