Opinion ID: 799696
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mock Card-Check

Text: Trump Plaza also challenges the mock card-check rally and its corresponding certification document. The ALJ recommended overruling the objection on the ground that it was clear to any reasonable viewer that the card[-]check certification was not the equivalent of a Board election and that neither the Board nor the federal government favored the Union's victory in the actual Board election. Trump Plaza Assocs., 352 N.L.R.B. at 634. The Board, however, dismissed Trump Plaza's challenge on a different ground. It held that [i]n the absence of evidence establishing that the Certification was widely disseminated among the unit employees, and given the Union's substantial margin of victory ..., the record does not permit a reasonable inference that the document could have influenced enough employees to affect the results of the election. Id. at 630. Trump Plaza argues that, in so holding, the Board departed from its precedent and, without explanation, set a new standard for establishing dissemination. The Board meets this argument at the threshold, claiming that section 10(e) of the NLRA, 29 U.S.C. § 160(e), bars our review. Specifically, it argues that Trump Plaza was obligated to move for reconsideration challenging the Board's different basis for its decision in order to preserve the issue for our review.
Under section 10(e) of the NLRA, [n]o objection that has not been urged before the Board, its member, agent, or agency, shall be considered by the court, unless the failure or neglect to urge such objection shall be excused because of extraordinary circumstances. 29 U.S.C. § 160(e). The provision promotes the salutary policy ... of affording the Board opportunity to consider on the merits questions to be urged upon review of its order. Marshall Field & Co. v. NLRB, 318 U.S. 253, 256, 63 S.Ct. 585, 87 L.Ed. 744 (1943). Cases interpreting section 10(e) look to whether a party's exceptions are sufficiently specific to apprise the Board that an issue might be pursued on appeal. Consol. Freightways v. NLRB, 669 F.2d 790, 793 (D.C.Cir.1981). While we have not required that the ground for the exception be stated explicitly in the written exceptions filed with the Board, we have required, at a minimum, that the ground for the exception be evident by the context in which the exception is raised. Parsippany Hotel Mgmt. Co. v. NLRB, 99 F.3d 413, 417 (D.C.Cir.1996) (brackets, quotation marks and citation omitted). In each case, the critical inquiry is whether the objections made before the Board were adequate to put the Board on notice that the issue might be pursued on appeal. Consol. Freightways, 669 F.2d at 794 (emphasis added). Although Trump Plaza did not move for reconsiderationraising a specific challenge to the Board's alleged departure from precedentit did emphasize the scope of the mock card-check's dissemination in excepting to the ALJ's decision. See, e.g., Employer's Exceptions to the ALJ's Decision at 2, 3-4, Trump Plaza Assocs., No. 4-RC-21263 (July 12, 2007) (Trump Plaza takes exception to [t]he ALJ's finding that the airing of a television news program, six days before the election, throughout the viewing area where 87% of the voters lived and 100% worked,... did not reasonably tend to mislead voters as to the impartiality of the Board and/or Government.); Employer's Br. in Support of Its Exceptions to ALJ's Decision at 22, Trump Plaza Assocs., No. 4-RC-21263 (July 12, 2007) ([T]he certification message was distributed throughout the voting community....); id. at 28 n. 19 (The misrepresentation of governmental certification was disseminated first via two Trump dealers who attended the certification rally; second by television broadcast...; and, third ... by handouts to dealers who came to the hall....). The Union also argued the dissemination issue. See Union's Br. in Answer to Trump Plaza's Exceptions to the ALJ's Decision at 18 n. 13, Trump Plaza Assocs., No. 4-RC-21263 (July 23, 2007) ([N]o evidence was introduced as to the general viewership ratings for the particular broadcast nor was there any evidence that any voter actually saw the broadcast.); id. at 17 n. 12 ([O]nly two Trump dealers attended this event.). We believe Trump Plaza's objections were adequate to put the Board on notice that the Board's treatment of the dissemination issue inexplicably departed from precedent. Its failure to seek reconsideration, then, is not fatal to its petition for review. Trump Plaza's argument that the mock card-check was adequately disseminated to affect the election necessarily includes the argument that it was adequately disseminated under Board precedent. See BPH & Co. v. NLRB, 333 F.3d 213, 219 (D.C.Cir.2003) ([D]espite the fact that the Company's attack on the Board's new application [of its precedent] is made for the first time before us, the Board was sufficiently apprised, for the purpose of section 10(e), of the critical issuewhether the Board's [unfair labor practice] findings are supported by substantial evidence.). Raising the issue by seeking Board reconsideration would have been an empty formality. Local 900, Int'l Union of Elec., Radio & Mach. Workers v. NLRB, 727 F.2d 1184, 1192 (D.C.Cir.1984).
