Opinion ID: 4271420
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Objection to Alleged Threats

Text: PruittHealth next attacks the Board’s determinations that threats allegedly directed at Thornton and Merriweather did not constitute objectionable conduct. We have no basis to secondguess these determinations because they are supported by substantial evidence and applicable precedent. As noted above, the Hearing Officer found that Thornton’s testimony lacked credibility. He afforded her testimony “little probative weight” because it was elicited from a leading question, and he found the record “devoid of any context to demonstrate that the comment” was actually directed at Thornton. J.A. 242. Likewise, the Hearing Officer was unpersuaded by Merriweather’s testimony because he found it “too unclear” to establish that the four employees who had been standing in the group made a threatening statement. J.A. 243. He instead credited the testimony of one of those four employees, Deidre Ward, who the Hearing Officer found credibly denied hearing anyone make any such statement. The Hearing Officer properly concluded that, even if the statement was made, it was not objectionable under controlling precedent. On this point, the Board has made it clear that in assessing alleged third-party misconduct, an election will be set aside only when the conduct “was so aggravated as to create a general atmosphere of fear and reprisal rendering a free election impossible.” Westwood Horizons Hotel, 270 NLRB 802, 803 (1984). We have no grounds to overturn the Board. The findings and conclusions underlying the Board’s decision are supported by substantial evidence. Thornton’s testimony was less reliable because it was initially procured through a leading question. See NLRB v. Furnas Elec. Co., 463 F.2d 665, 668 (7th Cir. 14 1972) (deferring to a Board trial examiner’s decision to accord limited probative weight to testimony that “resulted from the propounding of leading questions requiring little more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer”). And the circumstances surrounding the alleged threat suggested that it was not directed at Thornton: it was a remark made by an individual in a crowd of noisy demonstrators standing several feet away from Thornton’s vehicle. Merriweather’s testimony was similarly unconvincing. She characterized the group’s conversation as “kind of like a debate about the Union – yes or no for the Union,” J.A. 87–88, and stated that the employees were talking in a “little huddle” about twenty feet away, J.A. 114–15. All of this suggests the employees were talking amongst themselves rather than directing threats toward Merriweather or any other employee. As we have previously made clear, this court does not overturn “Board-approved credibility determinations” unless they are “hopelessly incredible,” “self-contradictory,” or “patently insupportable.” Capital Cleaning Contractors, Inc. v. NLRB, 147 F.3d 999, 1004 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (citations omitted). We are “hard-pressed to imagine any legitimate basis for the Company’s petition for review” challenging the Board’s credibility determinations in this case. E.N. Bisso & Son, Inc. v. NLRB, 84 F.3d 1443, 1445 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Counsel for PruittHealth was asked at oral argument whether he had found any case to support the Company’s request that we overturn the Board’s credibility determinations, to which he responded he had not. See Oral Arg. Recording at 6:39–7:12. On the record before us, we find that the Company’s challenge “is at best specious” and “border[s] on frivolous.” E.N. Bisso & Son, 84 F.3d at 1445; see also Cadbury Beverages, Inc. v. NLRB, 160 F.3d 24, 28 (D.C. Cir. 1998). We also reject PruittHealth’s contention that the Regional Director and Hearing Officer failed to properly consider the 15 “significant impact” the alleged threats had on Thornton and Merriweather. See Petitioner’s Br. 28–30; see id. at 29 (noting that Thornton testified that she changed her vote because of the Union’s conduct, and that Merriweather testified that she was so frightened by the statement she overheard that she submitted a letter of resignation – although she later retracted it). The Board applies an objective test to determine “whether the alleged misconduct is of a type that would cause interference with the free choice of a reasonable employee.” AOTOP, LLC v. NLRB, 331 F.3d 100, 104 (D.C. Cir. 2003). “[T]he subjective reactions of employees are irrelevant to the question of whether there was in fact objectionable conduct.” Lake Mary Health Care Assocs., LLC, 345 NLRB 544, 545 (2005). When the disputed conduct involves an alleged threatening remark, “[t]he test is not the actual intent of the speaker or the actual effect on the listener,” but “whether [the] remark can reasonably be interpreted by an employee as a threat.” Smithers Tire & Auto. Testing of Texas, Inc., 308 NLRB 72, 72 (1992). On this record, the Board properly concluded that a reasonable employee would not have interpreted the statements Thornton and Merriweather heard as threats of reprisal, directed at them, for non-support of the Union. The Board’s decision rejecting these claims was supported by substantial evidence and is well within the bounds of established precedent.