Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/362/411/case.php
Timestamp: 2017-10-18 03:58:06
Document Index: 466245948

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 7', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 10']

The question we decide in this case is whether unfair labor practice complaints, whose charges against the petitioners were sustained by the National Labor Relations chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
When the original agreement was executed on August 10, 1954, the Union did not represent a majority of the employees covered by it. [Footnote 1] Under §§ 7 and 8 of the Act, [Footnote 2] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
the Board has evolved the principle, not drawn in question here, that it is an unfair labor practice for an employer and a labor organization to enter into a collective bargaining agreement which contains a union security clause if, at the time of original execution, the union does not represent a majority of the employees in the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In June and August, 1955, 10 months and 12 months after the execution of the original agreement, charges were filed with the Board and served upon the petitioners, alleging the Union's lack of majority status at the time of execution and the consequent illegality of the continued enforcement of the agreement. Complaints were thereafter issued by the Board's General Counsel against the Union and the Company. Petitioners contended before the Board that the complaints were barred by the limitations proviso of § 10(b), set forth above. The Board, two members dissenting, held that the complaints were not barred by limitations, 119 N.L.R.B. 502, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, one judge dissenting. 105 U.S.App.D.C. 102, 264 F.2d 575. We granted certiorari, 360 U.S. 916, because of the importance of the question in the proper administration of the National Labor Relations Act. For reasons given in this opinion, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
On the other hand, petitioners contend that, standing alone, the union security clause and its enforcement were wholly innocent; that they were tainted only by virtue of the original unlawful execution of the agreement; and that, since a complaint based upon that unfair labor practice was barred by limitations, that event itself could not be utilized to infuse with illegality the otherwise legal union security clause or its enforcement. They say, in short, that to apply in this situation the doctrine that § 10(b) is a statute of limitations, and not a rule of evidence, is to circumvent the purposes of the section, and chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It is doubtless true that § 10(b) does not prevent all use of evidence relating to events transpiring more than six months before the filing and service of an unfair labor practice charge. However, in applying rules of evidence as to the admissibility of past events, due regard for the purposes of § 10(b) requires that two different kinds of situations be distinguished. The first is one where occurrences within the six-month limitations period, in and of themselves, may constitute, as a substantive matter, unfair labor practices. There, earlier events may be utilized to shed light on the true character of matters occurring within the limitations period, and, for that purpose, § 10(b) ordinarily does not bar such evidentiary use of anterior events. [Footnote 6] The second situation is that where conduct chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The situation before us is of this latter variety, for the entire foundation of the unfair labor practice charged was the Union's time-barred lack of majority status when the original collective bargaining agreement was signed. In the absence of that fact, enforcement of this otherwise valid union security clause was wholly benign. [Footnote 7] The chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
119 N.L.R.B. at 530. (Emphasis added, except as indicated.) [Footnote 9] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Our view of the matter is lent support by the attitude of the Board itself, whose previous decisions, albeit not always with unanimity among its members or even perhaps with perfect consistency, have recognized that evidentiary rules as to past events must be regarded differently in the two situations we have already depicted. Compare, e.g., Potlatch Forests, Inc., 87 N.L.R.B. 1193, where evidence as to events during the barred period was used to illuminate current conduct claimed in itself to be chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
an unfair labor practice, [Footnote 11] with Bowen Products Corp., 113 N.L.R.B. 731, and Greenville Cotton Oil Co., 92 N.L.R.B. 1033, aff'd sub nom. American Federation of Grain Millers, A.F.L. v. Labor Board, 197 F.2d 451, where the gravamen of the unfair labor practice complained of lay in a fact or event occurring during the barred period. [Footnote 12] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Indeed, some Board cases have gone even further and held § 10(b) a bar in circumstances when, although none of the material elements of the charge in a timely complaint need necessarily be proved through reference to the barred period -- so that utilization of evidence from that period is ostensibly only for the purpose of giving color to what is involved in the complaint -- yet the evidence in fact marshalled from within the six-month period is not substantial, and the merit of the allegations in the complaint is shown largely by reliance on the earlier events. See, e.g., News Printing Co., 116 N.L.R.B. 210, 212; Universal Oil Products Co., 108 N.L.R.B. 68; Tennessee Knitting Mills, Inc., 88 N.L.R.B. 1103. [Footnote 13] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The applicability of these principles cannot be avoided here by invoking the doctrine of continuing violation. It may be conceded that the continued enforcement, as well as the execution, of this collective bargaining agreement constitutes an unfair labor practice, and that these are two logically separate violations, independent in the sense that they can be described in discrete terms. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
