Opinion ID: 392983
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Record Before the Board and Upon Judicial Review

Text: 10 During the course of his administrative investigation, the acting regional director took certain affidavits from Klingler employees and then quoted from and relied upon portions of these affidavits in his decision and recommendations. But, pursuant to the Board's interpretation of one of its own regulations, he did not include these affidavits in the record that he transmitted to the Board. The Board thus adopted findings and recommendations without access to the complete documents upon which those findings and recommendations were, to some extent, predicated. Nor did Klingler have access to several of these affidavits 4 in framing its briefs to the Board and to this court, even though the acting regional director used them as part of the evidentiary basis for his decision. Klingler secured an order from this court that the affidavits be forwarded to us under seal, subject to the Board's legal claim that they should not be considered part of the record in this proceeding. Therefore, we must first address the procedural question whether these affidavits should be considered part of the record. 11 The Board attempts to justify the exclusion of the affidavits by arguing that post-election objection procedures are purely a creation of their own regulations, because the Act makes no provision for such a proceeding. Consequently, the Board has established a regulation defining the contents of the record in post-election objection and challenge proceedings. 29 C.F.R. § 102.69(g). The pertinent sections of that regulation provide as follows: 12 The notice of hearing, motions, rulings, orders, stenographic report of the hearing, stipulations, exceptions, documentary evidence, together with the objections to the conduct of the election or conduct affecting the results of the election, ... any briefs or other legal memoranda submitted by the parties, the decision of the regional director, if any, and the record previously made (in the pre-election unit determination proceedings) shall constitute the record in the case. Materials other than those set out above shall not be part of the record; except that in a proceeding in which no hearing is held, a party filing exceptions to a regional director's report on objections or challenges, a request for review of a regional director's decision on objections or challenges, or any opposition thereto, may append to its submission to the Board copies of documents it has timely submitted to the regional director and which were not included in the report or decision. 13 The Board interprets this regulation to be in two distinct sections: the first sentence specifying the contents of the record in a case with a formal hearing and the second sentence doing the same for all cases without hearings. Thus the Board argues that any affidavits that Klingler wanted to be seen by the Board should have been appended to its briefs to the Board and that, otherwise, they are not part of the record. We note in passing that that is not an adequate answer to the problem before us. The acting regional director relied upon some affidavits that Klingler has never seen, even from witnesses brought forward by Klingler. The only way that the relevant portions of these affidavits could get into the record is for the regional director to place them there, but the Board argues that § 102.69(g) prohibits him from doing so. 14 Previous versions of this regulation and the closely-related § 102.68 specified that any briefs or other documents submitted by the parties to the regional director should be part of the record (emphasis added). Based on that earlier language, this court once held that employee affidavits submitted by the parties must be sent to the Board as other documents within the meaning of § 102.68. Southwestern Portland Cement Co. v. NLRB, 407 F.2d 131, 134-35 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 820, 90 S.Ct. 59, 24 L.Ed.2d 71 (1969). 5 But the NLRB subsequently amended both regulations to read any briefs or other legal memoranda ... (emphasis added). 29 C.F.R. §§ 102.68 & 102.69(g) (1977). Since those amendments effectively overruled Portland Cement, this court has on at least three occasions declined to decide whether employee affidavits submitted by the parties were documentary evidence required by § 102.69(g) to be included in the record. Birmingham Ornamental Iron Co. v. NLRB, 615 F.2d 661, 665-67 (5th Cir. 1980) (declining to reach the question because the employer's factual allegations were insufficiently specific to require a hearing in any event); NLRB v. Dobbs House, Inc., 613 F.2d 1254, 1260-61 (5th Cir. 1980) (declining to reach the question because the employer had full access to all of the affidavits excluded from the record, and any error was therefore harmless); NLRB v. Osborn Transportation, Inc., 589 F.2d 1275, 1281-82 (5th Cir. 1979) (declining to reach the question for the same reason offered in Dobbs House, 613 F.2d at 1260-61). In the case now before us, Klingler has made specific factual allegations and has never had access to 15 affidavits taken by the acting regional director, at least four of which were specifically cited in his decision. We will therefore decide the issue that we have reserved on these previous occasions. 15 It is well established that a regional director may, in the course of an administrative investigation, take confidential employee affidavits and withhold them from the parties. See NLRB v. Robbins Tire, 437 U.S. 214, 236-43, 98 S.Ct. 2311, 2324-27, 57 L.Ed.2d 159 (1978); NLRB v. Golden Age Beverage Co., 415 F.2d 26, 34-35 (5th Cir. 1969). If the acting regional director does nothing more than accumulate these affidavits for his own investigatory files, we would have no objection to his maintaining their confidentiality. In a post-election objection and challenge proceeding such as this, the objecting party has the burden of raising specific objections, backed by specific offers of proof, indicating that unlawful acts invalidated the election. Thus the acting regional director could have made a decision and recommendation based solely upon evidence known to and offered by Klingler. If that had been the case, it would have been entirely appropriate for him to retain the affidavits he did not use within his investigatory files and decline to reveal them to Klingler or incorporate them in the record forwarded to the Board and to this court. 16 But that was not the case here: the acting regional director selected portions of the employee affidavits and cited them as the primary and almost exclusive evidentiary basis of his decisions, without revealing any of them to Klingler or incorporating any of them in the record. Certain of these affidavits were from witnesses offered by Klingler, and certain others were taken at the initiative of the acting regional director or at the request of the Union. A few of Klingler's own witnesses voluntarily gave Klingler copies of their affidavits, but Klingler has never seen at least four affidavits specifically cited by the acting regional director. Furthermore, the Board itself has never had access to eight other affidavits of Klingler employees cited by the regional director's decision, nor would we have such access in reviewing the Board's decision, were we to accept the Board's contentions. 