Opinion ID: 815978
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: At its inception, this appears to be a routine review of a decision of the National Labor Relations Board over which we have jurisdiction under 29 U.S.C. § 160(e) and (f), providing that petitions for review of Board orders may be filed in this court. The Board issued its order on February 8, 2012. On February 24, 2012, the company filed a petition for review in this court, and the Board filed its cross-application for enforcement on March 20, 2012. While the posture of the petition is routine, as it developed, our review is not. In its brief before us, Noel Canning (along with a movant for status as intervenor whose motion we will dismiss for reasons set forth hereinafter) questions the authority of the Board to issue the order on two constitutional grounds. First, petitioner asserts that the Board lacked authority to act for want of a quorum, as three members of the five-member Board were never validly appointed because they took office under putative recess appointments which were made when the Senate was not in recess. Second, it asserts that the vacancies these three members purportedly filled did not “happen during the Recess of the 4 Senate,” as required for recess appointments by the Constitution. U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 3. Because the Board must have a quorum in order to lawfully take action, if petitioner is correct in either of these assertions, then the order under review is void ab initio. See New Process Steel, L.P. v. NLRB, 130 S. Ct. 2635 (2010). Before we can even consider the constitutional issues, however, we must first rule on statutory objections to the Board’s order raised by Noel Canning. It is a well-settled principle of constitutional adjudication that courts “will not pass upon a constitutional question although properly presented by the record, if there is also present some other ground upon which the case may be disposed of.” Ashwander v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 297 U.S. 288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring); see also Spector Motor Serv., Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U.S. 101, 105 (1944); United States v. Waksberg, 112 F.3d 1225, 1227 (D.C. Cir. 1997). We must therefore decide whether Noel Canning is entitled to relief on the basis of its nonconstitutional arguments before addressing the constitutional question. Noel Canning raises two statutory arguments. First, it contends that the ALJ’s conclusion that the parties in fact reached an agreement at their final negotiation session is not supported by substantial evidence. Second, it argues that even if such an agreement were reached, it is unenforceable under Washington law. We address each argument in turn.
Refusal to execute a written collective bargaining agreement incorporating terms agreed upon during negotiations is an unfair labor practice under section 8(a)(1) and (5) of the NLRA. H. J. Heinz Co. v. NLRB, 311 U.S. 514, 525–26 (1941). Whether the parties reached an agreement during negotiations is a question of fact. See NLRB v. Int’l Bhd. of Elec. Workers, 5 748 F.2d 348, 350 (8th Cir. 1984); NLRB v. Roll & Hold Div. Area Transp. Co., 957 F.2d 328, 331 (7th Cir. 1992). We therefore must affirm the Board’s conclusion that an agreement was in fact reached if that conclusion is supported by substantial evidence. 29 U.S.C. § 160(e). Noel Canning and the Union had in the past enjoyed a long collective bargaining relationship, but the parties were unable to reach a new agreement before their most recent one expired in April 2010. Negotiations began in June 2010. By the time the parties met for their final negotiation session in December 2010, all issues save wages and pensions had been resolved. According to notes taken by Union negotiators at the parties’ final negotiating session, the parties agreed to present two alternative contract proposals to the Union membership: one preferred by Noel Canning management and the other by the Union. Each proposal included wage and pension increases but allocated the increases differently. The notes reveal that the Union proposal put no limit on the membership’s right to decide how much of the $0.40 per hour pay increase to allocate to its pension fund. According to the notes and Union witnesses, the parties agreed that both proposals would be submitted to the Union membership for a ratification vote and that the parties would be bound by the outcome of that vote. Union negotiators testified that after the parties read aloud the terms of the two proposals, Noel Canning’s president stood and said “let’s do it.” Deferred Appendix 78. A Noel Canning officer agreed to email the terms to the Union the next day. After the company agreed to allow the Union to use a company conference room to hold the vote, the negotiators shook hands and departed. The next day, Noel Canning management emailed the Union the wage and pension terms of the two proposals. According to the email, however, the Union proposal capped at $0.10 the amount of the $0.40 pay increase that the membership 6 could devote to its pension fund. The email thus conflicted with the Union negotiators’ notes, which left the allocation question entirely to the membership. When the chief Union negotiator, Bob Koerner, called Noel Canning’s president to discuss the discrepancy, the president responded that since the agreement was not in writing, it was not binding. The vote took place anyway, and the membership ratified the Union’s preferred proposal, which allocated the entire pay increase to the pension fund. Noel Canning posted a letter informing the Union that the company considered the ratification vote to be a counteroffer, which the company rejected, and declared the parties to be at an impasse. Noel Canning subsequently refused to execute a written agreement embodying the terms ratified by the Union. The Union filed an unfair labor practice charge premised on Noel Canning’s refusal to execute the written agreement. After a two-day hearing, the ALJ determined that the parties had in fact achieved consensus ad idem as to the terms of the Union’s preferred proposal and that Noel Canning’s refusal to execute the written agreement constituted an unfair labor practice under section 8(a)(1) and (5) of the NLRA. The ALJ ordered Noel Canning to sign the collective bargaining agreement. Noel Canning timely filed exceptions to the ALJ’s decision, and the Board affirmed. Unsurprisingly, the parties’ testimony at the ALJ hearing conflicted over whether