Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-01184/USCOURTS-caDC-14-01184-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Modern Management Services, LLC
Respondent
National Labor Relations Board
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 14-1160 September Term, 2015

FILED ON: MAY 18, 2016

MODERN MANAGEMENT SERVICES, LLC, DOING BUSINESS AS THE MODERN HONOLULU,

PETITIONER

v.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

RESPONDENT

Consolidated with 14-1184 

On Petition for Review and Cross-Application

for Enforcement of an Order of 

the National Labor Relations Board

Before: TATEL, SRINIVASAN and PILLARD, Circuit Judges.

J U D G M E N T

This appeal was considered on the record from the National Labor Relations Board and on 

the briefs of the parties. See D.C. Cir. R. 34(j). The Court has accorded the issues full consideration 

and has determined that they do not warrant a published opinion. See D.C. Cir. R. 36(d). It is hereby

ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the petition for review be DENIED and the National 

Labor Relations Board’s cross-application for enforcement be GRANTED.

Modern Management Services, LLC (Modern), which operates the Modern Honolulu hotel in 

Honolulu, Hawai‘i, petitions for review of an order of the National Labor Relations Board (the 

Board), in which the Board found Modern committed multiple unfair labor practices in violation of 

the National Labor Relations Act (the Act). Modern challenges only two of the five violations found 

by the Board: that Modern unlawfully terminated a housekeeping employee, Juliana Alcaraz, for 

USCA Case #14-1184 Document #1613878 Filed: 05/18/2016 Page 1 of 3
2

raising concerns with the Housekeeping Director Emma Clemente about a term of employment 

during a question-and-answer session at a housekeeping department meeting (the termination 

violation); and that Modern later unlawfully barred Alcaraz from the property when she was serving 

as a union representative (the access violation). The company first asserts that the Board’s findings 

and conclusions lack the support of substantial record evidence. Second, Modern contends that the 

Board erred in finding that Alcaraz’s conduct was not so serious that it lost the protection of the Act.

Both arguments lack merit.

Modern’s first contention is a run-of-the-mill substantial-evidence and credibility challenge. 

Its case on both the termination and access violations largely depends on its alternative version of 

events, as testified to by Housekeeping Director Emma Clemente. But the ALJ, whose decision the 

Board adopted in full, expressly and repeatedly discredited Clemente’s “self-serving, contradictory 

and improbable account,” J.A. 787, instead crediting another employee’s version of events, as 

corroborated by ample additional evidence. The Board therefore necessarily—if implicitly—

discredited the scant other testimony consistent with Clemente’s account. Modern objects that the 

Board overlooked testimony that tracked Clemente’s account, but “[i]t is well established that 

explicit credibility findings are unnecessary when a judge has ‘implicitly resolved conflicts in the 

testimony by accepting and relying on the testimony of [one party's] witnesses.’” Am. Coal Co., 337 

N.L.R.B. 1044, 1044 n.2 (2002) (quoting Electri-Flex Co. v. NLRB, 570 F.2d 1327, 1331 (7th Cir. 

1978)); see Amber Foods, Inc., 338 N.L.R.B. 712, 713 n.7 (2002). We must accept the Board’s 

credibility determinations where, as here, they are not patently unsupportable. Stephens Media, LLC 

v. NLRB, 677 F.3d 1241, 1250 (D.C. Cir. 2012).

Nor did the Board err in concluding that Alcaraz’s conduct was not “so violent or of such 

serious character as to render the employee unfit for further service,” St. Margaret Mercy 

Healthcare Ctrs., 350 N.L.R.B. 203, 204-05 (2007), such that she lost the Act’s protection under 

the four-factor inquiry set forth in Atlantic Steel Co., 245 N.L.R.B. 814, 816 (1979). Modern is 

correct that the Board erred in stating that the fourth factor, “provocation,” was met. As the

parties agree, no unfair labor practice provoked Alcaraz’s conduct. See id. But that error is 

immaterial to the Board’s conclusion. Its analysis under the third Atlantic Steel factor—which 

inquires into the nature of the outburst—makes clear that no outburst even occurred. There was, 

therefore, no need to consider under the fourth factor the cause of any such outburst. Cf. Kiewit 

Power Constructors Co., 355 N.L.R.B. 708, 710 (2010) (finding employees did not lose the 

protection of the Act where “only the factor of provocation does not favor protection”), enforced,

652 F.3d 22 (D.C. Cir. 2011); Noble Metal Processing, Inc., 346 N.L.R.B. 795, 799 (2006) 

(finding that although there was “no evidence” that conduct was “provoked by unfair labor 

practices and thus Atlantic Steel Co.’s fourth factor cannot be applied[,] . . . [t]he application of 

the remaining three factors, . . . reflects that [the employee] did not lose the protection of the 

Act”).

Accordingly, we deny Modern’s petition for review and grant the Board’s cross-application 

for enforcement of its order. 

USCA Case #14-1184 Document #1613878 Filed: 05/18/2016 Page 2 of 3
3

Pursuant to D.C. Circuit Rule 36, this disposition will not be published. The Clerk is directed 

to withhold issuance of the mandate until seven days after resolution of any timely petition for 

rehearing or rehearing en banc. See Fed. R. App. P. 41(b); D.C. Cir. R. 41(b).

FOR THE COURT:

Mark J. Langer, Clerk

BY: /s/

Ken Meadows

Deputy Clerk

USCA Case #14-1184 Document #1613878 Filed: 05/18/2016 Page 3 of 3