Satisfied with our jurisdiction to review the mock card-check challenge, we turn to the merits thereof. First, the Board was plainly wrong to conclude that there was an absence of evidence of dissemination. Trump Plaza Assocs., 352 N.L.R.B. at 630. It is undisputed that (1) at least two Trump Plaza dealers attended the mock-certification rally; (2) the rally was covered by NBC40 on its 11 o'clock news that evening; (3) eighty-seven per cent of Trump Plaza dealers resided, and one hundred per cent of them worked, in the station's broadcast area; (4) the certification poster was displayed in the Union hall for six days before the election; (5) copies of the certification were available for distribution in the Union hall; and (6) two local newspapers published stories of the certification rally. Given the substantial media coverage of the event, it blinks reality to say that Trump Plaza failed to provide evidence establishing that the Certification was widely disseminated among the unit employees. Id. This statement suggests that the Board requires direct evidence of dissemination. But nothing in our case law or in Board precedent supports such a requirement. See, e.g., Crown Bolt, Inc., 343 N.L.R.B. 776, 779 (2004) (Where proof of dissemination of coercive statements ... is required, the objecting party will have the burden of proving it and its impact on the election by direct and circumstantial evidence. (emphasis added)). Indeed, a direct-evidence requirement could unfairly burden the party challenging the election, obligating it to poll each member of the voting classor at least a sufficient number to affect the electionto determine whether they were aware of the challenged conduct. In evaluating the adequacy of dissemination, moreover, the Board looks to the gravity and severity of the conduct. In basing its decision solely on lack of dissemination and margin of victory without considering the nature of the challenged conduct, the Board put the cart before the horse. See id. ([T]he severity of a threat is one factor, among several, to be considered in deciding whether to set aside an election.); see also Caron Int'l, Inc., 246 N.L.R.B. 1120, 1120 (1979) (factors Board considers in resolving whether misconduct affected results of election include number of violations, severity, extent of dissemination and size of unit). In Archer Services, Inc., 298 N.L.R.B. 312 (1990), for example, the Board relied largely on circumstantial evidence of dissemination and the severity of the challenged conduct to set aside an election with a substantial voting margin (382 to 41). Archer Services involved a union challenge to an election on grounds similar to those at issue here. The union alleged the employer distributed a documentan altered NLRB ballotthat impugned the Board's impartiality. The Board determined that employees could reasonably believe that the document came from the Board or that the Board favored the [e]mployer, and, given the employer's stipulation that it distributed the altered ballot during the campaign, the Board adopted the ALJ's recommendation to set aside the election notwithstanding the large size of the unit and the decisive outcome of the vote and the fact that only two voters admitted to having seen the altered ballot. Id. at 314. Similarly, in Mount Carmel Medical Center, 306 N.L.R.B. 1060 (1992), the Board set aside a lopsided election (185 to 77) because the employer had posted a forged document in the workplace. Id. at 1060 n. 2. The Board explained that [c]ontrary to the Employer's assertion that few employees saw the document in question, it was distributed to [non-voting] managers, ... posted by the Employer's basement timeclock, on the bulletin board of its fourth floor medical department, and on restroom doors. Id. Thus, the Board held the hearing officer was justified in drawing an inference that the [] document was widely disseminated and therefore could have affected the election outcome. Id. It escapes us how the evidence of dissemination here is weaker than in Archer Services or Mount Carmel Medical. In both of those cases, the Board, relying largely on the gravity of the challenged conduct and circumstantial evidence of dissemination, set aside the election. And it did so despite wide voting margins. Here, however, the Board ignored the substantial circumstantial evidence of dissemination and relied almost entirely on the wide margin of the Union's victory (324 to 149), which was no larger than the margin of victory in Archer Services (382 to 41) or Mount Carmel Medical (185 to 77). See Trump Plaza Assocs., 352 N.L.R.B. at 629-30. The Board has given no reasoned explanation for its departure from this precedent. Pirlott, 522 F.3d at 432. For the foregoing reasons, we grant Trump Plaza's petition, vacate the Board's order and remand to the Board to, first, assess the severity of the challenged conduct to wit, Trump Plaza's contention that the mock card-check constituted a fundamental breach of Board neutrality, [4] Pet'r's Br. 17, which misled voters to believe the election was a foregone conclusion, id. at 33and second, to reassess the extent of the mock card-check dissemination under its precedent. So ordered.