Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-07-01097/USCOURTS-caDC-07-01097-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Abbott Ambulance of Illinois
Respondent
National Labor Relations Board
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 6, 2008 Decided April 18, 2008

No. 07-1077

ABBOTT AMBULANCE OF ILLINOIS,

PETITIONER

v.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

RESPONDENT

Consolidated with

07-1097

On Petition for Review and Cross-Application for

Enforcement 

of an Order of the National Labor Relations Board

D. Michael Linihan argued the cause for petitioner. With

him on the briefs was Corey Louis Franklin.

Fred B. Jacob, Supervisory 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, Linda Dreeben, Deputy

Associate General Counsel, and Stacy Garrick Zimmerman,

Attorney.

USCA Case #07-1097 Document #1111787 Filed: 04/18/2008 Page 1 of 8
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Before: GINSBURG and RANDOLPH, Circuit Judges, and

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: The National Labor Relations

Board determined that Abbott Ambulance of Illinois unlawfully

refused to bargain with the Professional Emergency Medical

Technicians and Paramedics Union. Abbott asserts that it was

not obligated to bargain with the union because the Board

counted an invalid ballot in the representation election, giving

the union an illegitimate one-vote victory. The Board crosspetitions for enforcement of its order. 

I.

Abbott maintains its headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri,

and operates a satellite facility in Belleville, Illinois. The

Belleville facility provides emergency medical treatment and

transportation for patients in Madison and St. Clair Counties in

southwestern Illinois. Abbott’s employees include emergency

medical technicians and paramedics. The technicians provide

basic life support services, such as stopping bleeding, rescuing

accident victims, transporting them to ambulances, and

performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. One of the

qualifications for emergency medical technicians is that they

must be able to lift and carry an average of 283 pounds up to 25

percent of the time they are lifting and carrying. 

Kelly Grant began working as an emergency medical

technician in Abbott’s Belleville facility in 1999. She injured

her left hand and wrist while releasing the catch on a stretcher

in October 2001. After her doctor placed her on a 20-pound

lifting restriction, she performed light-duty tasks around the

office instead of her regular duties. In early February 2002, her

doctor removed the lifting restriction and she returned to work

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as an emergency medical technician. In May 2002 Grant reinjured her left wrist lifting a patient. A doctor then restricted

her to no lifting with her left hand and wrist. 

In June 2002, Abbott assigned Grant to light duty in its

billings and claims department at the St. Louis office, a non-unit

position. Her responsibilities included copying, filing and

entering data. In accordance with Abbott’s policy, Grant

maintained her emergency medical technician wage rate while

working on light-duty status. Later in the summer, Abbott

offered Grant a full-time position in billings. She declined the

position in the hope that she could return to work as an

emergency medical technician. In October 2002, an orthopedic

surgeon diagnosed Grant with mid-carpal instability of the left

wrist and ordered a lifting restriction of 5 pounds. In March

2003, Grant underwent surgery for her wrist. She received

physical therapy and her lifting restriction fluctuated between 5

and 10 pounds through August 2003. In October 2003, Abbott

informed Grant that light-duty work in billings was no longer

available for her. She received her last paycheck for regular

hours worked on October 16. Grant then attended a yearly

training session in November 2003 and Abbott “town hall

meetings” in January, March and April of 2004. Abbott paid her

at her technician rate of pay for attending the training session

and the March meeting. 

 

On March 1, 2004, the union filed a petition with the Board

to represent the Belleville facility’s emergency medical

technicians and paramedics. The union and Abbott entered into

a stipulated election agreement defining the voting unit as “[a]ll

full time and regular part-time EMTs, paramedics, customer

representatives and couriers employed at [Abbott’s] Belleville,

Illinois facility,” excluding clerical and other types of

employees. On April 12, 2004, Grant’s doctor discharged her

from his care, concluding that she had reached maximum

medical improvement and could not lift more than 30 pounds

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with her left arm. Three days later, on April 15, 2004, the Board

conducted an election, in which twenty-eight uncontested votes

were cast in favor of union certification and twenty-eight

uncontested votes were cast against. At this point, Grant’s most

recent job had been in billings, where she had not worked for

several months. The Board agent contested three ballots,

including Grant’s vote, which turned out to be in favor of the

union. Abbott argued that Grant was ineligible to vote because

she did not share a community of interest with the voting unit

and did not have a reasonable expectation that she would return

to work within the voting unit. The Board’s regional director

sustained the first two challenges but called for a formal hearing

regarding Grant’s vote. 

After taking evidence, the hearing officer recommended

overruling the challenge to Grant’s vote. The hearing officer

invoked Red Arrow Freight Lines, Inc., 278 N.L.R.B. 965

(1986), under which an employee who is a member of a unit but

is on sick leave, long-term disability, Atlanta Dairies Coop., 283

N.L.R.B. 327 (1987), or workers compensation, Thorn Ams.,

Inc., 314 N.L.R.B. 943 (1994), “is presumed to continue in such

status unless and until the presumption is rebutted by an

affirmative showing that the employee has been discharged or

has resigned.” The Board adopted the hearing officer’s report

and recommendations and ordered the regional director to count

Grant’s ballot and issue the appropriate certification of the union

as the bargaining representative of Abbott’s emergency medical

technicians and paramedic employees. Abbott Ambulance of Ill.

and Prof’l EMTS & Paramedics, 347 N.L.R.B. No. 82 (2006).

When the union later attempted to bargain collectively with

Abbott, the company refused, claiming that the union’s

certification was invalid because Grant’s vote should not have

counted. The Board’s General Counsel filed an unfair labor

practice charge against Abbott, alleging that the company

violated § 8(a)(1) and (5) of the National Labor Relations Act.

