Case Name: CITY OF CABOOL, Missouri, Plaintiff-respondent, v. MISSOURI STATE BOARD OF MEDIATION, Defendant-appellant
Court: Supreme Court of Missouri
Jurisdiction: Missouri
Decision Date: 1985-04-30
Citations: 689 S.W.2d 51
Docket Number: No. 66270
Parties: CITY OF CABOOL, Missouri, Plaintiff-respondent, v. MISSOURI STATE BOARD OF MEDIATION, Defendant-appellant.
Judges: RENDLEN, C.J., and HIGGINS and DONNELLY, JJ., concur.
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 689
Pages: 51–58

Head Matter:
CITY OF CABOOL, Missouri, Plaintiff-respondent, v. MISSOURI STATE BOARD OF MEDIATION, Defendant-appellant.
No. 66270.
Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.
April 30, 1985.
John Ashcroft, Atty. Gen., Mark Siedlik, Carl S. Yendes, Asst. Attys. Gen., Jefferson City, for defendant-appellant.
Donald W. Jones, Springfield, John Al-pers, Cabool, for plaintiff-respondent.
Ronald C. Gladney, Clayton, for amicus curiae Mo. State Labor Council.

Opinion:
GUNN, Judge.
This is a public sector labor law ease. The Missouri State Board of Mediation (Board) certified the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) as exclusive bargaining representative for certain employees of the City of Cabool. The circuit court reversed the Board, but on further appeal, the Missouri Court of Appeals reinstated the Board's ruling. We ordered transfer of the case to this Court under Mo. Const, art. V, § 10 and also find, as did the Mediation Board, that the IBEW should be certified as bargaining representative for certain employees of the City of Cabool.
The primary issues for consideration concern the proper scope of review of the Board's decision and the composition of the bargaining unit with particular reference to so-called supervisors.
This old chestnut is jaded and sere from its many years of existence. The germ of this controversy was planted in 1967, when the IBEW held its first meeting with city employees, hoping eventually to become their exclusive bargaining representative. Subsequent disciplinary action by the city against employees for union activities led to State ex rel. Missey v. City of Cabool, 441 S.W.2d 35 (Mo.1969), which upheld, inter alia, the "meet and confer" dialectical provisions of the Public Sector Labor Law, § 105.500-.530, RSMo Cum.Supp.1967 (now RSMo 1978). At that time it seemed as though the matter might be safely interred, but it resolutely continues to periodically resurrect. From the time of Missey, indecisive skirmishing between the city, its employees and the IBEW continued until August 1977 when the IBEW petitioned the Board to certify it as the exclusive bargaining representative for city employees and to determine the appropriate bargaining unit.
After a hearing, the Board determined that the appropriate bargaining unit would consist of all employees within the following departments: electrical, parks and pool, water and sewer, trash, mechanical, and clerical. Excluded from the unit were the city administrator, the city clerk, all temporary employees hired under federal grants, all police and fire personnel and a city superintendent who supervised the streets, parks, water and mechanical departments. The bargaining unit, containing eleven employees, voted six to five on the adoption of IBEW as exclusive bargaining representative.
The city appealed the Board's decision to the circuit court, challenging the composition of the bargaining unit and the participation in the case of an officer of the IBEW as a member of the Board. The circuit court reversed on the basis of the inclusion of an electrical department head within the bargaining unit and by reason of the union officer-board member's participation in the proceeding. On further appeal, the Southern District ordered the Board's decision reinstated.
Preliminarily, we observe that an appellate court sitting in review of an administrative agency reviews the findings and decision of the agency and not the judgment of the circuit court. Evangelical Retirement Homes of Greater St. Louis, Inc. v. State Tax Commission, 669 S.W.2d 548, 552 (Mo. banc 1984). Therefore, the city's challenge to the Board member's participation in the proceeding is properly addressed to the lawfulness of the Board's action. See § 536.140.2, RSMo 1978; Evangelical, 669 S.W.2d at 552.
