Opinion ID: 3162569
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: closing representation hearing record

Text: First, Salem challenges the HO’s closure of the record before Salem could present evidence supporting its claim regarding the CNs’ supervisory taint. The NLRA is largely silent on the gathering and presentation of evidence at a representation hearing but the Board has provided substantial guidance by regulation. For example, it is the HO’s duty to “inquire fully into all matters and issues necessary to obtain a full and complete record.” 29 C.F.R. § 102.64(a). The hearing itself is “investigatory, intended to make a full record 10 Under recent Board precedent, Salem also challenges the validity of the regulation—29 C.F.R. § 103.30(a)—pursuant to which the Union was certified. Because Salem did not press its argument in the proceedings before the Board, however, it is forfeited. See 29 U.S.C. § 160(e) (“No objection that has not been urged before the Board . . . . shall be considered by the court.”). Moreover, we reviewed the challenged regulation in San Miguel Hosp. Corp. v. NLRB, 697 F.3d 1181 (D.C. Cir. 2012), and upheld it against an identical challenge. 13 and nonadversarial.” See Manual § 11181. Before the hearing closes, the HO is to ask “on the record, whether [the parties] have anything further to add.” See id. § 11240. And he “shall, on the written application of any party, forthwith issue subpoenas requiring the attendance and testimony of witnesses.” 29 C.F.R. § 102.66(c) (emphasis added); see also id. (“The Regional Director or the hearing officer . . . shall forthwith grant the subpoenas requested.”).11 The HO’s premature closing of the record was without explanation. One day after announcing that Salem’s requested subpoenas would issue, he closed the record over Salem’s objection. Granted, the HO apparently agreed with the Union that Salem’s requested witnesses were cumulative12 11 The NLRA contains a similar provision. See 29 U.S.C. § 161(1) (Board “shall upon application of any party to such proceedings, forthwith issue to such party subp[o]enas requiring the attendance and testimony of witnesses”). The Board may revoke a subpoena only if “in its opinion the evidence whose production is required does not relate to any matter under investigation, or any matter in question in such proceedings, or if in its opinion such subp[o]ena does not describe with sufficient particularity the evidence whose production is required.” Id. In Drukker Communications v. NLRB, 700 F.2d 727 (D.C. Cir. 1983), we recognized two grounds (“unwarranted interference with First Amendment rights,” id. at 730, and whether production would “harm the public interest,” id. at 731) for revoking a subpoena but concluded that, in the absence of an express or implied ground, revocation amounts to agency action “without observance of procedure required by law.” Id. at 734; see also 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(D). Salem does not argue that closing the record also violated the statute. 12 The Union argued that “[t]his testimony is cumulative or repetitive . . . we would just object and ask that the testimony be limited.” Representation Hr’g Tr. at 915. The HO 14 but that inference is hardly ineluctable. According to the record, the HO stated only that “the Employer and the Petitioner have had an opportunity to discuss the supervisory status of the charge nurses” and that he was “not going to take additional testimony.” Representation Hr’g Tr. at 916. In her decision on the CNs’ supervisory status, the RD also failed to explain the HO’s failure to issue the subpoenas. Notwithstanding this misstep, the record does not indicate that Salem sought to introduce relevant, non-cumulative evidence and, without that, we cannot find that Salem was prejudiced. See Reno Hilton Resorts v. NLRB, 196 F.3d 1275, 1285 n.10 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (no abuse of discretion where excluded evidence would not “compel or persuade to a contrary result” (quoting Cooley v. FERC, 843 F.2d 1464, 1473 (D.C. Cir. 1988))); cf. Ozark Auto. Distribs., Inc. v. NLRB, 779 F.3d 576, 580–81 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (vacating decision to exclude evidence that was non-cumulative and critical to employer’s defense). At the hearing, Salem simply asserted that it had “additional witnesses who will be probative of the . . . supervisory status of charge nurses” and that it intended to go “through the same kind of questioning of those witnesses as [it] did with [its previous] witnesses and as the Union ha[d] done with their witnesses. It would concern the testimony of [the] Union’s witnesses and embellishment of that position and testimony.” Representation Hr’g Tr. at 914 (emphasis added).13 contemporaneously “rule[d] that [he would] not allow any additional testimony.” Id. 13 In its brief, Salem claims that the “Union voiced no objection to the Hospital’s desire to offer further evidence.” Pet’r Br. at 25–26. But, as we noted, see supra n.12, that is not true. In addition, although the record is unclear, we note that Salem’s 15 In any event, the Board’s determination of the CNs’ non-supervisory status is supported by substantial evidence. The RD made detailed findings14 based on the representation hearing record and her reasoning sufficed to support her determination regarding the CNs’ non-supervisory status. See Reg’l Dir.’s Decision and Direction of Election. Further, the Board finds against supervisory status if there is conflicting evidence in the record, see Phelps Cmty. Med. Ctr., 295 NLRB 486, 490 (1989) (“[W]henever the evidence is in conflict or otherwise inconclusive on particular indicia of supervisory counsel