Case Name: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. RHONE-POULENC, INC., Respondent
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1986-04-24
Citations: 789 F.2d 188
Docket Number: No. 85-3351
Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. RHONE-POULENC, INC., Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 789
Pages: 188–195

Head Matter:
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. RHONE-POULENC, INC., Respondent.
No. 85-3351.
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
Argued March 3, 1986.
Decided April 24, 1986.
Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied July 15,1986.
Rosenn, Circuit Judge, filed opinion in which he concurred and dissented.
DeMaria, Ellis & Hunt, Newark, N.J., for respondent; Ronald H. DeMaria, (argued), Peter Petrou, Guy A. Peluso, Jonathan S. Reed, on brief.
Kenneth B. Hipp (argued), Deputy Asst. Gen. Counsel, N.L.R.B., Rosemary M. Col-lyer, Gen. Counsel, John E. Higgins, Jr., Deputy Gen. Counsel, Robert E. Allen, Associate Gen. Counsel, Elliott Moore, Deputy Associate Gen. Counsel, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.
Before GIBBONS, BECKER, and RO-SENN, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
OPINION OF THE COURT
GIBBONS, Circuit Judge:
The National Labor Relations Board petitions for enforcement of its order directing Rhone-Poulenc, Inc., the employer, to bargain with the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, Local 8-948, the union. The employer concedes that it refused to bargain with the union after the Board certified it as the employees' bargaining representative. It contends, however, that the Board should not have certified the union in light of irregularities in the Board-supervised election. We reject this contention and enforce the Board's order.
I.
On December 21, 1983 the employees at the employer's Lakewood, New Jersey plant participated in an election pursuant to a stipulated election agreement. Of forty-five ballots cast, twenty-four favored the union, and twenty opposed it; one challenged ballot was discounted. Within the five-day period specified by 29 C.F.R. § 102.69(a) (1985) the employer filed with the Regional Director a letter setting forth three objections to union conduct that allegedly affected the outcome of the election. The Regional Director advised the employer that within five days of the filing of the objections it had to furnish any supporting evidence it had available to it at that time. The employer subsequently submitted four employee affidavits that not only bore on the original objections but that also included new allegations about union threats and promises.
The Regional Director submitted a report to the Board recommending that it reject the three timely objections and certify the union as the bargaining representative. He refused to investigate the allegations first raised in the affidavits because the employer had not presented them within five days of the election. The employer then filed a timely exception to the Regional Director's report, challenging his disposition of two of the three timely objections as well as his refusal to investigate the additional allegations. A divided three-member panel of the Board adopted the Regional Director's report and recommendation and certified the union.
In order to obtain judicial review the employer refused to bargain. The General Counsel filed an unfair labor practice charge, and the Board, with one member dissenting, granted his motion for summary judgment. See Rhone-Poulenc, Inc., 274 N.L.R.B. No. 129, 118 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 1494, 1494 (1985).
II.
We first consider the employer's exception to the Regional Director's rejection of two of its timely objections. The employer objected first that representatives of the union "knowingly misrepresented to the eligible voters within the unit that the 'bylaws' of the National Labor Relations Board prohibit an employer from reducing any existing wage and benefits once a union wins the right to represent employees." Joint Appendix at 1. It also objected that the union, via two letters, misled the eligible voters into thinking that the Board was not absolutely neutral in the election. In the first letter Henry Santos, the president of the union, wrote, "Eveything [sic] I have stated here can be verified through Dawn Miller, she is the representative assigned to this election. She works for the Labor Board in Philadelphia." Joint Appendix at 4. And in the second letter he stated,
I spoke to Ms. Dawn Miller of the National Labor Board and told her of the company's threat of loss of benefits, she admits it is against the law and advises me to file a charge against the company with the N.L.R.B. I will discuss this with all of you on the 17th.
Joint Appendix at 5.
Treating the two objections as presenting the single issue of whether a misrepresentation by an election participant invalidates an election outcome and assuming that Mr. Santos's statements reached the eligible voters, the Regional Director ruled that the misrepresentations did not justify setting aside the election. In so ruling the Regional Director applied the rule, announced in Midland National Life Insurance Co., 263 N.L.R.B. 127, 131 (1982), that the Board would not probe the truth or falsity of campaign statements recognizable as originating with one of the partisans in an election.
The employer contends that the Midland rule should not apply in cases involving partisan misrepresentations about Board actions or positions. In so contending it asks us to ignore established Board policy. In Affiliated Midwest Hospital, Inc. d/b/a Riveredge Hospital, 264 N.L.R.B. 1094 (1982), the Board, overruling its holding in Formco, Inc., 233 N.L.R.B. 61 (1977), held that, for purposes of assessing the validity of election results, it would treat partisan misrepresentations concerning Board actions or positions no differently than it treats other misrepresentations. See 264 N.L.R.B. at 1094-95; see also SDC Investment, Inc., 274 N.L.R.B. No. 78, 118 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 1410, 1411-12 (1985). Thus, while the introduction to eligible voters of forged or altered Board documents may still result in the setting aside of an election because the partisan nature of such misrepresentations is not evident, partisan misrepresentations recognizable as such will not. See The Coca Cola/Dr. Pepper Bottling Company of Memphis, 273 N.L.R.B. No. 68, 118 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 1225, 1226 (1984) (rejecting objection that union official's oral misrepresentation invalidated election); Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 266 N.L.R.B. 507, 507-08 (1983) (rejecting objection that employer's oral misrepresentation invalidated election); County Line Cheese Co., 265 N.L.R.B. 1519, 1519 (1982) (rejecting objection that employer's written misrepresentation invalidated election).
