Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-15-01081/USCOURTS-caDC-15-01081-0/pdf.json

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

Document Text:

United States Court of

Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 4, 2016 Decided May 20, 2016

No. 15-1081

IRONTIGER LOGISTICS, INC.,

PETITIONER

v.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

RESPONDENT

Consolidated with 15-1148

On Petition for Review and Cross-Application

 for Enforcement of an Order of

 the National Labor Relations Board

Thomas P. Krukowski argued the cause and filed the briefs

for petitioner. 

Ruth E. Burdick, Deputy Assistant General Counsel,

National Labor Relations Board, argued the cause for

respondent. On the brief were Richard F. Griffin, Jr., General

Counsel, John H. Ferguson, Associate General Counsel, Linda

Dreeben, Deputy Associate General Counsel, Robert J.

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Englehart, Supervisory Attorney, and Marni L. von Wilpert,

Attorney.

Before: TATEL and MILLETT, Circuit Judges, and

SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

SILBERMAN.

SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge: IronTiger Logistics, a

company which ships trucks from manufacturers to retailers

around the country, petitions for review of an NLRB

determination that IronTiger violated 8(a)(5) and 8(a)(1) of the

NLRA when it failed to timely respond to a union request for

information the Board deemed presumptively relevant, even 

though ultimately found irrelevant. 

We reject Petitioner’s broad challenge to the Board’s policy

requiring an employer to timely respond to a union’s request for

information that is presumptively relevant, but nevertheless

remand to the Board for further explanation of why the specific

requests in this case were “presumptively relevant.”

I. 

The relationship between the company and its union, the

International Association of Machinists, in the period leading up

to the General Counsel’s complaint against the company in this

case, was rather contentious. The company is a shipping firm

that transports trucks from Volvo/Mack and Navistar

manufacturing plants to retail outlets. It operates out of four

different locations, and employs roughly 100 drivers who are

represented by the union. But IronTiger does not contract with

the manufacturers. Rather, it provides its shipping as a service

to another company, TruckMovers, which actually contracts

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with Volvo and Navistar. TruckMovers is a larger unorganized

company owned by the same person, Tom Duvall, who owns

IronTiger. He is also the CEO of both companies.

TruckMovers’ contracts with Volvo and Navistar permit

TruckMovers to itself transport loads or to subcontract to sixteen

other trucking companies, but no one company, including

TruckMovers itself, can be responsible for transporting more

than 75 percent of deliveries for Navistar or 80 percent for

Volvo (those provisions obviously prevent a total shutdown of

deliveries). When TruckMovers distributes work to IronTiger,

the order, or “load,” appears on a computer screen, or “kiosk,”

at the four IronTiger dispatch hubs.

The alleged unfair labor practice took place in 2010, during

which time the company and the union were parties to a

collective bargaining agreement which ran from 2008 to 2011. 

The agreement contained a typical subcontracting clause that

prevented IronTiger from subcontracting work that its

employees could fulfill. It is undisputed that that clause was

designed to prevent IronTiger from sending to another carrier

(including sending back to TruckMovers) any load once it

appeared on IronTiger’s dispatch kiosk. But to avoid confusion

respecting TruckMovers’s role, the parties signed a letter

agreement providing “that loads not appearing on the

IronTiger...drivers’ kiosk are not IronTiger loads and will be

moved by carriers other than IronTiger Logistics and the

movement of such loads does not constitute Sub-Contracting.” 

It was understood this meant that the union could not lay claim

to loads which TruckMovers sent to other shipping companies

or which were transported by TruckMovers itself.

In other words, the contractual triggering event, allowing

the union to claim bargaining unit work, was the placement of

a load on IronTiger’s kiosk. As it happened, in 2009 the union

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filed a grievance, asserting that twice a load on a dispatch kiosk

had been sent back to TruckMovers. The company promptly

conceded that it had made a mistake and remedied the violation. 

But a year later, on March 16, 2010, the union took a more

aggressive position, asserting that too few loads were coming to

IronTiger. The Machinists claimed that the company was

somehow not complying with the dispatch language in the

agreement. Duvall, the company’s President, insisted that “[a]ll

available IronTiger loads ARE placed on the Board for

dispatch,” and later “ [w]e don’t set the priorities. Our customer

does.” Without disputing factually what Duvall claimed,

Anderson, the union president, responded “enough of this

bullshit,” and “abide by the contract.” (In the meantime,

involving an unrelated dispute, Anderson demanded that the

company reinstate several employees; otherwise, he would

“make [Duvall’s] life hell.”) 

