Source: https://openjurist.org/101/f3d/858
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 12:01:25
Document Index: 710696809

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 8', '§ 158', '§ 102', '§ 102', '§ 10', '§ 160']

101 F3d 858 National Labor Relations Board v. Staten Island Hotel Limited Partnership | OpenJurist
101 F. 3d 858 - National Labor Relations Board v. Staten Island Hotel Limited Partnership
101 F3d 858 National Labor Relations Board v. Staten Island Hotel Limited Partnership
101 F.3d 858
153 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3067, 132 Lab.Cas. P 11,714
The New York Hotel And Motel Trades Council, AFL-CIO, Intervenor,
The STATEN ISLAND HOTEL LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, d/b/a The
Staten Island Hotel, Respondent-Cross-Petitioner.
Argued Nov. 18, 1996.
Decided Dec. 3, 1996.
Corinna L. Metcalf, Deputy Assistant General Counsel (Frederick L. Feinstein, General Counsel, Linda Sher, Associate General Counsel, Aileen A. Armstrong, Deputy Associate General Counsel, Washington, DC, on the brief), for Petitioner-Cross-Respondent.
Barry N. Saltzman (Vincent F. Pitta, Richards & O'Neil, New York City, on the brief), for Intervenor.
Joseph S. Rosenthal (Jacqueline I. Meyer, Bondy & Schloss, New York City, on the brief), for Respondent-Cross-Petitioner.
Before: KEARSE, ALTIMARI and LEVAL, Circuit Judges.
Petitioner National Labor Relations Board (the "Board") petitions for enforcement of its August 29, 1995 order finding that respondent Staten Island Hotel Limited Partnership (the "Company") violated §§ 8(a)(1), (3), and (5) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 158(a)(1), (3), and (5) (1994) (the "Act"), and requiring the Company principally (a) to hire former employees of Statland Holiday Associates ("Statland"), a predecessor employer, (b) to recognize and bargain with the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council, AFL-CIO (the "Union"), as the exclusive collective-bargaining representatives of the employees, and (c) to pay those employees past and current wages and benefits, at the rates specified in their contract with Statland, until the Company negotiates in good faith with the Union to agreement or to impasse. The Company cross-petitions for review of the Board's order, contending principally (1) that the administrative law judge ("ALJ") impermissibly reopened the administrative hearing to receive additional evidence that was essential to any finding of unfair labor practices, (2) that there was not substantial evidence to support the Board's findings, and (3) that the Board's order for payment to the employees at the rates paid by Statland is punitive rather than remedial. For the reasons that follow, we grant the petition for enforcement and deny the cross-petition for review.
The administrative hearing was reopened by the ALJ sua sponte with respect to the question of how many applications from former employees the Company had received. The reopening was occasioned by an ambiguity that arose at the initial hearing. At that hearing, a former-employee witness called by the Board testified that she had mailed the Company an application and knew that it had been received because she had received a return receipt. At that point, the Company's counsel stated, "We stipulate that we received this woman's application." "We don't have to go through that trouble." "If you had given me a list of all of them and asked me to stipulate, I would have done that too." "The issue is not whether we received, the issue is whether or not we refused to consider hiring them." The Board put in no further proof as to applications submitted, believing from these statements that the Company did not dispute the Board's view as to the number of former employees who had applied for jobs. After the hearing ended, however, the Company took the position that it had conceded only that it had received applications from former employees who possessed signed return receipts.
The ALJ is charged with "inquir[ing] fully into the facts as to whether the respondent has engaged in or is engaging in an unfair labor practice affecting commerce." 29 C.F.R. § 102.35(a). It is within the ALJ's powers to "dispose of procedural requests, motions, or similar matters ...; [and] to order hearings reopened." Id. § 102.35(a)(8). The grant or denial of a party's motion to reopen an administrative record is reviewable only for abuse of discretion. See, e.g., NLRB v. Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union, 662 F.2d 1044, 1045 (4th Cir.1981); North American Soccer League v. NLRB, 613 F.2d 1379, 1384 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 899, 101 S.Ct. 267, 66 L.Ed.2d 128 (1980). An ALJ's decision to reopen a record sua sponte must similarly be reviewed under an abuse-of-discretion standard.
