Laborers Health & Welfare Trust Fund v. Diablo Landscape Inc.

MEMORANDUM *

Laborers Health and Welfare Trust Fund for Northern California, Laborers Vacation-Holiday Trust Fund for Northern California, Laborers Pension Trust Fund for Northern California, Laborers Training and Retraining Trust Fund for Northern California (the Trusts) appeal the district court’s determination on summary judgment that Diablo Landscape, Inc., is neither the alter ego nor the successor in interest to B.L. Cohen Landscape, Inc., (BLC). We affirm.

*423 (1) The Trusts claim that the district court erred when it determined that Diablo was not the alter ego of BLC. In the labor law context, alter ego is determined by use of a two part test, which is rather different from alter ego concepts in other areas. The first part asks if the two companies constitute a single employer, and the second asks if there is an anti-union animus. See UA Local 343, United Ass’n of Journeymen & Apprentices v. Nor-Cal Plumbing, Inc., 48 F.3d 1465, 1470 (9th Cir.1995); Haley & Haley, Inc. v. NLRB, 880 F.2d 1147, 1150-52 (9th Cir.1989). We will assume, as even Diablo does, that there is sufficient evidence that Diablo and BLC were a single employer within the meaning of the labor law test…