Opinion ID: 2807859
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Fortuna’s Remaining Challenges to the

Text: Board’s Decision In its earlier 2009 order, “the Board never quantified the weight to be given to any one of the Quietflex factors.” Fortuna, 665 F.3d at 1303. Since the Board found that none of the Quietflex factors weighed against protection, the Board found no need to assign any particular weight to each factor. Having held that the Board’s analysis of factors three, four, and seven was inadequate, we remanded the matter to the Board to analyze and weigh all the factors in a manner consistent with our opinion. Fortuna contends that the Board erred in weighing these factors, arguing that each factor does not weigh strongly in favor of protection. We disagree. Fortuna contends that “the Board erred by rebalancing the Quietflex factors in a manner that is plainly result-driven.” Fortuna Br. 36. Fortuna cites Board Member Johnson’s concurring opinion, which states that the Quietflex “test is fraught with difficulty for remand purposes.” Fortuna, 2014 WL 2448880, at  n.3 (Johnson, concurring). As Member Johnson stated: An obvious problem posed by reweighting factors under any multifactor test, much less a 10 factor one, after a case has been remanded to us is the susceptibility to results-oriented analysis. In other words, colloquially speaking, the Board’s reweighting the factors to achieve the same result may seem to the impartial 18 observer more like some analytical version of Whac-A-Mole than reasoned decisionmaking. Id. Fortuna further notes that this Court, in remanding to the Board, held that the “apparently decisive consideration” underlying the Board’s 2009 order (the finding that there was not an effective group grievance procedure) was not supported by substantial evidence. Fortuna, 665 F.3d at 1302. Fortuna argues that the Board erroneously weighed other factors to overcome the fact that the evidence does not support the “decisive consideration” of its prior opinion, in an example of “result-driven decision-making.” Fortuna Br. 19. Member Johnson’s concerns about the nebulousness of a ten-factor balancing test may be well-taken. Balancing tests in general are susceptible to results-driven application. As this Court stated previously, “the sort of multi-factor balancing ‘test’ suggested in Quietflex may be incapable of predictable application.” Fortuna, 665 F.3d at 1300. However, as we did before, “we shall assume [the Quietflex test’s] validity.” Id. While Quietflex may be subject to abuse, the record does not demonstrate that the Board abused the test in this case. The fact that the Board reaffirmed its prior decision does not mean that its analysis was resultsdriven. The Board’s weighing of the remaining Quietflex factors was reasonable and supported by substantial evidence. In challenging how the Board specifically weighed each remaining Quietflex factor, Fortuna largely repackages its prior, unsuccessful arguments regarding the Board’s analysis of those factors. “When there are multiple appeals taken in the course of a single piece of litigation, law-of-the-case doctrine holds that decisions rendered on the first appeal should not be revisited on later trips to the appellate court.” Crocker v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc., 49 F.3d 735, 739 (D.C. 19 Cir. 1995). When this matter was previously before this Court, Fortuna challenged the Board’s analysis of nine of the ten Quietflex factors. With the exceptions noted above, we rejected Fortuna’s arguments without much comment. See Fortuna, 665 F.3d at 1301. There was “nothing to…[Fortuna’s] arguments against the Board’s application of [those] Quietflex factors” then, and there is nothing to them now. Id. We will thus deny Fortuna’s petition for review and grant the Board’s cross-application for enforcement.