Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-05-01373/USCOURTS-caDC-05-01373-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Flying Food Group, Inc.
Petitioner
National Labor Relations Board
Respondent

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 14, 2006 Decided December 15, 2006

No. 05-1373

FLYING FOOD GROUP, INC., D/B/A FLYING FOOD,

PETITIONER

v.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

RESPONDENT

Consolidated with

05-1395

On Petition for Review 

and Cross-Application for Enforcement

of an Order of the National Labor Relations Board

Harry J. Secaras argued the cause and filed the briefs for

petitioner.

David A. Seid, Attorney, National Labor Relations Board,

argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were

Ronald E. Meisburg, General Counsel, John H. Ferguson,

Associate General Counsel, Aileen A. Armstrong, Deputy

Associate General Counsel, and Robert J. Englehart, Attorney.

Steven B. Goldstein, Attorney, entered an appearance.

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1

The Board’s opinion referred to the petitioner as “Flying Foods

Group.” See Flying Foods Group, Inc., 345 NLRB No. 10, at 1 (Aug.

25, 2005). The petitioner’s name, however, is “Flying Food Group,”

see Petitioner’s Br. i, and to avoid confusion we will refer to it by that

name.

Before: HENDERSON, GARLAND, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Circuit Judge: Petitioner Flying Food Group,

Inc.,1

 withdrew recognition from an incumbent union after

receiving a disaffection petition purportedly supported by a

majority of employees in the bargaining unit. The National

Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concluded that Flying Food

failed to meet its burden of proving that the union had actually

lost majority support, as required by the Board’s decision in

Levitz Furniture Co., 333 NLRB 717 (2001). For the reasons set

forth below, we deny the company’s petition for review and

grant the Board’s cross-petition for enforcement.

I

Flying Food Group is a Chicago-based provider of in-flight

catering services to the airline industry. On December 17, 1999,

the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees International

Union, Local 355, AFL-CIO prevailed in a representation

election for a bargaining unit that included drivers, kitchen

employees, and production employees at the company’s Miami

facility. After overruling the company’s election objections, the

Board certified the union as the employees’ collectivebargaining representative.

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Collective bargaining began on May 24, 2000. The parties

declared themselves close to arriving at an agreement on all noneconomic issues on January 31, 2001. Bargaining subsequently

stalled, however, due to differences over wage proposals. Then,

on or about April 18, 2001, Flying Food’s Human Resources

Manager, Daysma Grana, found an employee disaffection

petition, purportedly signed by 96 of the unit’s 164 employees,

that had been slipped anonymously under her locked office door.

On the basis of that petition, the company declared that it was

“withdrawing recognition of [the] Union as the collective

bargaining representative for [the] Miami employees.” Joint

Appendix (J.A.) 281. Thereafter, the company refused to

recognize or bargain with the union.

The union filed unfair labor practices charges against the

petitioner, and, on September 28, 2001, the NLRB’s General

Counsel issued a complaint alleging that Flying Food had

committed multiple violations of section 8(a)(1) of the National

Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1). These

included, inter alia, threatening employees with the loss of

business opportunities and with the withholding of wage

increases due to their support for the union, coercively

interrogating an employee about his union sympathies, and

informing employees that they were receiving wage increases as

a reward for decertifying the union. The complaint also charged

that the company had violated sections 8(a)(1) and (3) of the

Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 158(a)(1) & (3), by implementing retroactive

wage increases to discourage employee support for the union.

The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) and the NLRB ultimately

upheld these charges, among others, and Flying Food does not

contest them here. The Board is entitled to summary

enforcement of the uncontested portions of its order. See

Grondorf, Field, Black & Co. v. NLRB, 107 F.3d 882, 885 (D.C.

Cir. 1997).

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The General Counsel’s complaint further charged that the

company had violated sections 8(a)(1) and (5) of the NLRA, 29

U.S.C. §§ 158(a)(1) & (5), by withdrawing recognition from the

union and thereafter refusing to recognize and bargain with it.

