Opinion ID: 1545493
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Back Pay Order

Text: The Board's conclusion with respect to back pay points out that the employees within the purview of its benefits would ordinarily be entitled to the sums equal to the respective amounts they would normally have earned as wages from the date of the discharge to the date of the offer of reinstatement, less their respective net earnings during this period. The Board, in this case, because of circumstances of delay which have occurred since its inception, has directed that the usual computation be reduced by one half. Respondents obviously do not complain about this. They do complain, however, about a proposal to award back pay to employees who, they say, have refused or not sought other employment, but stood idly by. The Board says this point is made too late since it was made for the first time in this Court. Of course we do not dispute the proposition that a question not raised before the Board is not properly brought before us upon petition for enforcement. The statute expressly covers that. 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(e). But respondents did file exceptions to the back pay order and did, at the hearing, question some of the witnesses with regard to other employment since their respective discharges. This was true of Russo, who admitted to having refused another job. It is true likewise of Gibbs, cf. Subin v. National Labor Relations Board, 3 Cir., 1940, 112 F.2d 326, 331, Schumacher, Lane and Rydberg. We think that it is open to the respondents to raise the point. The disposition of the point thus raised is, however, a matter of more difficulty. Authority in this Circuit and elsewhere has inclined to the view that the well established rule of avoidable consequences should apply to the recovery of back pay by wrongfully discharged employees. National Labor Relations Board v. Suburban Lumber Co., 3 Cir., 1941, 121 F.2d 829, 834; Phelps Dodge Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 2 Cir., 1940, 113 F.2d 202, 206; Subin v. National Labor Relations Board, supra. But cf. National Labor Relations Board v. West Kentucky Coal Co., 6 Cir., 1940, 116 F.2d 816, 821 (dicta). The Board, however, has consistently refused to go quite so far. Fourth Annual Report, National Labor Relations Board (1939) pp. 100-102. This question met discussion by the Supreme Court in Phelps Dodge Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 1941, 313 U.S. 177, 198 et seq., 61 S.Ct. 845, 854, 85 L.Ed. 1271, 133 A.L.R. 1217. That decision makes it clear that    deductions should be made    also for losses which [the worker] willfully incurred, but that it is incorrect for a court to modify the Board's order to provide for those deductions. Rather, The matter should [be] left to the Board for determination by it    in the exercise of its administrative discretion. [5] Nevertheless, it is a matter to be considered here, as well. We shall not, therefore, modify the Board's back pay order by reduction in the amount these employees could have earned elsewhere after discharge by respondents. We shall, however, insert a modification that the amount (if any) of back pay is to be reduced by that which the Board, in its discretion, finds appropriate to deduct because of failure or refusal of any employee to obtain other employment.