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NLRB V. TRANSPORTATION MGMT., 462 U. S. 393 (1983) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 462 > NLRB V. TRANSPORTATION MGMT., 462 U. S. 393 (1983)
NLRB V. TRANSPORTATION MGMT., 462 U. S. 393 (1983)
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NLRB v. Transportation Mgmt., 462 U.S. 393 (1983)
1. The burden of proof placed on the employer under the Board's rule is consistent with §§ 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3), as well as with § 10(c) of the Act, which provides that the Board must find an unfair labor practice by a "preponderance of the testimony." The Board's construction of the statute, which is not mandated by the Act, extends to the employer what the Board considers to be an affirmative defense, but does not change or add to the elements of the unfair labor practice that the General Counsel has the burden of proving under § 10(c). This is a permissible construction, and the Board's allocation of the burden of proof is reasonable. Cf. Mt. Healthy City Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274. Pp. 462 U. S. 397-404.
2. The Board was justified in this case in finding that the employee would not have been discharged had respondent not considered his protected chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act), 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V), makes unlawful the discharge of a worker because of union activity, §§ 8(a)(1), (3), as amended, 61 Stat. 140, 29 U.S.C. §§ 158(a)(1), (3), [Footnote 1] but employers retain the right to discharge workers for any number of other reasons unrelated to the employee's union activities. When the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (Board) files a complaint alleging that an employee was discharged because of his union activities, the employer chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
may assert legitimate motives for his decision. In Wright Line, 251 N.L.R.B. 1083 (1980), enf'd, 662 F.2d 899 (CA1 1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 989 (1982), the Board reformulated the allocation of the burden of proof in such cases. It determined that the General Counsel carried the burden of persuading the Board that an antiunion animus contributed to the employer's decision to discharge an employee, a burden that does not shift, but that the employer, even if it failed to meet or neutralize the General Counsel's showing, could avoid the finding that it violated the statute by demonstrating by a preponderance of the evidence that the worker would have been fired even if he had not been involved with the union. The question presented in this case is whether the burden placed on the employer in Wright Line is consistent with §§ 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3), as well as with §10(c) of the NLRA, 29 U.S.C. § 160(c), which provides that the Board must find an unfair labor practice by a "preponderance of the testimony." [Footnote 2]
Prior to his discharge, Sam Santillo was a busdriver for respondent Transportation Management Corp. On March 19, 1979, Santillo talked to officials of the Teamster's Union about organizing the drivers who worked with him. Over chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Santillo filed a complaint with the Board alleging that he had been discharged because of his union activities, contrary to 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3) of the NLRA. The General Counsel issued a complaint. The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) determined by a preponderance of the evidence that Patterson clearly had an antiunion animus and that Santillo's discharge was motivated by a desire to discourage union activities. The ALJ also found that the asserted reasons for the discharge could not withstand scrutiny. Patterson's disapproval of Santillo's practice of leaving his keys in the bus was clearly a pretext, for Patterson had not known about Santillo's practice until after he had decided to discharge Santillo; moreover, the practice of leaving keys in buses was commonplace among respondent's employees. Respondent identified two types of unauthorized breaks, coffee breaks and stops at home. With respect to both coffee breaks and stopping at home, the ALJ found that Santillo was never cautioned or admonished about such behavior, and that the employer had not followed its customary practice of issuing three written warnings before discharging a driver. The chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Board affirmed, adopting with some clarification the ALJ's findings and conclusions and expressly applying its Wright Line decision. It stated that respondent had failed to carry its burden of persuading the Board that the discharge would have taken place had Santillo not engaged in activity protected by the Act. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, relying on its previous decision rejecting the Board's Wright Line test, NLRB v. Wright Line, 662 F.2d 899 (1981), refused to enforce the Board's order and remanded for consideration of whether the General Counsel had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that Santillo would not have been fired had it not been for his union activities. 674 F.2d 130 (1982). We granted certiorari, 459 U.S. 1014 (1982), because of conflicts on the issue among the Courts of Appeals. [Footnote 3] We now reverse.