That charge is the subject of the instant petition for review. In

the proceeding before the ALJ (as in its briefs and argument in

this court), the company did not dispute that it withdrew

recognition from the union, but rather defended on the ground

that the union had actually lost the support of a majority of its

employees at the time recognition was withdrawn. To prove

that proposition, the company introduced the disaffection

petition and called Grana to testify concerning the circumstances

of its receipt and authentication. The General Counsel

vigorously cross-examined Grana, disputing whether some of

the individuals listed on the petition had actually been employed

on the date indicated on the petition, and whether the signatures

of others were authentic.

Relying on two alternative rationales, the ALJ held that

Flying Food had unlawfully withdrawn recognition from the

union in violation of NLRA sections 8(a)(1) and (5). First,

pursuant to the Board’s decision in Levitz, the ALJ found that

the company failed to satisfy its burden of showing that the

union had actually lost the support of the majority of the

employees in the bargaining unit at the time it withdrew

recognition. Second, the ALJ found that pre-withdrawal unfair

labor practices by the company had tainted the disaffection

petition on which it relied in withdrawing recognition.

On appeal to the NLRB, the Board agreed that the

withdrawal of recognition was unlawful, but did so only on the

basis of the ALJ’s first ground. The company, the Board said,

“failed to show the Union’s ‘actual loss’ of majority status,” as

required by Levitz. Flying Foods Group, Inc., 345 NLRB No.

10, at 3 (Aug. 25, 2005). The NLRB accepted the company’s

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2

The Board noted that the General Counsel had also challenged

the validity of several other signatures, but concluded that it did not

need to consider those challenges because it had already found a

sufficient number invalid to preclude a finding that the union had

actually lost majority support. See 345 NLRB No. 10, at 3-4 n.12.

representation that there were 164 employees in the bargaining

unit at the time the petition was purportedly signed on April 18,

and that only 82 valid signatures were required to show a loss of

majority support. It noted, however, that although the petition

had 96 signatures, it was undisputed that six of them should not

be counted. The Board found that three more signatures were of

employees who had left the company before April 18. Finally,

after comparing the petition signatures of seven other employees

with writing exemplars from the company’s personnel records,

the Board concluded that those seven were not authentic. This

left at most 80 valid signatures,2 an insufficient number to

satisfy the company’s burden of proving the union’s actual loss

of majority status. See id.

Flying Food now petitions for review, and the Board crosspetitions for enforcement of its order.

II

In Levitz Furniture Co., 333 NLRB 717 (2001), the NLRB

reversed a previous line of cases and held that “an employer

may unilaterally withdraw recognition from an incumbent union

only where the union has actually lost the support of the

majority of the bargaining unit employees.” Id. at 717. Under

Levitz, an employer’s good-faith doubt about a union’s

continuing majority status is insufficient to defend against a

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3

Prior to Levitz, the Board had “long held that an employer may

withdraw recognition by showing either that the union has actually

lost the support of a majority of the bargaining unit employees or that

it has a good-faith doubt, based on objective considerations, of the

union’s continued majority status.” Levitz, 333 NLRB at 717 (citing

Celanese Corp., 95 NLRB 664 (1951)); see Auciello Iron Works, Inc.

v. NLRB, 517 U.S. 781, 786-87 (1996). After Levitz, an employer may

no longer unilaterally withdraw recognition on the basis of good-faith

doubt. It may, however, obtain a Board-supervised election (known

as a Representation Management (RM) election) by demonstrating

good-faith reasonable uncertainty as to the union’s continuing

majority status. See Levitz, 333 NLRB at 717. 

withdrawal-of-recognition charge. Id.