119 N.L.R.B. at 516. In any real sense, then, the complaints in this case are "based upon" the unlawful execution of the agreement, for its enforcement, though continuing, is a continuing violation solely by reason of circumstances existing only at the date of execution. To justify reliance on those circumstances on the ground that the maintenance in effect of the agreement is a continuing violation is to support a lifting of the limitations bar by a characterization which becomes apt only when that bar has already been lifted. Put another way, if the § 10(b) proviso is to be given effect, the enforcement, as distinguished from the execution, of such an agreement as this constitutes a suable unfair labor practice only for six months following the making of the agreement. [Footnote 15] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
105 U.S.App.D.C. at 108, 264 F.2d 581 (emphasis by the court). This distinction sacrifices the policy of the Act to procedural formalities. If, as is not disputable, the § 10(b) limitation was prompted by "complaint that people were being brought to book upon stale charges," Labor Board v. Pennwoven, Inc., 194 F.2d 521, 524, it is a particular use of the pre-limitations facts or conduct at which the section is aimed, and it can hardly be thought relevant that the proscribed chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It is apparently not disputed that the Board's position would withdraw virtually all limitations protection from collective bargaining agreements attacked on the ground asserted here. For, once the principle on which the decision below rests is accepted, so long as the contract -- or any renewal thereof -- is still in effect, the six-month period does not even begin to run. Cf. Bowen Products Corp., supra, at 732. In Lively Photos, Inc., 123 N.L.R.B. 1054, the Board unhesitatingly applied the doctrine of the case at bar to an attack upon an agreement executed more than three and one-half years prior to the filing of the charge. The cease and desist order entered in that case directed the severance of a bargaining relationship which had been initiated five years earlier. A doctrine which does such disservice to stability of bargaining relationships could be upheld, in light of the language and evident purpose of § 10(b), only by a convincing showing that Congress did not intend that provision to be applied so as to bar attacks on collective agreements with unions lacking majority status unless brought within six months of their execution. Far chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Labor Board Appropriation Act, 1944, 57 Stat. 515. This legislation was enacted with specific reference to agreements with minority unions, [Footnote 16] and was reenacted in each succeeding session through 1947. [Footnote 17] At the time the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare reported S. 1126 (the Senate version of the proposed legislation enacted as the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947), a rider to the appropriations bill for the fiscal year 1948 chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
S.Rep.No.105, 80th Cong. 1st Sess., p. 26. (Emphasis added.) This language cannot be squared with an interpretation of § 10(b) which would ascribe to Congress, in enacting for the first time a general limitations provision, a purpose to eliminate the then-existing all-embracing limitation specifically applicable to agreements with minority unions. [Footnote 18] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
105 U.S.App.D.C. at 108-109, 264 F.2d 581-582. We think this analysis inadmissible here for the reason that the accommodation between these competing factors has already been made by Congress. It is a commonplace, but one too easily lost sight of, that labor legislation traditionally entails the adjustment and compromise of competing interests which in the abstract or from a purely partisan point of view may seem irreconcilable. The "police of the Act" is embodied in the totality of that adjustment, and not necessarily in any single demand which may have figured, however weightily, in it. Cf. note 7 ante. It may be asserted without fear of contradiction that the interest in employee freedom of choice is one of those given large recognition by the Act as amended. But neither can one disregard the interest in "industrial peace which it is the overall purpose of the Act to secure." Labor Board v. Childs Co., 195 F.2d 617, 621-622 (concurring opinion of L. Hand, J.). @Cf. 338 U. S. 362-363. As expositor of the national interest, Congress, in the judgment that a six-month limitations period did "not seem unreasonable," H.R.Rep.No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 40, barred the Board from dealing with past conduct after that period had run, even at the expense of the vindication of statutory rights. [Footnote 19]
These observations were accepted both by the Board and the Court of Appeals. 119 N.L.R.B. at 503-504; 105 U.S.App.D.C. at page 106, 264 F.2d 579. See also Lively Photos, Inc., 123 N.L.R.B. 1054.
