Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-09563/USCOURTS-ca10-90-09563-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Electromedics, Inc.
Petitioner
National Labor Relations Board
Respondent

Document Text:

FILED 

United States Co~rt <?f Appeals Tenth CD.·cuit 

OCT 3 0 1991 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

UNITED STATES coURT OF APPEALS Clerk 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

ELECTROMEDICS, INC. 

Petitioner, 

-vsNATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, 

Respondent. 

INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, 

CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF 

AMERICA, AFL-CIO, LOCAL UNION 537 

Real party in Interest. 

No. 90-9563 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before LOGAN and SEYMOUR, Circuit Judges, and WINDER, District 

Judge** 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for the purpose of establishing the doctrines of the law 

of the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

** The Honorable David K. Winder, United States District Judge 

for the District of Utah, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 90-9563 Document: 010110093028 Date Filed: 10/30/1991 Page: 1 
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" 

This matter is before the court on petitioner's 

petition to review and respondent's cross-application for 

enforcement of an order of the National Labor Relations Board 

("NLRB") affirming the decision of the administrative law judge 

("ALJ") against petitioner Electromedics, Inc. ("Employer"). The 

charging parties claimed that the Employer violated sections 

8(a) (3) and 8(a) (1) of the National Labor Relations Act ("Act") 

in terminating two employees for their efforts to organize a 

union at the Employer's facility. The Employer contends that the 

ALJ and the NLRB erred as a matter of fact and law by failing to 

apply the Wright Line1 test to analyze a potentially dual motive 

discharge and by ignoring a preponderance of evidence showing 

that the discharge resulted from recurring acts of unprotected 

misconduct in violation of workplace rules. 

On May 2, 1990 the ALJ issued a proposed order 

recommending finding that the Employer violated Section 8(a) (3) 

of the Act but dismissing an alleged violation of Section 

8(a) (1). On September 27, 1990, a three-member panel of the NLRB 

adopted, with minor modification, the recommended order of the 

ALJ. The NLRB ordered the Employer to offer the discharged 

NLRB v. Wright Line, 251 NLRB 1083, 105 LRRM 1169 (1980), 

enf'd, 662 F.2d 899 (1st Cir. 1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 989 

(1982), approved in NLRB v. Transportation Management Corp., 462 

U.S. 393 (1983). 

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employees immediate reinstatement and to post a notice to 

employees announcing the finding of violation and guaranteeing 

not to discharge employees for engaging in protected activities 

or to interfere with the exercise of rights guaranteed by the 

Act. Employer then filed a Petition of Review by this court 

pursuant to 29 u.s.c. sec. 160(f). 

The Employer discharged Gary Hall, a probationary 

employee, and Joseph Hart, a recently demoted line lead, from 

their positions as assemblers of medical equipment on March 17, 

1989. On March 16th, the afternoon preceding their discharge, 

both Hall and Hart had reported to Howard Prosky ("Prosky"}, the 

Employer's vice president, that they met with a union organizer 

and intended to form a union at the plant. During work the 

evening of March 16th they spread word of a meeting intended to 

discuss union matters. Although Dannette Brewer ("Brewer"}, 

their supervisor, testified that the workroom was unusually quiet 

the evening of the 16th, she became extremely disturbed because 

the employees declined to disclose the purpose of the meeting 

which she suspected was targeted against her personally. After 

hearing a report that one employee felt worried about the meeting 

because of discomfort about teaming up on his superior, Brewer 

panicked and called Roger Lesher ("Lesher"}, the plant production 

manager. In a quivering voice, Brewer stated that she feared for 

her safety and recounted a second hand report of employee 

harassment. Lesher told her to have Hall and Hart escorted off 

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the premises and to have them meet with him the next day. 

As the employees were being escorted out, Brewer 

overheard a comment questioning the fuss over forming a union. 

She realized that she had misinterpreted the purpose of the 

meeting and reported the union comment to Lesher in a memo. 

Lesher claimed that he made the decision to terminate 

Hall and Hart the night of March 16th and that he felt no need to 

reconsider his termination decision after reading Brewer's memo 

when he arrived at work on the 17th. This adherence to a hasty, 

independent decision contradicts the processes of verification, 

discussion and confrontation demonstrated in previous misconduct 

incidents. Follow up investigation of Brewer's report and memo 

would have shown that Brewer's perception of personal persecution 

was unfounded, that the supposedly victimized employee 

discredited the harassment report, and that Hall's and Hart's 

activities on the evening of March 16th actually concerned 

protected activity. 

Instead of investigating, on the morning of March 17th, 

Lesher consulted with his superior Prosky about the discharge 

decision. The testimony of Prosky and Lesher concerning their 

conversation demonstrates that Lesher exaggerated the reported 

misconduct describing the prior night's incident in terms of 

"fooling around", harassing other employees and causing the 

supervisor "to be afraid." Lesher also informed Prosky of Hart's 

recent demotion for horseplay. Although during the conversation 

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Prosky related his discussion with the involved employees about 

the union and Lesher mentioned Brewer's memo, both stated that 

union activity was immaterial to the termination decision. 

