Opinion ID: 544345
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sec. 10(b) Time Bar

Text: 51 As a threshold matter, we must consider Facet's allegation that the General Counsel's charge that Facet failed to provide the Union with information is time-barred by Sec. 10(b) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 160(b). The Union first challenged Facet's refusal to provide information in its amended charge filed January 9, 1984. This allegation was dismissed on January 30 and the Union declined to appeal. On February 24, 1984, the Union filed a charge alleging additional unfair labor practices by Facet. This charge did not address Facet's refusal to provide information. On August 3, 1984, the Board's Regional Director amended the Union's second charge alleging that, between December 1983 and February 1984, Facet repeatedly refused to provide the Union with information required under the Act. Facet argues that this additional charge, filed more than six months after the filing of the Union's second unfair labor practice charge, is time-barred by Sec. 10(b).A charge filed with the ... Board is not to be measured by the standards applicable to a pleading in a private lawsuit. Its purpose is merely to set in motion the machinery of an inquiry. The responsibility of making that inquiry, and of framing the issues in the case is one that Congress has imposed upon the Board, not the charging party. To confine the Board in its inquiry and its framing the complaint to the specific matters alleged in the charge would reduce the statutory machinery to a vehicle for the vindication of private rights. This would be alien to the basic purpose of the Act. 52 NLRB v. Fant Milling Co., 360 U.S. 301, 307, 79 S.Ct. 1179, 1183, 3 L.Ed.2d 1243 (1959) (citations omitted). This principle is reflected in Sec. 10(b) which provides in pertinent part: 53 [N]o complaint shall issue based upon any unfair labor practice occurring more than six months prior to the filing of the charge with the Board and the service of a copy thereof upon the person against whom such charge is made.... Any such complaint may be amended by the member, agent, or agency conducting the hearing or the Board in its discretion at any time prior to the issuance of an order based thereon. 54 29 U.S.C. Sec. 160(b) (emphasis supplied). Thus, the six month limitation period imposed by Sec. 10(b) applies only to the filing and service of an unfair labor practices charge, not to the amending of a timely filed complaint. Complas Indus., 714 F.2d at 732. Despite this liberal pleading standard, however, the Board does not carry a  'carte blanche to expand the charge as [it] might please or to ignore it altogether.'  Fant, 360 U.S. at 309, 79 S.Ct. at 1184 (quoting NLRB v. Fant Milling Co., 258 F.2d 851, 856 (5th Cir.1958)). Rather, in an amended complaint the Board only may allege unfair labor practices  'which are related to those alleged in the charge and which grow out of them while the proceeding is pending before the Board.'  Id. (quoting National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board, 309 U.S. 350, 369, 60 S.Ct. 569, 579, 84 L.Ed. 799 (1940)). 55 Here, the Union timely filed its second charge within six months of Facet's failure to provide information. While the Union's charge did not mention specifically Facet's refusal to provide information, it directed the Regional Director's attention to the rancorous dealings between Facet and the Union in the winter of 1983-84. Therefore, the Board's amendment of the complaint to include failure to provide information naturally grew out of the Board's investigation of those dealings. See Fant, 360 U.S. at 309, 79 S.Ct. at 1184. Because the Board serves in an inquisitorial rather than an accusatorial capacity, see id. at 307, 79 S.Ct. at 1183, amending the timely filed complaint to include charges unearthed by the Regional Director in the course of his investigation did not violate Sec. 10(b), see Complas Indus., 714 F.2d at 732, especially where Facet has not demonstrated any prejudice from the delay, see, e.g., NLRB v. Process & Pollution Control Co., 588 F.2d 786, 788-89 n. 1 (10th Cir.1978) (failure to name subsidiary within six month period in original unfair labor practices charge did not run afoul of Sec. 10(b) where subsidiary was not prejudiced by lack of formal notice).