3

 Rather, there is a

“continuing presumption of an incumbent union’s majority

status,” which may be “rebut[ted] . . . only on a showing that the

union has, in fact, lost the support of a majority of the

employees in the bargaining unit.” Id. at 725. In a passage

directly relevant to the instant case, the Board declared:

We emphasize that an employer with objective

evidence that the union has lost majority support -- for

example, a petition signed by a majority of the

employees in the bargaining unit -- withdraws

recognition at its peril. If the union contests the

withdrawal of recognition in an unfair labor practice

proceeding, the employer will have to prove by a

preponderance of the evidence that the union had, in

fact, lost majority support at the time the employer

withdrew recognition. If it fails to do so, it will not

have rebutted the presumption of majority status, and

the withdrawal of recognition will violate Section

8(a)(5).

Id.

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Flying Food does not contest the validity of Levitz. Instead,

it contends that the NLRB erred both procedurally and

substantively in applying the Levitz standard. We address the

petitioner’s two procedural arguments in this Part and its

substantive argument in Part III.

A

Flying Food’s first procedural argument concerns alleged

flaws in the General Counsel’s complaint. The company

contends that the unlawful withdrawal charge should have been

dismissed because the complaint failed “to aver . . . that the

Company lacked objective evidence that a majority of

employees had disaffected from the Union.” Petitioner’s Br. 10.

Flying Food further contends that the wording of the complaint

misled it into believing that the only basis for the unlawful

withdrawal charge was a claim that the company’s prewithdrawal unfair labor practices had tainted the disaffection

petition, and not a claim that the majority of unit employees still

supported the union at the time of the withdrawal. 

Flying Food’s argument does not fly. The General

Counsel’s complaint alleged that the company’s withdrawal of

recognition was unlawful. Compl. ¶¶ 14, 24. Although the

complaint did not expressly aver that the union retained majority

support, it did not have to. Under Levitz, there is a “continuing

presumption of an incumbent union’s majority status,” and the

contention that an incumbent union has lost its majority status

is “an affirmative defense,” which the employer “has the burden

of establishing.” 333 NLRB at 725. Because a “plaintiff is not

required to negate an affirmative defense in his complaint,”

Tregenza v. Great Am. Commc’ns Co., 12 F.3d 717, 718 (7th

Cir. 1993), the allegation of unlawful withdrawal was pleaded

sufficiently. See Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 635, 640 (1980)

(finding “no basis for imposing on the plaintiff an obligation to

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4

See Drukker Commc’ns, Inc. v. NLRB, 700 F.2d 727, 734 (D.C.

Cir. 1983); Bakery Wagon Drivers, Local Union No. 484 v. NLRB,

321 F.2d 353, 356 (D.C. Cir. 1963); Kuhn v. CAB, 183 F.2d 839, 841-

42 (D.C. Cir. 1950).

anticipate [an affirmative] defense by stating in his complaint”

its negative); 5 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER,

FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 1276 (3d ed. 2004)

(explaining that “allegations that seek to avoid or defeat a

potential affirmative defense . . . are not an integral part of the

plaintiff’s claim for relief and lie outside his or her burden of

pleading”). 

Nor is there any ground for the company’s claim that it was

misled into believing that the unlawful withdrawal charge rested

solely on allegations that pre-withdrawal unfair labor practices

had tainted the disaffection petition. To be sure, other

paragraphs of the complaint did charge that Flying Food had

committed unfair labor practices prior to April 18, 2001. See,

e.g., Compl. ¶¶ 8-13. But the allegation of unlawful withdrawal

of recognition was a stand-alone charge, see id. at ¶ 14, and

there is no reason to read it otherwise.

But even if there had been some ambiguity in the complaint,

that would not have been grounds for dismissal. As we have

long held, “[p]leadings in administrative proceedings are not

judged by the standards applied to an indictment at common

law.” Aloha Airlines, Inc. v. Civil Aeronautics Bd., 598 F.2d

250, 262 (D.C. Cir. 1979).4

 Rather, “[i]t is sufficient if the

[petitioner] ‘understood the issue’ and ‘was afforded full

opportunity’ to justify its conduct during the course of the

litigation.” Id. (quoting NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Tel. Co., 304

U.S. 333, 350 (1938)). 