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29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1), (5). The Board found that the union’s

certification was valid and that Abbott’s refusal to bargain

violated the Act. Abbott Ambulance of Ill. and Prof’l EMTS &

Paramedics, 349 N.L.R.B. No. 43, at 2 (2007).

II.

The Board has long held that the “essential element in

determining an employee’s eligibility to vote” in a

representation election is the employee’s “status on the

eligibility payroll date and on the date of the election. It is

without controlling significance that an individual employed on

those dates may have intended to quit, or actually did quit,

shortly after the election.” Reidbord Bros. Co., 99 N.L.R.B.

127, 129 (1952) (citations omitted). This court and others have

upheld this hard and fast rule. See, e.g., Saint-Gobain Indus.

Ceramics, Inc. v. NLRB, 310 F.3d 778, 783 (D.C. Cir. 2002);

NLRB v. Res-Care, Inc., 705 F.2d 1461, 1471 (7th Cir. 1983).

But what is the status, on election day, of someone who has

been laid off or is on sick leave? The Board applies different

standards in these two situations. With respect to layoffs, the

worker may vote in a representation election if there is a

“reasonable expectancy” the company will recall him. Higgins,

Inc., 111 N.L.R.B. 797, 799 (1955). On the other hand, if the

employee is on sick leave, the Board says it will presume that he

may vote “unless and until the presumption is rebutted by an

affirmative showing that the employee has been discharged or

has resigned.” Red Arrow, 278 N.L.R.B. at 965. Abbott thinks

the Board erred in applying the Red Arrow standard to Grant

rather than the standard it uses for determining the eligibility of

laid off workers. The company has not claimed that it actually

laid off Grant. Rather, the company’s position is that the Red

Arrow “test” is irrational as applied to workers on medical leave,

such as Grant, who have no reasonable expectation of returning

to the unit and who therefore have been “effectively laid off.”

Pet’r Opening Br. 51. In the alternative, Abbott argues that

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Grant’s employment status was ambiguous and that the Board

should have applied the reasonable expectation standard to

determine her eligibility. See Newly Weds Foods, Inc., 758 F.2d

4, 8 (1st Cir. 1985). 

Although the Board says its Red Arrow standard erects a

“rebuttable presumption,” that is a misnomer. Individuals who

have been fired or quit are obviously not on medical leave.

They are no longer employees of the company. Red Arrow thus

might be seen as stating an unrebuttable proposition: if an

“employee” is on medical leave the employee is eligible to vote.

The strictness of this standard is somewhat tempered by the

Board’s position – as Board counsel expressed it at oral

argument and in a post-argument submission – that employees

on sick leave who accept permanent management positions or

positions in another unit before the election are ineligible to vote

under Red Arrow because they have quit, not the company, but

the unit. 

We do not think it telling that the Board’s Red Arrow rule

fails to disqualify employees who might not share the interests

of others in the unit or who have no intention to remain in the

bargaining unit after voting. The same may be said of the

Board’s eligibility rules followed for more than half a century.

In general employees are eligible to vote even if they intend to

resign the day after they cast their ballots. See Edward Waters

Coll., 307 N.L.R.B. 1321, 1322 (1992); Dayton Tire & Rubber

Co., 206 N.L.R.B. 614, 620 (1973). The rule determining

eligibility on the basis of the employee’s status at the specified

times promotes efficiency in administering representation

elections. Greater accuracy might be achieved by requiring

evidence that each voter will remain in the unit, but the Board

could reasonably decide that the gain in accuracy would be

outweighed by the delay and uncertainty attending such a

system. “There is rapid turnover of workers in many American

companies, and if it were a litigable question whether each

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worker casting a vote in a union election was likely still to be

employed when the union sat down to bargain with the employer

the regulation of union campaigns would be greatly

complicated.” Res-Care, Inc., 705 F.2d at 1471. Much the same

can be said of employees on medical leave. To require a

determination of their likelihood of returning to the unit would

require the Board to evaluate medical evidence, a subject on

which the Board has no expertise. These considerations support

the Red Arrow standard, as the Board has explained: the

standard avoids “open[ing] a new avenue of litigation, possibly

involving paid expert testimony, which is beyond the traditional

expertise of the agency and inimical to the efficient and

expeditious resolution of questions concerning representation.”

O’Dovero, 315 N.L.R.B. 1255, 1255 n.3 (1995); see Home Care

Network, Inc., 347 N.L.R.B. No. 80, at 1 (2006) (quoting

Vanalco, Inc., 315 N.L.R.B. 618, 618 n.4 (1994)). 

We therefore join other courts of appeals in upholding the

Red Arrow standard. See Cavert Acquisition Co. v. NLRB, 83

F.3d 598, 606 (3d Cir. 1996); Newly Weds Foods, Inc., 758 F.2d

at 7-8. 

The Board’s application of the standard in this case

supported its result. Before the election Abbott did not inform

Grant that it had fired her or laid her off, and Grant had not

resigned. Abbott’s argument that Grant removed herself from

the unit – that she was effectively laid off – does not change our

analysis. That characterization of her situation did not remove

her from the terms of Red Arrow, and Abbott’s counsel

acknowledged as much at oral argument. In any event, Grant’s

employment status was not ambiguous – she was an employee

on medical leave. There is additional evidence supporting the

Board’s conclusion but it is unnecessary to recount. Abbott also

argues about the effect of the Red Arrow standard on employers’

compliance with state and federal employment discrimination

laws. But we see no conflict between the standard and those

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laws. An employer who permanently transfers an employee to

a non-unit position satisfies an exception to Red Arrow.

Termination is not necessary to prevent an employee from

voting in a unit that he will never rejoin. 

Abbott’s petition for review is denied and the Board’s

cross-application for enforcement is granted. 

So ordered.

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