Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/892/449/72331/
Timestamp: 2019-08-20 14:09:04
Document Index: 526517889

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 158', '§ 160', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 8', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 8', '§ 7', '§ 157', '§ 8', '§ 7', '§ 158']

National Labor Relations Board, Petitioner, v. Ohio Masonic Home, Respondent, 892 F.2d 449 (6th Cir. 1989) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Sixth Circuit › 1989 › National Labor Relations Board, Petitioner, v. Ohio Masonic Home, Respondent
National Labor Relations Board, Petitioner, v. Ohio Masonic Home, Respondent, 892 F.2d 449 (6th Cir. 1989)
US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit - 892 F.2d 449 (6th Cir. 1989)
Argued Oct. 11, 1989. Decided Dec. 18, 1989
The National Labor Relations Board (the Board) seeks enforcement of its August 31, 1988 order that the Ohio Masonic Home (the Home) rescind a work rule forbidding off-duty employees from engaging in "publicly hostile or adverse confrontations" on its premises. The Board found that this "limited no-access" rule violated Section 8(a) (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a) (1), by interfering with employees' rights to engage in concerted activities. We agree, and enforce the order of the Board.
Our review of NLRB decisions is governed by the substantial evidence test. We must uphold the conclusions of the Board where the record contains substantial evidence to support them. Emery Realty, Inc. v. NLRB, 863 F.2d 1259, 1262 (6th Cir. 1988); 29 U.S.C. § 160(e); Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 488, 71 S. Ct. 456, 464, 95 L. Ed. 456 (1951). We also apply the substantial evidence test to the Board's application of the law to the facts and may not displace any of the Board's reasonable inferences. Emery Realty, 863 F.2d at 1262; NLRB v. United States Postal Service, 841 F.2d 141, 144 (6th Cir. 1988); NLRB v. United Insurance Co., 390 U.S. 254, 260, 88 S. Ct. 988, 991, 19 L. Ed. 2d 1083 (1968). "Evidence is considered substantial if it is adequate, in a reasonable mind, to uphold the decision." Emery Realty, 863 F.2d at 1262 (quoting Roadway Express, Inc. v. NLRB, 831 F.2d 1285, 1289 (6th Cir. 1987)).
In arguing that the evidence is not reasonably adequate to uphold the Board's decision, the Home claims that the Board misapplied the law by refusing to balance the Home's property rights against the Union members' § 7 rights,1 as required by past decisions of the Supreme Court and the Board. The Supreme Court announced the rule in Hudgens v. N.L.R.B., 424 U.S. 507, 521, 96 S. Ct. 1029, 1037, 47 L. Ed. 2d 196 (1976), that "the task of the Board, subject to review by the courts, is to resolve conflicts between § 7 rights and private property rights." The Court stated that the proper accommodation between the two sets of rights depends largely upon the content and context of the § 7 rights being asserted. The Board provided further guidance in Fairmont Hotel, 282 N.L.R.B. 139 (1986), holding that:
The Board apparently concedes that it considered only the employees' § 7 rights in determining that the Home's no-access rule violated § 8(a) (1); it did not weigh the § 7 rights against the Home's property rights, as the Home contends it must. We hold that Jean Country and Fairmont Hotel do not require the Board to perform such a balancing test in this case. The facts of those two cases are easily distinguishable from our facts.
In both Fairmont Hotel and Jean Country, the demonstrators were not employees of the property owners. In Fairmont Hotel, the hotel sought to ban handbilling by members of a union which did not claim to represent or wish to organize any of the hotel's employees. Union members were distributing handbills to hotel guests asking them not to patronize the hotel as long as it did business with a bakery across town with which the union had a dispute. The employees of the bakery performed no work at the hotel. The union was not seeking to organize the employees of the bakery. The demonstrators had no employment relationship with the property owners and only a very attenuated economic connection. The Third Circuit has recently held that Fairmont Hotel is not applicable to cases involving off-duty employees rather than nonemployees. N.L.R.B. v. Pizza Crust Company of Pennsylvania, Inc., 862 F.2d 49, 53 (3d Cir. 1988). We agree with the Third Circuit's conclusion.
In Jean Country, the NLRB upheld a retail store's denial of access to nonemployee union agents who were picketing to inform shoppers that the store's employees were not represented by a union. By asserting the applicability of Jean Country, the Home fails "to make a distinction between rules of law applicable to employees and those applicable to nonemployees." N.L.R.B. v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U.S. 105, 113, 76 S. Ct. 679, 684, 100 L. Ed. 975 (1956). For the same reasons we find Fairmont Hotel inapplicable, we decline to apply Jean Country to these facts.
Finally, the rule gives the Home the discretion to determine what constitutes "publicly hostile or adverse confrontations." Since employees subject to this rule cannot discern with any certainty what activities will be prohibited, the no-access rule tends to chill activity protected by § 7. The rule, therefore, is unduly vague and violative of § 8(a) (1). See Great Lakes Steel, Division of National Steel Corporation v. N.L.R.B., 625 F.2d 131, 132 (6th Cir. 1980).
§ 7 of the National Labor Relations Act gives employees the rights "to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection." 29 U.S.C. § 157. § 8(a) (1) of the Act makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer "to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise" of their § 7 rights. 29 U.S.C. § 158(a) (1)