6 17 It bears emphasis that these affidavits make up almost the entire body of evidence that underlies the regional director's decisions. The only other substantive evidence is the transcript of the pre-election unit determination hearing held on June 15, 1978. This hearing was concerned with the supervisory status of the leadpersons and, of course, had nothing to do with the subsequent election conduct that served as the basis for all ten of Klingler's substantive challenges to the election. The Board's interpretation of § 102.69(g) would thus ask us to review an agency action on the basis of a record that is devoid of any evidence on the most material issues. 18 The Board seeks to justify the confidentiality of all of these affidavits by arguing that employees will not be candid during the administrative investigation if their affidavits might be revealed to the employer or the union by being incorporated in the record. But if the affidavits are used as an evidentiary basis for the regional director's decision, the contents so used are no longer confidential anyway: they appear in the decision itself. The regional director could, before incorporating the affidavits in the record, simply screen out the affiant's name and other portions of the affidavit that bear no relevance to the testimony used in his decision. The Board's own regulations require a similar procedure if the affiant is called as a witness at a subsequent hearing. 29 C.F.R. § 102.118(b)(1) & (2). 7 We thus have difficulty identifying any substantial interest in the confidentiality of statements that are actually used in the regional director's decision and recommendations. 19 The only evidence that is actually needed for the regional director's decision is that which is known to and offered by the party seeking to overturn the election. In this challenge procedure, the objecting party bears the entire burden of adducing prima facie proof of facts sufficient to invalidate the election. Singleton Packing, 418 F.2d at 280. Thus the regional director could reach a decision based only on evidence offered by the objecting party. If there is any credibility issue on a point sufficient to invalidate the election, a hearing is required. NLRB v. Claxton Manufacturing Co., Inc., 613 F.2d 1364, 1366-67 (5th Cir. 1980). The regional director may, therefore reach a decision without endangering any of his own confidential investigations because they are, quite simply, not essential for the limited decision before him. 20 Having thus disposed of any argument based on a policy of administrative confidentiality, we will examine the Board's own regulation to see what it requires. In its briefs and oral argument, the Board argues that the first sentence of § 102.69(g) is intended to refer only to cases involving a formal hearing, because it lists many items that exist only in relation to a hearing. Consequently, the record in an administrative investigation without a hearing, such as this case, would be defined only in the second sentence. 21 The Board's argument is groundless because the second sentence simply does not specify what the contents of the record should be in a non-hearing case. It only creates an exceptional means by which a party may place before the Board documents submitted to the regional director but excluded from the record by him. The irrationality of the Board's argument is shown by its own failure to follow that interpretation: the transcript of the pre-election unit determination proceeding was forwarded to us as part of the record, even though this is a non-hearing case and such a transcript is designated as part of the record only in the first sentence of the regulation. 22 We interpret the first sentence of § 102.69(g) to define the record in all proceedings, whether or not a hearing is required. It is immaterial that the sentence includes some items that will not apply to a non-hearing case. That is also true under the Board's interpretation: for instance, there may not be any stipulations or exceptions even in a case with a hearing. We also hold that any reasonable interpretation of documentary evidence includes all portions of affidavits or other documents that are relevant to the evidentiary basis of the regional director's decision and recommendation. 8 The Sixth Circuit has given this same interpretation to the regulation. NLRB v. North Electric Co., 644 F.2d 580 (6th Cir. 1981). 9 We also agree with the Sixth Circuit that to exclude such documents from the record would raise serious due process problems. Id. at 583. See also NLRB v. Curtis Noll Corp., 634 F.2d 1027 (6th Cir. 1980); NLRB v. Cambridge Wire Cloth Co., 622 F.2d 1195, 1197-99 (4th Cir. 1980); Prestolite Wire Div. v. NLRB, 592 F.2d 302, 304-06 (6th Cir. 1979). We need not pursue that constitutional question at this time, however, because we interpret the Board's regulation in a way that does not offend the requirements of due process. 23 Furthermore, regardless of the Board's own procedures, 28 U.S.C. § 2112(b) requires that affidavits used as the evidentiary basis of decisions of the regional director and the Board must be part of the record available to this court in its review of those decisions. 10 Of course, this statute does not impose requirements upon the internal procedures of the Board, but administrative efficiency is certainly served if the Board has before it the same record that we will require for appellate review of the Board's decision. 24 If these affidavits were not available to us, or if they offered the slightest basis for a different action by the Board, we would, of course, be required to remand this case to the Board for completion of the record and reconsideration of the case. Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519, 544-45, 98 S.Ct. 1197, 1212, 55 L.Ed.2d 460 (1978). But as we noted above, the affidavits accumulated by the acting regional director were forwarded to this court under seal. Having found that they must be considered part of the record relied upon by the acting regional director, we have examined the affidavits carefully. 11 We find that none of them contain any information that would add weight to Klingler's case or stand the slightest chance of affecting the Board's action. All of the relevant information they contain was fully and accurately stated in the two decisions of the acting regional director. Under these circumstances, it would be an exercise in futility and pointless delay to remand this case for supplementation of the record or reconsideration by the Board. The affidavits do not add relevant information, but merely allow us to verify that the acting regional director actually had, and accurately quoted, the evidence that he cited. We may, therefore, proceed to consider the substantive findings that he made and that the Board subsequently adopted. 25