The particulars of the city's challenge are that Robert Missey served as both a member of the Board and an officer of the IBEW at the time the petition for certification was filed. The city also notes that Missey signed the petition on behalf of the IBEW. As a result, the city raises the two-fold allegation that Missey's conduct violated the proscription of Section 105.480, RSMo 1969 (repealed, Laws 1978, H.B. 1610, p. 246) and that it created an "appearance of impropriety."
The short answer to the first contention is that the statute on which the city relies has been repealed. However, even if the statute were in effect, its design is to prohibit an officer of an agency from appearing before that agency, or receiving fees for services, in relation to a case in which there is personal participation on behalf of the agency. There is no suggestion by the city that Missey personally participated in this case on behalf of the Board. To the contrary, the hearing officer for the Board stated his understanding at the time of the hearing that Missey would not confer with the Board in any way concerning the case, and no evidence of his participation has been offered by the city at any stage of this proceeding.
The general argument that Missey's conduct created an "appearance of impropriety" is also without merit. This presumes that a Board member, being an official empowered to make decisions relative to the labor-management nexus, must be invested (both actually and apparently) with the same impartiality required of judicial officers. However, the explicitly partisan composition of the Board belies any such premise. Section 295.030, RSMo 1978, mandates that the Bord be comprised of two union members as well as two employers or employers'-association members, in addition to one who is neither an employee nor an employer. This composition ensures not impartiality on an individual basis, but rather impartiality based on a consensus of partisans. The participation of Board members in issue-oriented, sectarian activities is thus, presumably, not to be merely tolerated but expected.
The city's second attack on the Board's decision is directed at the inclusion of the "department head" or "section chief" of the city's electrical department in the bargaining unit. This charge is based on the holding in Golden Valley Memorial Hospital District v. State Board of Mediation, 559 S.W.2d 581, 583 (Mo.App.1977), that the term "employee" as it is used in the Public Sector Labor Law, § 105.500-.530, RSMo 1978, "excludes those persons whose duties involve acting directly or indirectly in the interest of their employer in relation to another employee." Id., quoting Connecticut State Board of Labor Relations v. Greenwich Taxi Co., 151 Conn. 573, 200 A.2d 712, 714 (1964). The city construes this holding to exclude "supervisors" from the scope of covered employees under the act. The Board evidently concurs with this conclusion and has developed a set of factors by which it determines whether an employee is an excluded supervisor. The Board concluded, however, that the electrical department employee was not a supervisor. The parties therefore join issue on the scope of review applicable to the Board's decision. The Board contends that its decision must be upheld as based upon competent and substantial evidence upon the whole record, § 536.140.2, RSMo 1978, and the city maintains that the "competent and substantial evidence" test does not totally circumscribe a reviewing court's inquiry into the bases for agency determinations of fact.
However, the "competent and substantial evidence" test does not apply to circumstances in which the agency's determination involves only the application of the law to the facts. § 536.140.3. In such circumstances, the reviewing "court may weigh the evidence for itself and determine the facts accordingly.... In making such determination the court shall give due weight to the opportunity of the agency to observe the witnesses and to the expertness and experience of the particular agency." Id.; Evangelical, 669 S.W.2d at 552. The question implicated in the present case — whether the statute excludes supervisors from its ambit — is a question of law. Such questions are reserved for the independent judgment of the reviewing court. King v. Laclede Gas Company, 648 S.W.2d 113, 114 (Mo. banc 1983). The application of the resulting principle of law to the facts of this case is a matter involving only the application of the law to the facts, such as is contemplated by § 536.140.3.
With regard to the principles of law involved in the present case, the city suggests, somewhat obliquely, that federal law provides authority for the proposition that supervisors are not within the ambit of the term "employee" as it is used in the Missouri Public Sector Labor Law. It should be noted, however, that the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 152(3), (11) (1982), specifically excludes supervisors from the definition of the term "employee." The Missouri Public Sector Labor Law, by contrast, contains no such exclusion. See § 105.500, .510, RSMo 1978. Furthermore, the N.L.R.A. as originally enacted contained no such exclusion, and the United States Supreme Court refused to imply such an exclusion in the face of the plain and ordinary meaning of the term "employee." Packard Motor Car Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 330 U.S. 485, 67 S.Ct. 789, 91 L.Ed. 1040 (1947). It was as a direct response to this decision that Congress enacted the supervisory exclusion for federal labor law. Metropolitan Edison Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 460 U.S. 693, 704 n. 9, 103 S.Ct. 1467, 1475 n. 9, 75 L.Ed.2d 387 (1983).
