Opinion ID: 617231
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Dixon’s Eligibility to Vote

Text: Felicia Dixon was a housekeeping employee who suffered a work-related injury that required her to avoid certain physical exertions. In January 2007, the Company placed Dixon on a leave of absence because it did not have any medically appropriate “light duty” work for a person of Dixon‟s qualifications. Dixon performed no work for 5 the Company between January 2007 and the July 2007 election. The Board nevertheless concluded that Dixon was eligible to vote in the election, because an employee on sick or disability leave “is presumed to continue in such [employment] status unless and until the presumption is rebutted by an affirmative showing that the employee has been discharged or has resigned.” Red Arrow Freight Lines, Inc., 278 N.L.R.B. 965, 965 (1986). The Company‟s objections are twofold. First, the Company argues the Board should have applied not the presumption of Red Arrow but rather an alternate approach— one which looks to an employee‟s reasonable expectation of being recalled to the job, as advocated by a dissenting member of the Board in Home Care Networks, Inc., 347 N.L.R.B. 859, 860 (2006). Second, the Company claims that the Board‟s conclusion that Dixon remained an employee was not supported by substantial evidence. The first argument is, in this court, foreclosed by our own precedent. We have already decided that the Board‟s Red Arrow presumption is a reasonable, bright-line rule. See Cavert Acquisition Co. v. NLRB, 83 F.3d 598, 603-07 (3d Cir. 1996). The Company does not point to any intervening development that would permit us to revisit this holding, let alone any reason to do so. The second argument also fails. There was substantial evidence to support the Board‟s conclusion that Dixon had not been terminated because, among other things, the Company never gave her any indication to the contrary and the Company continued to list her name on weekly work schedules (which marked her as “OUT”), including the schedule for the week of the election. The Board was not required to credit the testimony of the Company‟s representative concerning a putative policy of automatically 6 terminating employees who are on sick or disability leave for more than six months— particularly in the absence of any credible documentation of such a policy.