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It is clear Flying Food understood that the question of

whether the union had actually lost majority support was at

issue, and that it had a full opportunity to make a showing of

such loss. In its pretrial pleading, the company acknowledged

that:

Under the Board’s decision in [Levitz], the Company’s

withdrawal of recognition is lawful if it can show that

the Union did not have (that it actually had lost)

majority support at the time of the withdrawal. In the

instant case, Flying Food intends to introduce evidence

at the hearing that on April 17, 2001, it was presented

with a petition signed by a majority of the bargaining

unit members stating their desire to disaffect from the

Union and that they no longer wanted the Union to

represent them for collective bargaining purposes.

Flying Food believes that the evidence will show that,

after authenticating the petition signatures, it lawfully

withdrew recognition from the Union based on the

objective evidence that the Union had, in fact, lost

majority support.

J.A. 509. And if the company had any residual doubt that it

would have to defend the validity of the signatures, that doubt

should have been erased by the General Counsel’s vigorous

cross-examination, which called into question the employment

status of some individuals listed on the petition and the

authenticity of the signatures of others. At that point, the

company could have tried to bolster its defense by calling

handwriting experts or the purported signatories themselves. Its

failure to do so was not the consequence of a lack of either

notice or opportunity. 

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5 Cf. Watson v. United States, 439 F.2d 442, 454 (D.C. Cir. 1970)

(en banc) (noting that a “defendant raising . . . affirmative defenses at

trial presumably must bear the burden of going forward with

evidence” to prove those defenses); 28 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT &

VICTOR JAMES GOLD, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE:

B

Flying Food’s second procedural argument is that the

withdrawal-of-recognition charge should have been dismissed

because the General Counsel failed to include, in his case-inchief, evidence that the majority of employees were not

disaffected from the union. In the absence of such evidence, the

company contends, the ALJ should have granted its motion to

dismiss at the close of the government’s case. Instead, the ALJ

permitted the proceeding to go forward, which in turn permitted

the General Counsel to raise questions concerning the validity

of the petition signatures during cross-examination of the

company’s own witnesses. The NLRB’s “consideration of

[such] subsequent evidence,” the company insists, “belies

procedural normalcy.” Petitioner’s Br. 10. 

Once again, the petitioner misapprehends the burden it bore

under Levitz. Because Levitz makes an actual loss of majority

status an “affirmative defense” to an unlawful withdrawal-ofrecognition claim, it is the defendant that “has the burden of

establishing that defense,” Levitz, 333 NLRB at 725, just as “in

any other [case] in which an affirmative defense is raised,”

Barth v. Gelb, 2 F.3d 1180, 1187 (D.C. Cir. 1993). And just as

the General Counsel (or any plaintiff) does not have to plead the

non-existence of an affirmative defense in its complaint, see

supra Part II.A, the General Counsel “is not required to negate

an affirmative defense unless and until the defendant has placed

it in issue.” Oakes v. United States, 400 F.3d 92, 98 (1st Cir.

2005).5

 It is true that “[a]n employer who presents evidence

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EVIDENCE § 6164 (1993) (stating that, “in the normal order of

presentation, the defendant presents its evidence . . . supporting any

affirmative defenses” after the completion of the plaintiff’s case). 

6

There apparently is a dispute within the Board as to whether “a

petition ostensibly signed by at least half of the unit employees” is

alone sufficient to shift the burden of going forward to the General

Counsel. See Flying Food, 345 NLRB No. 10, at 3 n.9. Analysis of

that dispute is unnecessary to resolve the issues raised here, as the

General Counsel did produce rebuttal evidence. 

that, at the time it withdrew recognition, the union had lost

majority support should ordinarily prevail in an 8(a)(5) case if

the General Counsel does not come forward with evidence

rebutting the employer’s evidence.” Levitz, 333 NLRB at 725

n.49 (emphasis added). But if the General Counsel does then

come forward, “the burden remains on the employer to establish

loss of majority support by a preponderance of all the evidence.”

