Court Opinion

ID: 9453776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:23:38.153032+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:47.955888
License: Public Domain

COFFIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
For the purpose of deciding the applicability of the notice provision of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S. C.A. § 1003(a), I view the Excelsior rule as procedural and thus valid despite absence of advance notice. I recognize that this is a ground not relied on by the Board, which seemed to assert a standard defense to a standard assault. But the same shoe fits both parties, for the distinction which divides this court was obviously far from the concern of appellant, which said in its brief, “ * * * it is clear the Board recognized that it was establishing a new rule or procedure in the conduct of election proceedings under Section 9 of the Act.”
The legislative history suggests to me that in grey areas doubt about the nature of a rule should be resolved in favor of applying the procedural label. In the first place, the few attempts to define terms equate substantive rules with “rules issued pursuant to statutory authority to implement statutory policy, as by fixing rates or defining standards”, Attorney General’s Manual on the A.P.A. (1947) 13 n. 5, or with rules “other than organizational or procedural * * * which implement the statute, as, for example, the proxy rules issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to * * * 15 U.S.C. 78n.” Manual, supra at 30. I read the language and these examples as giving restrictive rather than expansive meanings to “substantive rule”.
In addition, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary made clear that in exempting procedural rules from the notice requirement it was seeking to encourage such rules because “those types of rules vary so greatly in their contents and the occasion for their issuance that it seems wise to leave the matter of notice and public procedures to the discretion of the agencies concerned.” Legis. Hist, of the A.P.A. (1946), 18, 313.
The Excelsior rule itself seems to me to be clearly on the procedural side. It sets up a positive requirement of furnishing addresses as well as names of employees, to be applicable in every election. In this respect it differs from the proscription of selectively directed acts of coercion which are more appropriately accomplished through the unfair labor practice procedures.
*399That the requirement looks toward action the effect of which reaches beyond relations between a party and the Board ought not to be a controlling consideration, any more than it is with reference to the requirement in 29 C.F.R. § 101.19 (the Board’s “Statements of Procedure” governing elections) that elections “be adequately publicized by the posting of official notices in the establishment. * * * ” Indeed, the natural home of the Excelsior rule would seem to be in § 101.19.1
It is also, I think, a factor of relevance to the substance vs. procedure issue that the burden on the employer’s time, efforts, or property in being compelled to furnish addresses of employees is inconsequential. I do not share the court’s conclusion that this requirement “differs only in degree and not in kind” from one that would force an employer to make an assembly hall available on request. I would say that we are dealing with a dichotomy where difference in degree can result in a difference of kind or difference in categorization. This, I think, is illustrated by the above noted procedural requirement that notices of election be posted “in the establishment” — in itself a minimal encroachment on the employer’s domain.
While it may be that forcing employers to share with unions their previous monopoly on knowledge of addresses may have a net result of strengthening union power generally, such a result cannot be said to alter substantive “rights” unless the employer’s prior easy access to addresses rises to the dignity of a right. Cf. Sibbach v. Wilson & Co., 312 U.S. 1, 14, 61 S.Ct. 422, 85 L.Ed. 479 (1941). Moreover, the Excelsior rule by its terms applies to “all parties” — which include employees hostile to a new union or seeking decertification of an old one. Cf. Wallace Murray Co., 1968-1 CCH NLRB Dec. f 22,256.
I would, for the above reasons, hold that the Excelsior rule was valid. But this would not have been an end to the case. There remains the difficult question — how, if at all, can Excelsior be properly enforced ? 2 The district court ordered that the subpoena be honored. The Board’s power lies in the statutory language granting “the right to copy any evidence of any person being investigated or proceeded against that relates to any matter under investigation or in question. * * *” 29 U.S.C.A. § 161(1).
The authorities which have upheld the subpoena power as available to procure an Excelsior list3 have defined the proceedings leading to representation certification as an investigation and have tortured the concept of “evidence” into something which is helpful in “facilitating a fully informed electorate”. NLRB v. Rohlen, supra 385 F.2d at 57. A scrutiny of 29 U.S.C.A. § 161 yields the impression that “evidence” is used throughout in its more traditional sense as data relevant to the proof of a fact in issue.4 *400I am sympathetic with the courts which have not been willing to make this leap. NLRB v. Q-T Shoe Mfg. Co., 279 F.Supp. 1 (D.N.J., filed Jan. 19, 1968); NLRB v. Montgomery Ward, Inc., 54 CCH Lab. Cas. f[ 11659 (M.D.Fla.1967).
A second solution, suggested by Q-T Shoe Mfg. Co., supra, is that the only way to enforce the Excelsior rule is first to secure a determination that refusal by an employer to provide a list of names and addresses of employees constitutes an unfair labor practice under 29 U.S. C.A. § 158(a) (1), and then to seek the aid of the court under 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(e). This would seem plausible until the statutory definitions of unfair labor practices are examined. The Board in Excelsior wisely refrained from saying whether refusal to disclose names and addresses of employees would constitute “interference, restraint, or coercion” within the meaning of 29 U.S.C.A. § 158 (a) (1). I would say that it is at least doubtful that any one of the effective verbs would cover such a case. “Interfere” is the most adaptable, but its entire thrust is aggressive, not passive. According to Webster’s International Dictionary (3d int. ed. 1961), it means such things as “intervene”, “intermeddle”, and “interpose”.
It cannot be said with assurance that a refusal to respond to the Excelsior rule —unless, perhaps, a repeated refusal— would predictably be denominated an unfair labor practice.5 Moreover, constant litigation would ensue over the issue whether, in a given case, the refusal to provide a list had any effect at all on the representation proceeding. For example, in the case at bar appellant moved to quash the subpoena, citing as one ground that the unions already had employee mailing lists.
This leads to the remaining mode of enforcing the rule, if indeed there is any way at all. This is the injunction. The Congress has indicated by statute that the Board has authority to prescribe “regulations and rules of decision” governing consent elections. 29 U.S.C.A. § 159(c) (4). The Supreme Court has made it clear that “The control of the election proceeding, and the determination of the steps necessary to conduct that election fairly * * * [are] matters which Congress entrusted to the Board alone.” NLRB v. Waterman S.S. Corp. 309 U.S. 206, 226, 60 S.Ct. 493, 503, 84 L.Ed. 704 (1940).
While there is a step between statute and rule, not present in United States v. Feaster, 330 F.2d 671 (5th Cir. 1964), I see no difference in principle. If, in Feaster, the statutory right to have access to books and records supported an injunction compelling access to names, addresses, and job classifications of employees, so here a rule predicated on statutory authority to regulate elections and carrying out Congressional policy should support the same remedy. Or, to go back to the observation in Walling v. Brooklyn Braid Co., 152 F.2d 938, 941 (2d Cir. 1945), we should “consider whether the injunction is reasonably required as an aid in the administration of the statute, to the end that the Congressional purposes underlying its enactment shall not be thwarted.”
Assuming, therefore, the validity of the Excelsior rule, I see no other certain way in which it can be enforced than by *401injunction. And while the absence of other remedy is no adequate justification for judicial invention, I feel that enforcement of the rule lies well within the equity powers of the district court. I would therefore remand the case for consideration of the Board’s alternative prayer for an injunction.