Then, following up on its contract claim, the union filed a

formal grievance, but nevertheless declined to meet with the

company or proceed with the contract’s dispute resolution

procedure that led to arbitration. Instead, the union sent a

request for information on April 12, seeking the identification of

all loads dispatched to both the company and TruckMovers

drivers over the previous six months, the individuals responsible

for dispatching drivers for both companies, and documentation

explaining why loads were dispatched to TruckMovers drivers

and IronTiger drivers. Despite the request for information

relating to TruckMovers, as well as IronTiger, the company

named Dan Houk, a TruckMovers employee, as the one

responsible for dispatching TruckMovers drivers, as well as the

IronTiger employees who dispatched IronTiger drivers. The

company explained there was no documentation relating to the

dispatching; it was done by “system assignment” (presumably

electronically). The company also produced a list of over

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10,000 loads that had been placed on IronTiger’s kiosk and

dispatched to IronTiger drivers over the last six months.1

That led to the union’s further request on May 11 – the

crucial one for our case. The union, referring to the company’s

response to the union’s April letter, asked seven questions

explicitly directed to TruckMovers personnel, including drivers

and dispatchers, as well as TruckMovers procedures.

Then, turning to the extensive list of over 10,000 loads

carried by IronTiger drivers, the union asked for:

(1) the name of each IronTiger driver dispatched for each

load;

(2) the destination and mileage for each load; and

(3) all e-mails, faxes “and other documentation from your

customers to support the loads dispatched to IronTiger

drivers.”

The company’s attorney, Tom Jones, meeting with Anderson on

an unrelated matter, referred to the May 11 request as asking for

“a lot of bullshit,” to which Anderson replied, “Yes I am, but I

need it.”

In the meantime, reflecting the tense relationship that had

developed between the parties, on May 13, Anderson asserted

that the collective bargaining agreement did not even cover two

of the four IronTiger dispatch terminals (where the kiosks were

situated). The union threatened to strike at those locations. The

company, responding, claiming the union was seeking an illegal

modification of the contract, filed a refusal to bargain, 8(b)(3),

charge against the union. Then the union, on July 15, filed a

refusal to bargain, 8(a)(5), charge against the company for

neglecting to respond to its May 11 request.

1

The company also noted that the union had indicated it planned

to organize TruckMovers.

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The company did respond to the union’s May 11 request by

writing on September 27, stating – which was obvious – that the

first seven items in the union’s letter referred to TruckMovers

personnel and procedure, not anything to do with IronTiger. As

for the items relating to IronTiger’s operation, the company

asked what could be the relevance of the driver’s name and

destination of the completed 10,000 plus loads. “This request is

harassment, burdensome and irrelevant,” the company wrote. 

With regard to communications from customers (presumably 

TruckMovers), the company’s letter stated there were no written

communications from customers; requests were forwarded

electronically.

On September 30, the regional director 2

 issued a complaint

against the union for a violation of 8(b)(3). Then, on December

22, the regional director (Solomon-like) issued a consolidated

complaint, including a charge against the company for violation

of 8(a)(5).

Before the hearing in front of an ALJ, the union settled and

posted a notice acknowledging its violation of 8(b)(3). The

union also conceded that the company’s response of September

27, if it had been a prompt response to the union’s request of

May 11, would have been adequate to establish that the union’s

request was for irrelevant information, but it maintained that at

least the last three items were presumptively relevant, and the

company’s delay in responding violated its obligation to bargain

– 8(a)(5).

The ALJ, whose recommended decision was essentially

adopted by the Board (with one dissent), had little difficulty

agreeing with the company that the first seven items in the May

11 request from the union were not only irrelevant, they were

2

Acting, of course, for the General Counsel. 

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presumptively irrelevant because they related only to

TruckMovers, not IronTiger. He also thought the last three

items were irrelevant; they had nothing to do with “the

grievance relating to failure to place all loads on the IronTiger

kiosk.” Moreover, he concluded that information relating to

assigned IronTiger driver destinations and distances was not

relevant. (He did not address the request for communications

from customers.) He pointed out that Anderson’s concession to

Jones (the company’s lawyer) that the information sought was

“bullshit” and “absent an explanation regarding why the

information was needed, confirms my finding that the

information requested was irrelevant.”

