Opinion ID: 308203
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Board's Delay

Text: 7 As it did in Rutter Rex I, the company is alleging that the Board's delay prejudiced its ability to defend and that, therefore, the delay should somehow allow it to escape its liability to the claimants. Specifically, the company claims that the Board erred in refusing to even consider the delay as a factor. In support of its argument, the company continually refers to Justice Marshall's words in Rutter Rex I, in which he said that the opinion was limited to the circumstances of this case. 396 U.S. at 259, 90 S.Ct. 417. Therefore, the company argues, the delay should have been considered anew in the second back-pay proceeding. We reject the company's argument for two reasons. 8 First, there is no indication that the Board did not, in fact, consider the delay. 5 Indeed, there is ample evidence to the contrary. The trial examiner ordered the general counsel to explain the delay in issuing the second specification. Only after the examiner considered and accepted the explanation was the delay factor rejected. 9 Secondly, we explicitly find that the Board was correct in refusing to allow the administrative delay to prejudice the claimants. In Rutter Rex I, the Supreme Court rejected the identical claim on almost identical facts, stating: 10 We do not mean that delay in the administrative process is other than deplorable. It is deplorable if, as the Court of Appeals thought, the company was hampered in the presentation of its defenses to the back-pay specification by the delay. It is even more deplorable if, as seems clear, innocent employees had to live for some years on reduced incomes as a combined result of the delay and the company's illegal failure to reinstate them. It may be that the company could have, through the courts, compelled earlier Board action. But the Court of Appeals exceeded the narrow scope of review provided for the Board's remedial orders when it shifted the cost of the delay from the company to the employees in this case. 11 396 U.S. at 265-266, 90 S.Ct. at 421. 12 In this second back-pay order we find the case against allowing the delay factor to prejudice the claimants to be even stronger than in Rutter Rex I. Before commencing the second back-pay specification, the Board wisely waited until after the first back-pay order was approved by the courts. Had the Court of Appeals decision limiting back-pay liability to the pre-1959 period been accepted by the Supreme Court, a fortiori, a post-1961 back-pay specification would have been of dubious legality. We cannot fault the Board for waiting until after the first back-pay order was finalized before beginning the second specification. In addition, the company had been on notice from the time of the 1966 Board order that post-1961 back-pay remained to be computed. 6 The fact that the company did not offer reinstatement to some of the claimants until 1970 provides further justification for the Board's waiting until it did to begin the second back-pay specification. As the Board points out, If the Board had held the second hearing prior to the May, 1970 reinstatement of the last striker, yet a third hearing would have to have been held after their backpay periods had been tolled by offers of reinstatement.The delay that has taken place in the adjudication of these claims is most unfortunate. Some of the fault obviously lies with the sluggish internal operations of the Board. The company, however, in failing to reinstate as ordered by the Board and by appealing the initial order is also very much to blame. Certainly, it would be both unjust and inconsistent with the Supreme Court's decision in Rutter Rex I to require that the otherwise entitled claimants pay the price for the delay, which was in no way caused by them. We find that the Board was correct in rejecting this defense.