SAN FRANCISCO — A breakaway labor union remains on the hook for a $1.5 million judgment, and now it has a tartly worded Ninth Circuit opinion to go with it.

The federal appellate court ruled Tuesday that leaders of a California health care workers local owed a fiduciary duty not only to their members, but to the parent, Service Employees International Union, and a federal jury properly held them liable for trying "to scuttle the ship on the union’s dime."