Nevertheless, because the last three items sought were

regarded as related to “unit employees,” they were

presumptively relevant according to the ALJ, and the company’s

delay in responding was a refusal to bargain. As noted, the

Board adopted the ALJ’s recommended decision. 

II.

We have little difficulty rejecting Petitioner’s broad-scale

challenge to the Board’s legal policy. The company objects to

the Board’s “rule” that a company must respond in a timely

fashion to a union’s request for presumptively relevant

information, even if it should turn out that the information is

irrelevant. In other words, according to the Board, the burden

switches to a company to respond to a union’s request for

presumptively relevant information. We have previously

approved the Board’s policy holding that some information is so

central to the core of the employer-employee relationship that it

is deemed presumptively relevant. See Oil, Chem. & Atomic

Workers Local Union No. 6-418 v. NLRB, 711 F.2d 348, 359

(D.C. Cir. 1983). And, although we have previously held only

that an employer must timely respond to a union’s request for

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relevant information, see N.Y. & Presbyterian Hosp. v. NLRB,

649 F.3d 723, 730 (D.C. Cir. 2011), we have no basis to quarrel

with the majority of the Board’s extension in this case, to the

proposition that an employer must timely respond to a request

for presumptively relevant information. This is the sort of legal

and policy determination to which we are obliged to defer. See

Crowley Marine Servs., Inc. v. NLRB, 234 F.3d 1295, 1297

(D.C. Cir. 2000). (We understand that the Board’s burdenshifting rule does not saddle the employer with a heavy burden.)

There remains the question whether the union’s request for

information – specifically the last three items in the May 11

letter – was presumptively relevant. There appears to us to be

an obvious defect in the ALJ and Board’s reasoning, even if one

accepts the breadth of its legal proposition that any information

relating to the bargaining unit employees is presumptively

relevant. The ALJ never discusses the last request for

communications between IronTiger and their customer(s)

(presumably TruckMovers). We cannot imagine why such

information could be considered presumptively relevant since it

does not at all relate, by any stretch, to bargaining unit

employees. Neither the ALJ nor the Board answers that

question.3

Putting aside that Board omission, it is conceded that the

first seven items – focusing as they did on TruckMovers – were

obviously irrelevant. The shift in the letter to IronTiger

operations appears rather peculiar because it is apparently

inconsistent with the thrust of the letter. To be sure, the Board

has held that a request for presumptively relevant information

3 Cf. Disneyland Park, 350 N.L.R.B. 1256, 1258 (2007), holding

that a union is not presumptively entitled to subcontracting agreements

“even those relating to bargaining unit employees’ terms and

conditions of employment.” 

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can be included with presumptively irrelevant information, and

the burden of responding to the request for the presumptively

relevant information would still be placed on an employer. See

Oil, Chem. & Atomic Workers, 711 F.2d at 361. Still, the request

must have seemed fishy to the Petitioner because not only did

those items have no connection with the TruckMovers

information, it did not seem to have any connection to any issue

between the company and the union. Recall when the

company’s lawyer described the letter as “bullshit,” Anderson,

the union representative, agreed, and although he insisted he

wanted it, he did not suggest why he wanted the information.

Indeed, the ALJ relied on that conversation to bolster his

conclusion that the last three items were, in fact, irrelevant; i.e.,

that the union had not indicated any need for it. In other words,

the ALJ, faced with exactly the same information the company

had on May 13, concluded that the union’s request was

irrelevant. The Board should explain why, then, that request

should be regarded as presumptively relevant. 

In the company’s September 27 letter – which all parties

agree was an adequate response – the “bullshit” comment was

elaborated. The company claimed, then and before the ALJ and

Board, that the union was seeking to harass the company by

asking for obviously burdensome and irrelevant material. It

appears to us that the company’s complaint may have been

justified, yet neither the ALJ nor the Board ever squarely

responded to Petitioner’s contention.4

 We think the Board must

consider both the Petitioner’s defense and the implication of a

4

The ALJ noted that the company responded to the April 12

request without claiming harassment, but that is a non sequitur. It was

the union’s follow-up inquiry on May 11, particularly directed to the

massive list in paragraph 5 of units dispatched, that could be thought

transparently irrelevant and harassing. 

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rule that would permit a union to harass an employer by

repeated and burdensome requests for irrelevant information

only because it can be said it somehow relates to bargaining unit

employees – without even a union’s statement of its need.

* * *

We remand to the Board for further proceedings.

So ordered.

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