Later on the 17th, Lesher informed Hall and Hart of 

their dismissal. He told Hall that he terminated him for 

insubordination, excessive absence, interference with fellow 

employees, incomplete probation, a previous warning about an 

altercation with a superior and harassment. He told Hart that he 

was terminated for attendance problems, harassment of other 

employees and creating an uncomfortable work environment. 

During the dismissal interview, Lesher emphatically 

stated that termination was a closed matter. In spite of 

Brewer's memo indicating misreporting of the precipitating 

incident and the employees' challenges to his comments, Lesher 

denied Hall and Hart any opportunity to explain their version of 

what had occurred. Lesher also misstated the Employer's excused 

absence policy and relied upon a prior incident of 

insubordination that appears immaterial in light of testimony by 

the supervisor who mediated the altercation at issue. Both Hall 

and Hart refused to sign their termination papers and later 

contacted the union representative to complain about their 

discharge. 

Testimony of different witnesses espoused both lawful 

and unlawful causes for the discharge. The ALJ recognized that, 

because of the potential for dual motivation in the Employer 

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action, the Wright Line test was the appropriate legal standard 

by which to determine whether the Employer had violated Section 

8(a) (1) or Section 8(a) (3) of the Act. Wright Line, 662 F.2d at 

902-07. According to the Wright Line test, General Counsel must 

first "make a prima facie showing sufficient to support the 

inference that protected conduct was a 'motivating factor' in the 

employer's decision. Once this is established, the burden will 

shift to the employer to demonstrate that the same action would 

have taken place even in the absence of the protected conduct." 

Wright Line, 251 NLRB at 1089. 

In his decision, the ALJ found that the prima facie 

elements of violation were met but did not address shifting the 

burden of production to the employer. The ALJ instead stated 

that he considered the Employer's justification of the instant 

discharges so lacking in credibility as to be pretextual and, 

therefore, patently in violation of the Act. The ALJ postulated 

an alternate version of the meeting between Lesher and Prosky in 

which the union activity was openly discussed and the termination 

decision was based upon union animus. 

This court disagrees with the Employer's claim that 

these conclusions demonstrate avoidance of the Wright Line 

analysis by summarily rejecting and discrediting evidence of 

legitimate reasons for termination. After the parties have 

presented all relevant evidence, a finder of fact may distinguish 

a pretext case from a dual motive case. Wright Line, 251 NLRB at 

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1084 n. 5. Sufficiency of proof of an employer's asserted 

justification is only an issue where the employer has 

demonstrated some merit to his claim that a dual motive existed. 

Id. Where evidence reveals that asserted justifications are a 

sham in that the circumstances advanced by the employer either 

did not exist or were not actually relied upon, the reasons 

advanced by the employer may be termed pretextual. Id. at 1084. 

Further, this court has recognized that a business justification 

which fails for lack of credibility does not constitute improper 

application of the Wright Line standard or lack of consideration 

of the defense. Artra Group. Ind. v. NLRB, 730 F.2d 586, 592 

(10th Cir. 1984). This court, therefore, concludes that the ALJ 

properly interpreted and applied the pretext prong of the Wright 

Line test. 

Furthermore, this court accords deference to the 

determinations upon which the ALJ based his conclusions. The 

primary responsibility for "[d]etermining the degree of 

significance to be accorded the employer's explanation" belongs 

to the Board so long as their determination is within reason. 

NLRB v. Dillon Stores, 643 F.2d 687, 692-93 (10th Cir. 1981). 

Credibility determinations and inferences reached by an ALJ after 

hearing conflicting testimony and examining numerous exhibits 

deserve particular deference. Id. Finally, factual 

determinations should not be reversed unless they lack support by 

substantial evidence on the record. Universal Camera Corp. v. 

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NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 487-88 (1951). 

Having reviewed the record in light of the deference 

described above, this court finds that substantial evidence 

supports the conclusions arrived at by the ALJ and which were 

adopted by the NLRB panel. The Employer has no affirmative 

defense under Wright Line to a finding of violation of Section 

8(a) (3) of the Act. Further, this court finds no merit to 

Employer's contention of bias on the part of the ALJ. Rather, 

what forms the basis for this contention appears to have been an 

active, but proper involvement of the ALJ in clarifying facts 

during testimony of both petitioner's and respondent's witnesses. 

Finally, this court affirms the decision of the NLRB that the 

Employer failed to raise the objection to the ALJ's off the 

record settlement discussion in a timely manner. Accordingly, 

the recommended order of the ALJ, as modified by the panel of the 

NLRB, is AFFIRMED. 

Entered for the Court 

David K. Winder 

District Judge 

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