Opinion ID: 408035
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Specificity of Appeal Board Opinions

Text: 23 We agree with Judge Carter that the Board's opinions in Moore's and Turner's cases, although cursory, 502 F.Supp. at 556, are not so insufficient as to violate due process. In each case, the Board indicated on what grounds it had reversed the ALJ, alerting both the parties and any reviewing court to the decision's broad basis. Each opinion was sufficient to allow a reviewing court to determine whether the Board had relied solely on the evidence in the record, see Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. at 271, 90 S.Ct. at 1022, and to identify, at least implicitly, the Board's disagreement with the ALJ on matters of credibility. 24 Because explicit reasons for the reversals in Moore's and Turner's cases were spelled out, we decline to fault the Board for failing to identify expressly an awareness that it was disagreeing with the ALJ, see Local No. 441, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 510 F.2d 1274, 1276 (D.C.Cir.1975), even though we think it would have been far better if the Board had given a fuller explanation of the grounds for its disagreement with the ALJ's credibility findings, see General Dynamics Corp. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, 599 F.2d 453, 463 (1st Cir. 1979). We suspect that the New York courts would agree that any rejection of the ALJ's credibility findings which is not only unelaborated, but also without justification in the record considered as a whole, should be reversed as unsupported by substantial evidence. 25 In light of our agreement with Judge Carter that Moore and Turner were not deprived of due process by the practices of the Appeal Board, we need not reach the question whether a class represented by them should have been certified. Judgment affirmed.