Opinion ID: 270611
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Reinstatement of Hanger with back pay.

Text: 22 We deny enforcement of the Board's requirement that Hanger be reinstated with back pay. The trial examiner who saw Hanger and heard the evidence of his conduct which followed his discharge recommended denial of reinstatement as well as back pay, saying In this instance, such remedies would not be in the public interest or effectuate the purpose of the Act. Where the Board disagrees with its examiner, our duty requires our special examination of the evidence. N. L. R. B. v. Tru-line Metal Products Co., 324 F.2d 614, 615 (CA 6, 1963); Burke Golf Equipment Co. v. N. L. R. B., 284 F.2d 943, 944 (CA 6, 1960). The trial examiner had the advantage of observing Hanger's general demeanor and forming a judgment as to how likely he was to fulfill the ugly promises and threats of inflicting crippling mayhem upon two members of respondent's supervisors and that one day he would get them. We have set out above the involved conduct. The Board's reversal of its trial examiner does not arise from its disagreement with his basic findings that Hanger had indulged in the described conduct, but makes a contrary inference that his ominous threats and gestures were but a normal product of animal exuberance. It does not require very special examination of the evidence to find, as we do, that such a factual inference is without evidentiary support. Neither can we join in a view that the purposes of the Act would be served by requiring an employer to keep in its plant anyone with the propensities for the kind of animal exuberance displayed by Hanger. The Board's employment of the exculpating phrase is supported by a footnote reference to an earlier NLRB decision which in turn discloses its genesis in an opinion by Mr. Justice Frankfurter. In Milk Wagon Drivers Union, etc. v. Meadowmoor Dairies, 312 U.S. 287, 293, 61 S.Ct. 552, 555, 85 L.Ed. 836, 841 (1940), in distinguishing between violent and peaceful picketing and as an abstract observation, Justice Frankfurter said, 23 And so the right of free speech cannot be denied by drawing from a trivial rough incident or a moment of animal exuberance the conclusion that otherwise peaceful picketing has the taint of violence. (Emphasis supplied.) 24 We are quite satisfied that Justice Frankfurter, when he coined the colorful phrase, did not have in mind the fearsome threats and gestures of employee Hanger. There was other evidence in the record that Hanger had a history of displaying temper and promising physical harm to anyone who should hurt him or his family. The trial examiner made no special findings in this regard, but it is clear that Hanger's September 12 conduct was not out of character, and was not merely a momentary and unwonted exhibition of animal exuberance. 25 In N. L. R. B. v. National Furniture Mfg. Co., 315 F.2d 280 (CA 7, 1963), the Seventh Circuit denied enforcement of a Board order which had overturned its trial examiner's conclusion that reinstatement and back pay should be denied an illegally discharged employee. Judge Swygert's footnote expression of the reason why an employer should not have to put up with conduct not unlike Hanger's is apt here. 26    his calling in to question respondent's personnel manager's veracity and maternal ancestry on the first day of the Hearing in the instant proceedings, render it difficult for us to judicially enforce a renewal of a relationship that bids ill for all concerned. (Emphasis supplied.) 27 See also N. L. R. B. v. Trumbull Asphalt Co. of Del., 327 F.2d 841, 846 (CA 8, 1964); N. L. R. B. v. Valley Die Cast Corp., 303 F.2d 64, 66 (CA 6, 1962). 28 To the extent that it directs reinstatement of Hanger with back pay and finds a violation in respondent's general pay raise of September 12, 1962, directing a remedy therefor, the Board's order is denied enforcement; in all other respects, its enforcement is ordered.