Id.

In this case, the employer presented evidence -- in the form

of the disaffection petition -- that the union had lost majority

support. The General Counsel then rebutted that evidence by

casting doubt on the validity of the signatures on the petition.

Upon a review of all the evidence, the NLRB concluded that the

company failed to meet its burden of proving that the union had

actually lost majority support. See Flying Foods, 345 NLRB

No. 10, at 3-4. We detect no procedural error in the General

Counsel’s failure to include in his case-in-chief evidence that the

majority of employees were not disaffected.6

III

Finally, Flying Food argues that the Board’s conclusion --

that the employer failed to meet its burden of showing that the

union had actually lost majority support -- was unsupported by

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substantial evidence. See 29 U.S.C. § 160(e). In particular, the

company makes two claims. First, it contends that the Board

miscalculated the total number of employees in the bargaining

unit, and hence the number required to constitute a majority.

According to Flying Food, when the Board found that three

signatories to the disaffection petition had left the company

before the petition was signed, it should have reduced not only

the number of valid signatures, but the total number of unit

employees as well. That would have reduced the total number

of employees from 164 to 161, requiring the company to

authenticate only 81 -- rather than 82 -- signatures in order to

show that the union lacked majority support. Second, the

company contends that the Board erred in finding that the

petition signature of employee Yurima Varela did not match her

writing exemplar, a W-4 tax form. With these two errors

eliminated, the company maintains, the evidence showed that

the disaffection petition was signed by 81 employees out of 161

-- a majority, albeit a thin one.

Counsel for the NLRB rejects these claims. It was Flying

Food itself that came up with the total of 164 unit employees,

counsel argues, and the company should be held to that number.

Moreover, according to Board counsel, that number was based

on up-to-date payroll information that took into account the

departure of the three employees. As for the signature of

Varela, counsel insists that the signature on the petition is not

the same as the signature on Varela’s W-4.

Whatever the merits of Flying Food’s evidentiary argument,

we are barred from considering it because the company never

presented it to the Board. Section 10(e) of the NLRA provides

that “[n]o objection that has not been urged before the Board .

. . shall be considered by the court, unless the failure or neglect

to urge such objection shall be excused because of extraordinary

circumstances.” 29 U.S.C. § 160(e). Where, as here, a

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petitioner objects to a finding on an issue first raised in the

decision of the Board rather than of the ALJ, the petitioner must

file a petition for reconsideration with the Board to permit it to

correct the error (if there was one). See Woelke & Romero

Framing, Inc. v. NLRB, 456 U.S. 645, 666 (1982) (holding that

section 10(e) deprives courts of the power to hear issues first

raised by a Board decision unless the petitioner “object[s] to the

Board’s decision in a petition for reconsideration or rehearing”);

see also Lee Lumber & Bldg. Material Corp. v. NLRB, 310 F.3d

209, 216-17 (D.C. Cir. 2002); Cobb Mech. Contractors, Inc. v.

NLRB, 295 F.3d 1370, 1378 (D.C. Cir. 2002). Flying Food

proffers no “extraordinary circumstances” to excuse its failure

to file, 29 U.S.C. § 160(e), but instead explains that it made a

“strategic decision” to present its argument to this court rather

than to seek reconsideration by the Board. Oral Arg. Tape

11:32. Characterizing its decision as “strategic,” however, does

not change the fact that the petitioner’s “failure to seek Board

reconsideration bars our review under section 10(e).” Lee

Lumber, 310 F.3d at 216.

IV

Flying Food’s petition for review is denied, and the Board’s

cross-petition for enforcement of its order is granted.

So ordered.

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