This contrast between the federal and the Missouri statutes evokes a question as to whether supervisors are necessarily prevented from belonging to a bargaining unit under the Missouri scheme. However, this question need not be addressed in the present case, as the record clearly demonstrates that the questioned employee did not possess "supervisory" authority, either in the ordinary sense of that term or as it is defined by the Board's delineated factors. See supra, n. 2.
The record reveals that the employee in question was one of two employees of the department, who worked side by side. The employee had formerly been denominated the "superintendent" of the department and had communicated directly to the city council his recommendations regarding both personnel matters and suggested projects. Several months prior to the hearing, however, the city employed an administrator who was charged expressly with the authority to hire, fire, promote, set wages for, and generally supervise the employees of the city, along with the power to overrule any action taken by a department head. It follows that any supervisory authority held by the employee prior to the advent of the city administrator is immaterial, unless the evidence shows that this authority continued under the new regime. To this end, the city relies heavily on the testimony of the administrator to demonstrate his policy of delegation of authority on supervisory matters. However, the administrator's own testimony clearly shows that the ultimate authority vested in him under the ordinance was scrupulously reserved by him, and that the claimed delegations amounted to no more than solicitous autocracy with the subjective satisfaction of the administrator as the final measure. Any claimed supervisory status of the employee, whether based on actual authority or his cognomen as "department head," is therefore no more than a sinecure.
The employee in question is clearly not a supervisor. Thus, the Board was justified in refusing to exclude him from the bargaining unit under some supervisor exclusion. No other postulation has been raised by the city to justify the exclusion of the employee from the bargaining unit.
The judgment of the circuit court must therefore be reversed and remanded with directions to reinstate the decision of the State Board of Mediation.
RENDLEN, C.J., and HIGGINS and DONNELLY, JJ., concur.
WELLIVER, J., concurs in result in separate opinion filed.
BILLINGS and BLACKMAR, JJ., concur in separate opinions filed.
. The pertinent portion of former § 105.480.1 stated:
No person who has served as an officer or employee of an agency shall within a period of two years after the termination of the service or employment appear before the agency or receive compensation for any services rendered on behalf of any person, firm, corporation or association in relation to any case, proceeding or application with respect to which the person was directly concerned and in which he personally participated during the period of his service or employment.
.The Board's qualifying factors for exclusion as a supervisor are:
1. The authority to effectively recommend the hiring, promotion, transfer, discipline or discharge of employees.
2. The authority to direct and assign the work force.
3. The number of employees supervised, and the number of other persons exercising greater, similar or lesser authority over the same employees.
4. The level of pay, including an evaluation of whether the supervisor is paid for his skill or for his supervision of employees.
5. Whether the supervisor is primarily supervising an activity or is primarily supervising employees.
6. Whether the supervisor is a working supervisor or whether he spends a substantial majority of his time supervising employees.
7. The amount of independent judgment and discretion exercised in the supervision of employees.
. Many states, unlike Missouri, have excluded supervisors from the definition of "employees" under their public sector labor statutes. Annot., 96 A.L.R.3d 723 (1979); L. Shaw and R. Clark, Determination of Appropriate Bargaining Units in the Public Sector: Legal and Practical Problems, 51 Ore.L.Rev. 152 (1971).
. See Packard, supra; Port Authority of Allegheny County v. Amalgamated Transit Union, 430 Pa. 514, 243 A.2d 433, 436 (1968) (Musmanno, J., concurring) (requiring specific statutory exemption for so-called supervisory employees); cf. City of Grand Island v. American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, 186 Neb. 711, 185 N.W.2d 860, 864 (1971).
. The city has not challenged, at any stage of this proceeding, the existence of a sufficient "community of interest," § 105.500(1), between the employee in question and the other employees included in the bargaining unit, and this Court forbears treatment of that point. See § 512.160.1, RSMo 1978 (no allegations of error to be considered which have not been presented or decided by the trial court).