Opinion ID: 762539
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Compliance Specification and the Remedial Order

Text: 27 As discussed in greater detail in Part II.C.2. below, in late May 1995, Thalbo sent DiMilta notice of an opening for a desk clerk at the Hotel. Upon contacting the Hotel's manager, DiMilta learned that the position would require her to work principally nights on weekends rather than days during the week, would pay her wages below the compensation she had previously earned as a Hotel bartender, and that her previously accrued seniority and other benefits would not be honored. DiMilta declined to take the position. 28 On July 25, 1995, Thalbo advised DiMilta of a desk clerk position principally for weekdays, at a wage level closer to her prior compensation. DiMilta initially accepted the July 1995 position, though she soon thereafter rescinded her acceptance in order to take a job with another company. 29 In November 1995, the Board's regional director issued a compliance specification seeking an order directing the Company to pay DiMilta backpay for the period February 7, 1991, to July 25, 1995, reduced by DiMilta's earnings from Stewart and the amounts awarded in the Title VII lawsuit. Thalbo objected to any award of backpay, contending that such an award was foreclosed either by principles of collateral estoppel as a result of the judgment in the Title VII lawsuit or by DiMilta's testimony in that case that she had retired in October 1992. Alternatively, Thalbo contended that the backpay period should be shorter than that sought by the regional director, either because G.B. Motel was dissolved in August 1994 or because Thalbo offered DiMilta reinstatement in May 1995. 30 At the administrative hearings as to the amount of backpay due, DiMilta testified that her responses in the lawsuit deposition that she had retired in 1992 were not true and had largely been the result of nervousness at having her deposition taken and being forced to describe her supervisor's licentious acts. The evidence at the administrative hearings also included testimony by DiMilta describing her efforts to find work after being laid off at Stewart, along with more than 80 pages of written records showing the names of employers she contacted from September 1992 to July 1995. Thalbo presented evidence with regard to the 1994 dissolution of G.B. Motel and the transfer of Hotel bar/restaurant operations to a different company. 31 Following the hearings, the ALJ issued the supplemental decision adopted in Thalbo III, rejecting all of the Company's objections. The ALJ dismissed Thalbo's collateral estoppel argument on the principal ground that the NLRB had not been a party to the Title VII action and therefore could not be bound by the district court's rulings. The ALJ noted that Board law is clear and consistent [that] .... [t]he Board is not precluded from litigating an issue involving the enforcement of the National Relations Act that a private party has litigated unsuccessfully, when the Board was not a party to the private litigation. Thalbo III, 323 N.L.R.B. at 634. The ALJ explained that this position 32 is premised on Section 10(a) of the Act which sets forth that the Board's power to prevent unfair labor practices shall not be affected by any other means of adjustment or prevention that had, [sic ] has been or may be established by agreement, law, or otherwise, [29 U.S.C. § 160(a),] as well as the long-recognized principle that [']Congress has entrusted to the Board exclusively the prosecution of the proceeding by its own complaint, the conduct of the hearing, the adjudication and the granting of appropriate relief. The Board, as a public agency acting in the public interest, not any person or group, not any employee or group of employees, is chosen as the instrument to assure protection from the described unfair conduct in order to remove obstructions to interstate commerce. ['] Field Bridge[ Associates, 306 N.L.R.B. 322 (1992), enforced sub nom. Local 32B-32J Service Employees International Union v. NLRB, 982 F.2d 845 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 509 U.S. 904, 113 S.Ct. 2995, 125 L.Ed.2d 689 (1993) ], citing Amalgamated Utility Workers v. Consolidated Edison Co., ... 309 U.S. [261, 265, 60 S.Ct. 561, 84 L.Ed. 738] (1940). 33 Thalbo III, 323 N.L.R.B. at 634. 34 Turning to the evidence as to DiMilta's job-search efforts, the ALJ found that it was reasonable that [DiMilta] may have been so upset at having to testify about the serious and humiliating incidents of sexual harassment, that she may have not been fully concentrating on her answers. Id. at 636 (footnote omitted). The ALJ found that DiMilta had not in fact left the job market, as he credited her testimony with regard to her efforts to find new work after being laid off at Stewart, noting that that testimony was supported by her extensive records. He concluded that the Company had not carried its burden of showing that DiMilta failed to make a reasonable good-faith effort to find jobs. Id. at 635-36. 35 For the reasons discussed in Part II.C. below, the ALJ also rejected the Company's contentions that the backpay period ended prior to July 1995. The total backpay award, after giving Thalbo credit for the amounts earned by DiMilta at Stewart and the amounts awarded in the Title VII lawsuit, was $40,410.24. This petition for enforcement followed.