. All of this only refers to the primary objective of Excelsior, to achieve better elections. The fact that a secondary purpose, the expeditious handling of challenges of voter eligibility, is uneontrovertedly procedural is an added factor of some significance. While a procedural secondary rule could not save a rule otherwise clearly substantive, it would seem that a primary purpose of ambiguous effect might be aided, insofar as notice is concerned, by such a secondary purpose.

. While what follows goes beyond the issue which divides the court, the writer feels obliged to explore the problem of enforcement which has led to conflicting and often strained statutory interpretation.

. NLRB v. Rohlen, 385 F.2d 52 (7th Cir. 1967); NLRB v. Hanes Hosiery Division — Hanes Corp., 384 F.2d 188 (4th Cir. 1967), cert, denied 390 U.S. 950, 88 S.Ct. 1041, 19 L.Ed.2d 1141; NLRB v. British Auto Parts, Inc., 266 F.Supp. 368 (C.D.Cal.1967) ; Swift & Co. v. Solien, 274 F.Supp. 953 (E.D.Mo.1967) ; NLRB v. Teledyne, Inc., 56 CCH Lab. Cas. 1f 12229 (N.D.Cal.1967) ; NLRB v. BeechNut, Inc., 274 F.Supp. 432 (S.D.N.Y. 1967).

. A similar approach would be to define more narrowly the particular “investigation” as the quest for the names and addresses of the employees. With this frame of reference, the list of such names and addresses coud be considered more *400traditionally as “evidence” relevant to tlie proof of the object of the investigation. Indeed the subpoena served on appellant contemplated a hearing before the Regional Director at which appellant’s president was to testify from corporate books and records concerning the names and addresses of employees. In lieu of such books, a list would be received but only after Board agents had “verified its contents by examination of the subpoenaed books and records”. In short, the list is arguably evidence tending to establish the true names and addresses being sought. The difficulty with this approach is that it tortures the word “investigation” into something quite different from its use in 29 U.S.C.A. § 159.

. I would add that I would prefer some lesser sanction for enforcement of procedural rules than that stemming from an unfair labor practice proceeding.