Employees of an employer covered by the NLRA have the right to form, join, or assist labor organizations. NLRA § 7, 29 U.S.C. § 157. It is an unfair labor practice to interfere with, restrain, or coerce the exercise of those rights, NLRA chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
13 N.L.R.B. at 1023. This construction of the Act -- that to establish an chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
At the same time, there were decisions indicating that the presence of an antiunion motivation in a discharge case was not the end of the matter. An employer could escape the consequences of a violation by proving that, without regard to the impermissible motivation, the employer would have taken the same action for wholly permissible reasons. See, e.g., Eagle-Picher Mining & Smelting Co., 16 N.L.R.B. 727, 801 (1939), enf'd in relevant part, 119 F.2d 903 (CA8 1941); Borden Mills, Inc., 13 N.L.R.B. 459, 474-475 (1939); Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 69 N.L.R.B. 440, 454, n. 21 (1946), enf'd, 161 F.2d 798 (CA5 1947). [Footnote 4]
The Courts of Appeals were not entirely satisfied with the Board's approach to dual-motive cases . The Board's Wright chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Line decision in 1980 was an attempt to restate its analysis in a way more acceptable to the Courts of Appeals. The Board held that the General Counsel of course had the burden of proving that the employee's conduct protected by § 7 was a substantial or a motivating factor in the discharge. [Footnote 5] Even if this was the case, and the employer failed to rebut it, the employer could avoid being held in violation of §§ 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3) by proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the discharge rested on the employee's unprotected conduct, as well and that the employee would have lost his job in any event. It thus became clear, if it was not clear before, that proof that the discharge would have occurred in any event and for valid reasons amounted to an affirmative defense on which the employer carried the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence. "The shifting burden merely requires the employer to make out what is actually an affirmative defense. . . ." Wright Line, 251 N.L.R.B. at 1088, n. 11; see also id. at 1084, n. 5.
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit refused enforcement of the Wright Line decision because, in its view, it was error to place the burden on the employer to prove that the discharge would have occurred had the forbidden motive not been present. The General Counsel, the Court of Appeals held, had the burden of showing not only that a forbidden chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
As we understand the Board's decisions, they have consistently held that the unfair labor practice consists of a discharge or other adverse action that is based in whole or in part on antiunion animus -- or as the Board now puts it, that the employee's protected conduct was a substantial or motivating factor in the adverse action. The General Counsel has the burden of proving these elements under 10(c). But the Board's construction of the statute permits an employer to avoid being adjudicated a violator by showing what his actions would have been regardless of his forbidden motivation. It extends to the employer what the Board considers to be an affirmative defense, but does not change or add to the elements of the unfair labor practice that the General Counsel has the burden of proving under § 10(c). [Footnote 6] We assume that chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
the Board could reasonably have construed the Act in the manner insisted on by the Court of Appeals. We also assume that the Board might have considered a showing by the employer that the adverse action would have occurred in any event as not obviating a violation adjudication, but as going only to the permissible remedy, in which event the burden of proof could surely have been put on the employer. The Board has instead chosen to recognize, as it insists it has done for many years, what it designates as an affirmative defense that the employer has the burden of sustaining. We are unprepared to hold that this is an impermissible construction of the Act. "[T]he Board's construction here, while it may not chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
be required by the Act, is at least permissible under it . . . ," and, in these circumstances, its position is entitled to deference. NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U. S. 251, 420 U. S. 266-267 (1975); NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, 373 U. S. 236 (1963).
In Mt. Healthy City Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274 (1977), we found it prudent, albeit in a case implicating the Constitution, to set up an allocation of the burden of proof which the Board heavily relied on and borrowed from in its Wright Line decision. There, we held that the plaintiff had to show that the employer's disapproval of his First Amendment protected expression played a role in the employer's decision to discharge him. If that burden of persuasion were carried, the burden would be on the defendant to show by a preponderance of the evidence that he would have reached the same decision even if, hypothetically, he had not been motivated by a desire to punish plaintiff for exercising his First Amendment rights. The analogy to Mt. Healthy drawn by the Board was a fair one. [Footnote 7] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Board was justified in this case in concluding that Santillo would not have been discharged had the employer not considered his efforts to establish a union. At least two of the transgressions that purportedly would have, in any event, prompted Santillo's discharge were commonplace, and yet no transgressor had ever before received any kind of discipline. Moreover, the employer departed from its usual practice in dealing with rules infractions; indeed, not only did the employer not warn Santillo that his actions would result in being subjected to discipline, it also never even expressed its disapproval of his conduct. In addition, Patterson, the person who made the initial decision to discharge Santillo, was obviously upset with Santillo for engaging in such protected chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Board has not purported to shift the burden of persuasion on the question of whether the employer fired Santillo at least in part because he engaged in protected activities. The General Counsel satisfied his burden in this respect, and no one disputes it. Thus, Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248 (1981), is inapposite. In that case, which involved a claim of racial discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V), the question was who had "[t]he ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff. . . ." 450 U.S. at 450 U. S. 253. The Court discussed only the situation in which the issue is whether either illegal or legal motives, but not both, were the "true" motives behind the decision. It thus addressed the pretext case.