In light of the fact that the Midland rule clearly applies in the circumstances of this case, we can set aside the Board certification here only if we conclude that the Midland rule runs afoul either of section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 159(c) (1982), or of the Board's own election rules. See NLRB v. ARA Services, Inc., 717 F.2d 57, 63-68 (3d Cir.1983) (en banc) (plurality opinion). We conclude that it does neither. Indeed the Board's adoption of the Midland rule — a move that marks a return to the position initially taken by the Board in Shopping Kart Food Market, Inc., 228 N.L.R.B. 1311, 1313 (1977), and a move based on the Board's appraisal of the likely effects of partisan misrepresentations on employee free choice — is consistent with both the statute and the rules governing elections and is entitled to our deference.
III.
We turn next to the employer's exception to the Regional Director's decision not to investigate the allegations the employer made after it filed its original objections. In its response to the Board's request for evidence supporting its three timely objections, the employer submitted, without comment or explanation, hearsay evidence alleging that one employee had made a threatening statement to other employees about the consequences of a union defeat and alleging further that another employee had been promised a promotion to shop steward if the union were to prevail. That evidence was entirely unrelated to the timely objections. Relying on Burns International Security Services, Inc., 256 N.L. R.B. 959 (1981), which stands for the proposition that an employer may not expand timely-filed objections by furnishing evidence of unrelated objections unless it establishes that the evidence is newly-discovered and was previously unavailable, see id. at 959-60, the Regional Director refused to investigate these allegations because the evidence neither was newly-discovered nor had it been previously unavailable to the employer.
The employer does not contest the applicability of the Bums rule to the facts of this case. Rather, it asserts that this court's decision in NLRB v. Campbell Products Department, 623 F.2d 876 (3d Cir.1980), precludes adherence to the Bums rule. In Campbell Products we held that a Regional Director who had refused to investigate untimely objections to an election abused his discretion because he acted inconsistently with the policy announced by the Board in American Safety Equipment Corp., 234 N.L.R.B. 501 (1978). See 623 F.2d at 880-82. In American Safety Equipment the Board held that a Regional Director should set aside an election if he or she receives or discovers evidence during an investigation that shows that the election has been tainted in a manner different from that suggested by a timely objection. See 234 N.L.R.B. at 501. This court noted in Campbell Products, however, that the Board was free to change the American Safety Equipment rule and to insist instead on strict compliance with its rule on the time for the filing of objections: "Having adopted the policy reaffirmed in American Safety Equipment, the Board retains the discretion to change its mind expressly and substitute a strict compliance policy." 623 F.2d at 882 n. 4.
In Bums the Board did exactly what we said in Campbell Products it was free to do. It limited its holding in American Safety Equipment, explaining that while the Regional Directors would have discretion to determine the scope of an investigation, they could consider new objections only if those objections were based on evidence that was newly-discovered and had been previously unavailable. .
The rules with respect to the filing of objections to election conduct, including those dealing with the time of filing of objections and the method of investigating them, are all Board-made rules. In Campbell Products we acknowledged that the Board had discretion to interpret those rules as requiring strict compliance. Obviously the court had to acknowledge the Board's authority in that respect, for section 9 of the National Labor Relations Act confers on the Board, not on the courts, the responsibility for supervising the choice of bargaining representatives. Chas. S. Winner v. Teamsters Local Union No. 115, 777 F.2d 861, 863-64 (3d Cir.1985). The Board has exercised that authority, and the Bums rule is entirely consistent with the Board's responsibility to resolve promptly disputes over employee selection of bargaining representatives. The employer's exception to the Regional Director's adherence to Burns is without merit.
IV.
The Board did not err in holding that the two timely objections were insufficient to warrant setting aside the election. Nor did the Board err in declining to consider untimely objections that were based on evidence that neither was newly-discovered nor had been previously unavailable to the employer. The Board's order will, therefore, be enforced.
. See Aircraft Radio Corp. v. NLRB, 519 F.2d 590, 591 n. 2 (3d Cir.1975).
. The Board reasoned,
The scheme of our objections procedure allows the losing party five working days after
the results are tallied in which to discover the possibility of serious misconduct which might warrant setting the election aside and to file objections. The objecting party is given a further, limited period of time in which to complete its private investigation of that alleged misconduct and promptly turn the results over to the Regional Director, who then investigates and takes appropriate action as expeditiously as thoroughness allows. The Regional Director's investigation is neither to be perfunctory nor, ordinarily, protracted. If material facts are in dispute the administrative investigation is suspended and the dispute is resolved through a hearing. But the scope of the investigation, as we made clear in American Safety, is within the informed discretion of the Regional Director. The investigation is in his or her hands; the period during which the investigation proceeds was never intended to provide more time for the objecting party to extend its own investigation in the hope of finding a basis for objection that lies beyond the matters covered in the Regional Director's investigation.
The objecting party may bring to the Regional Director's attention any newly discovered evidence that bears directly on the timely objections, for such evidence is more apt to aid than to encumber him. The interest in insuring the employees were not coerced also warrants the Regional Director's consideration of unrelated misconduct, unknown to the objecting party at the time the objections were filed, the existence of which comes to its attention while the Regional Director is conducting his investigation. However, since consideration of such matters might enlarge the scope and delay the conclusion of the investigation, they normally should be considered only upon presentation of clear and convincing proof that they are not only newly discovered, but also, previously unavailable. We deem this limitation necessary in order to discourage both the piecemeal submission of evidence and the leisurely continuation of private investigations while the investigation should be under the control of the Regional Director.
. We expect that previously unavailable evidence, when truly encountered, usually will have come to the objecting party's attention unsolicited, not through a continuation of its own investigation.
265 N.L.R.B. at 960.