Opinion ID: 5904
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Truck Drivers from Mendenhall

Text: Cal-Maine presented a witness who stated he was a truck foreman at the Mendenhall shipping and receiving office. He flatly denied that eggs from Mendenhall were delivered to the Edwards plant after April 1, 1988. The ALJ did not credit his testimony because the witness was found to be evasive and, thus, unreliable. Furthermore, the ALJ noted that, although the Mendenhall truck foreman was one of six or seven drivers who could have made such deliveries, Cal-Maine called none of the others to testify. The NLRB refused to disturb the credibility finding of the ALJ. In view of the tremendous deference that we afford to the trier-of-fact on credibility matters, nor will we. E. Cal-Maine's Correlation Between Production Records and Run Sheets At the hearing, Cal-Maine introduced an analytical document purporting to correlate egg-receipt log entries with run sheets, i.e., weekly records that track opening inventory, the number of eggs laid, and the number actually processed. Through this document, Cal-Maine sought to show that hens in the Edwards facility laid enough eggs to account for the processing totals at the packing plant. The ALJ found, however, that the analysis revealed significant discrepancies, both overages and shortages, as it tracked each week's beginning inventory, production, and processing totals. The ALJ found that these discrepancies create further doubts that [Cal-Maine's] documentary evidence accurately reflects egg receipts at the Edwards farm. The NLRB agreed with the ALJ that, if anything, Cal-Maine's documentation actually detracted from, rather than supported, Cal-Maine's position. The NLRB refused to consider CalMaine's attempt to explain the discrepancies, noting that Cal-Maine's attempt in its brief to explain these discrepancies ... was provided only in the brief, and not based on record evidence [and, accordingly, that] there was no opportunity for the parties or the judge to explore its premises and methodology. We therefore decline to rely on [Cal-Maine's] discussion of its correlation.'  On appeal to this court, Cal-Maine once again attacks the ALJ's interpretation of the production records and run sheets and argues that the ALJ's finding that the document showed significant overages of eggs on fifteen different occasions was unfounded. For essentially the same reasons offered by the NLRB, we refuse to accept Cal-Maine's belated explanation and instead accept the ALJ's interpretation of the document. Moreover, we observe that Cal-Maine, in its original brief to this court, does not attack the ALJ's interpretation of the records and only does so for the first time in its reply brief. See Reply Brief for the Respondent, at p. 9. As this court has repeatedly held, we will not review arguments raised for the first time in a reply brief. See, e.g., United States v. Clinical Leasing Service, Inc., 982 F.2d 900, 902 n. 4 (5th Cir.1992). F. Conversation Between Supervisor Meyers and Employees Bishop and Foster At the hearing, two employees of Cal-Maine, Daisy Bishop and Virginia Foster, each claimed that their supervisor, William C. Meyers, told them in December 1988 that the management at CalMaine had already bought some [outside] eggs and [was] going to buy more, so as to assure that there was a sufficient supply of eggs available for processing in response to the increased demand during Christmas. The ALJ credited the two employees' testimony and discredited the supervisor's claim to the contrary. Again, the NLRB refused to disturb the ALJ's credibility findings. On appeal to this court, Cal-Maine argues that the ALJ and NLRB erred in giving any weight to the two employees' claims because their testimony was hearsay.6 To begin with, as the NLRB observes, Cal-Maine did not object to the two employees' testimony on hearsay grounds at the administrative hearing. Thus, their hearsay objection is waived. Even if the claim were not waived, we would find that it is non-hearsay under the party-opponent admission exception to the hearsay rule. See FED.R.EVID. 801(d)(2)(D) (admission of employer's agent or servant concerning a matter within the scope of the agency or employment admissible as non-hearsay). The statements made by Cal-Maine's supervisor are highly probative evidence supporting the NLRB's finding that outside eggs were procured well after April 1, 1988. 2) Is the NLRB's decision based on substantial evidence? Cal-Maine argues that the agency's finding that outside eggs were regularly procured by Cal-Maine is not based on substantial evidence. We disagree. The agency's decision was based on numerous pieces of evidence that, in the aggregate, undoubtedly support its finding. Particularly probative is the testimony of Daisy Bishop and Virginia Foster, who testified not only that they had observed various dollies and stickers from some of Cal-Maine's other plants, but also that a leading member of Cal-Maine's management had admitted to them each that Cal-Maine was procuring eggs from outside sources in December of 1988, many months after Cal-Maine allegedly ceased procuring outside eggs. We also are impressed by Cal-Maine's own documentary evidence offered that shows 6 We note that 29 U.S.C. § 160(b) requires the NLRB to conduct its evidentiary proceedings in accordance with the Federal Rules of Evidence so far as practicable. See NLRB v. Augusta Bakery Corp., 957 F.2d 1467, 1479 (7th Cir.1992); but cf. Richardson v. Perales, 402 U.S. 389, 402, 91 S.Ct. 1420, 1428, 28 L.Ed.2d 842 (1971) (hearsay evidence may be considered by appellate court in determining whether substantial evidence supports agency decision). substantial weekly overages of eggs in the Edwards plant's logs after April 1, 1988. Cal-Maine argues that the ALJ and NLRB simply ignored the voluminous documentary evidence purporting to show that no eggs were shipped to Cal-Maine from any outside sources after April 1, 1988. We agree with the ALJ that such evidence, while probative, is hardly conclusive. The various documents—which constitute numerous volumes of the appellate record—were admitted by the ALJ under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. See FED.R.EVID. 803(6). We observe that the commentary to the pertinent rule of the Federal Rules of Evidence discusses many problems associated with evidence of business records, noting, inter alia, that hesitation must be experienced in admitting everything which is observed and recorded in the course of regularly conducted activity. Id. (Advisory Committee Notes). And although the fact that records might be self-serving has not been a ground for exclusion of business records, id., the potential certainly is a permissible matter for a trier-of-fact to consider in deciding how much weight to afford the business records of a party offered in support of its position. This is precisely what the ALJ did in the instant case. Moreover, in view of the various pieces of evidence that belie what Cal-Maine's business records purport to show—including aspects of the records themselves, see supra discussion—we refuse to disturb the agency's decision that Cal-Maine's documentary evidence should be given little weight. Finally, we must address Cal-Maine's claim that neither the NLRB nor the ALJ made sufficient findings regarding regularity, as required by the NLRB's decision in Camsco. We disagree. Although the ALJ and NLRB did not make specific findings regarding precisely when and precisely how many outside eggs were handled by Cal-Maine after April 1, 1988, we do not read Camsco as requiring such precision. We believe that the ALJ and NLRB made sufficient findings regarding regularity in finding, inter alia: i) that there were overages of eggs in Cal-Maine's records, which were documented over the course of many months;7 7 As the ALJ found: Although a lesser beginning inventory may possibly be explained by eggs unfit for processing, a larger than expected inventory raises questions about the source of the unexpected eggs. There are 15 overages between June 25, 1988 and October 20, 1990, the largest an overage of 62,985 dozen on June 25, 1988  (emphasis added). ii) that two employees each observed dollies and shipping stickers indicating that outside eggs had been shipped in late 1988 and early 1989;8 iii) that a third employee observed at least one eighteen-wheeler unload outside eggs at CalMaine's Edwards plant around Easter of 1989;9 and iv) that Cal-Maine a superviso r admitted to two employees that the company had been acquiring outside eggs in December of 1988.