It need hardly be pointed out that we are not dealing with a case of fraudulent concealment alleged to toll the statute. See 105 U.S.App.D.C. at 110, 264 F.2d 583 (dissenting opinion).
While agreeing with my Brother WHITTAKER's grounds for dissenting, I should like to add confirming considerations for his conclusion. At a time when the union did not represent a majority of employees, union and employer entered into a collective bargaining agreement, containing a "union security" clause compelling all employees to become members of the union. Under principles accepted by the Court, this constituted an "unfair labor practice," for it tended "to restrain or coerce employees" in the exercise of their right "to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing." Union and employer continued to carry out the terms of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Such an interpretation, I respectfully submit, is not to enforce congressional legislation, which is our task, but is to fashion linguistic legislation and then apply it. Instead of barring only those complaints "based upon any unfair labor practice occurring more than six months prior to the filing of the charge," the statute is made to read "based upon any unfair labor practice having had its inception chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The essence of the unfair labor practice involved in this case is the making and maintaining of an illegal agreement between upon and employee. Suppose that Congress, having defined such an agreement to be an unfair labor practice, had subjected it not only to civil remedies, but had also made it a misdemeanor. That is by no means a fanciful supposition. The federal antitrust statutes are a prominent instance of the use of the criminal law, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
To find a cognate statute of limitations to be a bar to such a case would be to ignore the applicable precedents. The rules set out by this Court for applying statutes of limitations to conspiracy cases are clearly otherwise. See United States v. Kissel, 218 U. S. 601; Hyde v. United States, 225 U. S. 347, 225 U. S. 367-370; Brown v. Elliott, 225 U. S. 392, 225 U. S. 400-401; Fiswick v. United States, 329 U. S. 211, 329 U. S. 216; Grunewald v. United States, 353 U. S. 391, 353 U. S. 396-397. "The statute of limitations, unless suspended, runs from the last overt act during the existence of the conspiracy." Fiswick v. United States, supra, at 329 U. S. 216. And these cases show that this principle applies even when, as here, the overt acts within the statutory period derive their illegal significance only when interpreted in light of an illegal agreement which was initiated prior to the statutory period for bringing a charge. Certainly the illegalities committed within the six-months period in this case, to the same degree as overt acts in pursuance of a conspiracy already formed, represent "a renewed affirmation of the unlawful purpose," expressed in an agreement which Congress has outlawed as an unfair labor practice. A conspiracy is kept alive by an overt act within the period of the statute of limitations not by reason of some dogmatic postulate relevant to conspiracies, but as a result chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Despite the foregoing, the Court holds, I think, with deference, quite inconsistently and erroneously, that § 10(b) of the Act barred the issuance of a complaint, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
333 U.S. at 333 U. S. 705. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
196 F.2d 415.
In the Gaynor case, the Court, after pointing out that, although the tainted contract had been executed more than six months prior to the filing of the charge, and its execution was therefore barred as an independent subject of punishment by § 10(b), observed that enforcement of the contract was "a continuing offense," and held that the complaint, based only on acts occurring within six months chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
of the filing of the charge, was lawfully issued and "in all respects valid." 197 F.2d 722.
But there is even a more fundamental consideration which, for me, settles this issue beyond all controversy. While it is the burden of the General Counsel of the Board chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Court attributes to its rule the virtues of quieting "stale claims" and of "stabiliz[ing] existing bargaining relationships." I cannot agree that it would do either, for employee rights, occurring within six months of the filing of the charge, are not "stale claims," and deprivation of those rights which, as the Court of Appeals said, "rankles at least once a month in the mind of [the employees] offended," is not conducive to industrial peace, and would not -- certainly not legally -- "stabilize existing bargaining relationships." At all events, and however this may be, these matters were for Congress; and the cardinal purposes chanroblesvirtualawlibrary