the parties in fact agreed to the terms of the Union proposal. The ALJ’s decision thus rested almost entirely on his determination of the witnesses’ credibility. Assessing the conflicting testimony, the ALJ determined that because the Union witnesses’ testimony was corroborated by contemporaneous notes taken during the December 2010 negotiation session, the Union’s witnesses were credible. In contrast, he determined that Noel Canning’s witnesses were not credible because they neither “produced notes of the meeting 7 [n]or explained why no notes were available” and because their testimony was “abbreviated, conclusionary, nonspecific, and unconvincing.” Board Decision at 7 (ALJ Op.). We are loathe to overturn the credibility determinations of an ALJ unless they are “hopelessly incredible, selfcontradictory, or patently insupportable.” Stephens Media, LLC v. NLRB, 677 F.3d 1241, 1250 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the ALJ chose the corroborated testimony of Union negotiators over the unsupported testimony of Noel Canning employees. And given undisputed testimony that at least one Noel Canning representative took notes of the meeting, the ALJ weighed Noel Canning’s failure to corroborate its testimony against it. As we noted, the ALJ also found Noel Canning’s witnesses’ testimony to be unspecific and abbreviated. In Monmouth Care Center v. NLRB, we found no reason to set aside a credibility determination where “the ALJ credited the testimony of the union’s negotiator over that of the petitioners’ representatives . . . based on a combination of testimonial demeanor and a lack of specificity and internal corroboration for the petitioners’ claims.” 672 F.3d 1085, 1091 (D.C. Cir. 2012). The ALJ made a nearly identical determination here, and we discern no reason to disturb it. Noel Canning nevertheless claims that Koerner’s testimony is plagued by inconsistencies. But the inconsistencies and contradictions it identifies are either irrelevant or merely the result of the competing testimony of the two parties’ witnesses. There is nothing in the Union testimony — corroborated by contemporaneous notes — that hints at hopeless incredibility or self-contradiction. Noel Canning thus relies on what it alleges to be an inconsistency between Koerner’s testimony and his affidavit. The affidavit, which is not in the record, apparently contained 8 the following sentence, referring to the parties’ tentative agreement as “TA”: “I was voting the contract on Wednesday and that I would vote what we TA’d during the December 8th meeting — noting different than TA’d.” Deferred Appendix 74. When asked at the ALJ hearing if he saw any errors in his affidavit, Koerner claimed he saw none but struggled to explain what the language meant. Noel Canning contends that the affidavit is an explicit admission that Koerner presented an offer to the Union that was materially different from the one agreed upon by the parties and therefore contradicts his testimony. The ALJ rejected Noel Canning’s interpretation, concluding that the sentence suffered from a typographical error — “noting” should have been “nothing” — and that the error accounted for the witness’s inability to explain the affidavit’s meaning. Board Decision at 5 n.8 (ALJ Op.). We conceive of no reason to disagree. As written, the language of the affidavit is confusing and becomes intelligible only if the typographical error pointed out by the ALJ is corrected. Moreover, the ALJ specifically determined that the witness was confused by the affidavit, not that he was trying to conceal deception, as Noel Canning contends. We are “illpositioned to second-guess” that determination. W.C. McQuaide, Inc. v. NLRB, 133 F.3d 47, 53 (D.C. Cir. 1998). And even assuming that Noel Canning’s reading is correct, it does not support the company’s chief argument before the Board — that the parties failed to reach any agreement at the December 2010 negotiation session — because even the affidavit evinces that the parties reached some sort of agreement. Given the deference we owe to the ALJ’s credibility determinations, the consistency between the negotiators’ notes and the deal the membership approved, and the lack of any evidence otherwise suggesting that Koerner was an incredible witness, this case is not the rare one in which we will overturn an ALJ’s credibility 9 determination. The Board’s decision was therefore supported by substantial evidence.
We also agree with the Board that we lack jurisdiction to consider Noel Canning’s choice of law argument. Section 10(e) of the NLRA forbids us from exercising jurisdiction to hear any “objection that has not been urged before the Board.” 29 U.S.C. § 160(e); see also Chevron Mining, Inc. v. NLRB, 684 F.3d 1318, 1329–30 (D.C. Cir. 2012). The ALJ specifically rejected Noel Canning’s argument that he should apply Washington state law to decide whether the contract could be enforced. In its exceptions to the Board, however, Noel Canning did not mention Washington law. Although Noel Canning contended that the ALJ incorrectly determined that the parties had in fact reached consensus ad idem during negotiations, it nowhere argued that the ALJ made an incorrect choice of law to govern the contracts issue. “While we have not required that the ground for the exception be stated explicitly in the written exceptions filed with the Board, we have required, at a minimum, that the ground for the exception be evident by the context in which the exception is raised.” Trump Plaza Assocs. v. NLRB, 679 F.3d 822, 829 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). Nothing in Noel Canning’s exceptions even hints that it objected to the application of federal law. On the contrary, it conceded to the Board that “[i]t is not in dispute that an employer violates [the NLRA] by refusing to execute a Collective Bargaining Agreement incorporating all of the terms agreed upon by the parties during negotiations.” Deferred Appendix 100. We therefore lack jurisdiction to consider Noel Canning’s state-law argument because its objections were not “adequate to put the Board on notice that the issue might be pursued on appeal.” 10 Consol. Freightways v. NLRB, 669 F.2d 790, 794 (D.C. Cir. 1981). Having determined that Noel Canning does not prevail on its statutory challenges, consideration of the constitutional question is unavoidable, and we proceed to its resolution. Because we agree that petitioner is correct in both of its constitutional arguments, we grant the petition of Noel Canning for review and deny the Board’s petition for enforcement.