Nor is there merit in the Company's challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the finding that its refusal to hire a significant number of the former employees was motivated by antiunion animus. This finding is supported by, inter alia, evidence of statements by Stanley Friedman, who the ALJ permissibly found was the hotel's general manager, based on Friedman's having been told by the Company's principal that the hotel was to be "[his] baby" and warranted his full-time commitment. The evidence of Friedman's statements included testimony by Bruce Behrins and Christien Ducker, who had been, respectively, the operator and manager of the hotel during its receivership. Behrins testified that Friedman discussed with him terminating employees because of "the inability of the hotel to survive economically because of the Union." Ducker testified that after she had interviewed a former employee, she informed Friedman that the applicant "was excellent and she was good for [the] front desk manager position, but she was [a] union delegate. And Mr. Friedman said that that settled it, that he wasn't going to hire anybody from the union." The ALJ found these witnesses credible and the Board found no basis for overturning that evaluation. Courts will not overturn such assessments unless the testimony is " 'hopelessly incredible' " or " 'flatly contradict[s]' either the 'law of nature' or 'undisputed documentary testimony.' " NLRB v. J. Coty Messenger Service, Inc., 763 F.2d 92, 96 (2d Cir.1985) (quoting NLRB v. American Geri-Care, Inc., 697 F.2d 56, 60 (2d Cir.1982), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 906, 103 S.Ct. 1876, 76 L.Ed.2d 807 (1983)). The Company has not come close to meeting that standard here.
"In reviewing an order of the Board, we must give considerable deference to the Board's findings of fact and its interpretation of the [National Labor Relations] Act." Waterbury Hospital v. NLRB, 950 F.2d 849, 854 (2d Cir.1991). Given the permissible findings and credibility assessments by the ALJ, adopted by the Board, we conclude that the record contains substantial evidence to support the findings that the Company unlawfully discriminated against former employees on the basis of their union membership.
Finally, we reject the Company's contention that the Board's order requiring it to pay former employees at the rates they were paid by Statland should not be enforced. "The NLRB has broad discretion in [remedial] matters and its choice of remedies is subject to limited review.... We will not disturb a remedial order 'unless it can be shown that the order is a patent attempt to achieve ends other than those which can fairly be said to effectuate the policies of the Act.' " NLRB v. Katz's Delicatessen, 80 F.3d 755, 769 (2d Cir.1996) (quoting Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. NLRB, 319 U.S. 533, 540, 63 S.Ct. 1214, 1218, 87 L.Ed. 1568 (1943)). "In fashioning its remedies under the broad provisions of § 10(c) of the Act (29 U.S.C. § 160(c)), the Board draws on a fund of knowledge and expertise all its own, and its choice of remedy must ... be given special respect by reviewing courts." NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U.S. 575, 612 n. 32, 89 S.Ct. 1918, 1939 n. 32, 23 L.Ed.2d 547 (1969).
Second, if the Company had not violated the Act, it would indeed have been free to offer former employees wages at whatever levels it chose, see, e.g., NLRB v. Burns Intern. Security Services, 406 U.S. 272, 287-88, 92 S.Ct. 1571, 1582-83, 32 L.Ed.2d 61 (1972); but those applicants, in turn, would have been free to accept or decline those offers, or to negotiate for different wages. If it were possible to determine the terms of employment contracts to which former employees might have agreed, we might prefer an award of backpay at those hypothetical contracts' rates. Cf. Kallmann v. NLRB, 640 F.2d 1094, 1103 (9th Cir.1981). But the fact is that the Company made its hiring decisions on a basis that unlawfully discriminated against former employees on the basis of their union membership, and it is hardly clear what terms would have been reached had the Company not so discriminated. "The most elementary conceptions of justice and public policy require that the wrongdoer shall bear the risk of the uncertainty which his own wrong has created." Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, 327 U.S. 251, 265, 66 S.Ct. 574, 580, 90 L.Ed. 652 (1946). The choice between imposing a predecessor's contract terms and fashioning reasonable hypothetical contract terms that the successor might have obtained had no unfair labor practices occurred presents
a set of less-than-perfect remedial choices. The [make-whole] remedy ... has the drawback of retroactively imposing on the [wrongdoing successor its predecessor's] terms and conditions of employment ..., but it has the advantage of giving some recompense to the victims ... and preventing the [successor] from enjoying a financial position that is quite possibly more advantageous than the one it would occupy had it behaved lawfully.