apparently requested the subpoenas as a delaying tactic to prevent the HO’s closing the record. After the HO predicted that the hearing would conclude within one day, Salem’s counsel asserted: “Not if I have anything to do with it. Request for subpoenas, the issuance of subpoenas.” Representation Hr’g Tr. at 805. If this is so, it is indeed regrettable. We have previously noted the sharp practice of Salem’s counsel in proceedings before us and do so again here in an effort to stop its repetition. See San Miguel Hosp. Corp., 697 F.3d at 1188 (“As we noted at the outset, the Hospital unleashed a blizzard of arguments to challenge the Board’s unfair-labor-practice orders. It might be appropriate to suggest that in appellate argument, the proverbial rifle is preferable to a machine gun—but that would assume petitioner had at least a few good arguments; it did not. In truth, it appears to us that all the Hospital sought was the inevitable delay that review of Board orders affords.”). 14 See Reg’l Dir.’s Decision and Direction of Election at 17 (finding Salem CNs assign nurses to patients but process “does not involve independent judgment” and nurses “generally meet and decide among themselves which nurse should care for which patient”); id. at 19 (finding Salem CNs direct aides to perform some rudimentary tasks but “any nurse, not only a CN, may request that aides perform such functions” and “assignment of [these] basic tasks [does not] require[] independent judgment.”); id. at 20 (only disciplinary authority CNs have is to issue “written warning”). 16 authority, we will find that supervisory status has not been established.”), and that is what it did here. See Reg’l Dir.’s Decision and Direction of Election at 17 n.11 (“At best, [Salem] can argue that the evidence is in conflict as to whether the CNs [exercise supervisory authority]. The Board will not find supervisory status in the face of such a conflict.”). Nonetheless, Salem contends that the excluded testimony would have resolved conflicting evidence tending to show non-supervisory status.15 We do not see how, by introducing more conflicting testimony, Salem could have solved the evidentiary conflict. Salem relies on our Ozark decision to argue that parties have a right to present all relevant evidence during a representation hearing. But Ozark involved substantially different facts. There, the employer challenged the Board’s certification because four of its employees allegedly “acted as agents of the union.” Ozark, 779 F.3d at 580. In a post-election objection hearing, the employer served subpoenas duces tecum on the union and on an employee who, according to the employer, had acted as a union agent. Id. at 578. Both the union and the employee objected to the subpoenas on the grounds of overbreadth and privilege. Id. After reserving her ruling on the subpoenas, the HO eventually granted the union’s and the employee’s motions to revoke the subpoenas without examining the documents the employer sought. Id. at 578–79. We found that the HO’s revocation action violated Board procedure. Id. at 581–82. The Board’s Guide for Hearing Officers in Representation Proceedings “state[d] that when confidentiality or other objections are raised to oppose a subpoena . . . the hearing officer should 15 See Pet’r. Br. at 25 (arguing its witnesses would testify that, based on their everyday working relationship with CNs, patient assignment was “hardly ‘collaborative’ ”). 17 consider receiving the material in camera and reviewing the documents to determine whether redacting certain information or narrowing the scope of the subpoena might cure the objection.” Id. at 582. We concluded that the procedural flaw prejudiced the employer because establishing that employees acted as union agents was critical to the employer’s defense; in addition, the HO’s delay in ruling on the subpoenas increased the prejudice to the employer because, had the employer known earlier that the subpoenas would be quashed, it could have “alter[ed] its presentation . . . . All trial lawyers know the danger of the unknown.” Id. We are not persuaded by Salem’s attempt to align its case with Ozark. In Ozark we found prejudice based on both the relevant and non-cumulative nature of the evidence sought to be presented and the delay in ruling, which exposed the employer to uncertainty in establishing its defense. Id. at 582–83. By contrast, because Salem failed either to make a proffer or to provide any other specific evidence of potential witnesses’ testimony,16 we cannot determine that the excluded evidence was either relevant or material. 16 At oral argument Salem’s counsel contended that its proffer was made orally, see Oral Arg. Recording at 3:30 (“Counsel for the hospital explicitly references the house supervisors and the need, in light of the evidence elicited by the Union . . . to put on the house supervisors to explain their duties and also to explain the illogical position being taken during testimony by the charge nurses.”); see also Representation Hr’g Tr. at 914–15 (“[I]t would be the house supervisors” and “it would concern the testimony of [the] Union’s witnesses and embellishment of that position and testimony.”). To the extent we can consider the foregoing a proffer, it hardly tells us what the witnesses would testify to, much less how their testimony could “persuade to a contrary result,” Reno Hilton Resorts, 196 F.3d at 1285 n.10, given the Board’s practice of finding 18 In sum, despite the Board’s unexplained failure to allow a party to submit evidence at a representation hearing, Salem has not, as it must, established prejudice. Accordingly, we conclude that the HO’s premature closing of the record was not an abuse of discretion.