Court Opinion

ID: 9454829
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:00:29.198603+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:19.929734
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge,
(dissenting) :
I differ with the majority on two grounds. In my opinion they employ an *286erroneous standard of review when they take only a “cursory look” at the record as a whole. And, when the record is scrutinized under the appropriate standard of review, it does not support enforcement of the Board order.
I concur with my brothers that, although the employer adequately preserved the supervisory issue during each step of the agency proceedings,1 it failed to assert that question in brief or oral argument on its petition to review pursuant to § 10(f).1A Moreover, I agree with the rejection of the employer’s novel procedural attack on post-election hearings.2
I. The Standard of Review
This case comes before us under two separate and district statutory provisions. Pursuant to § 10(f), 3 the company petitioned this court to review and set aside the order of the Board. The NLRB filed in one document its answer to the company’s § 10(f) petition and its cross-petition to enforce pursuant to § 10(e).4 Therein it said “that the pro*287ceedings had before it, the findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order of the Board were and are in all respects valid and proper under the National Labor Relations Act, as amended * * and it asked this court to enforce its order. (Emphasis added). While all members of the panel agree that the employer waived its § 10(f) rights by failing to press the supervisory issue before this court, we differ on the Board’s right to enforcement under § 10(e) and on the standard which we are required to employ in determining if such a right exists in this case.
In my view the majority standard of a “cursory look” at the record is insufficient. More than that is required for the court to put its judicial imprimatur on the enforcement of a Board order. In reaching that conclusion I consider the express statutory language adopted by Congress after heated debate over the defects of the pre-Taft-Hartley evi-dentiary standard and the tendency of some appellate courts to rubber stamp Board orders out of deference to administrative expertise, and also the Supreme Court’s elaborate indorsement of the purpose of the amended standard in Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 1951, 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456.
There can be no argument over what the statute says. The problem is whether it is, or is not, to be given application in the particular situation before us. Universal Camera amply explained the congressional purpose, and I must note several of its observations. That case came about by the intercircuit conflict in interpretation of the effect of the Taft-Hartley Act Amendments (1947) on the reviewing power of the courts.5 The Wagner Act had provided that the findings of the Board as to facts, if supported by the evidence, were conclusive. The Supreme Court thereafter had read “evidence” to mean “substantial evidence.”6 The courts had found the Board’s burden satisfied under the Wagner standard if the results were supported by substantial evidence viewed in isolation. From the resulting Congressional outrage came the “substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole” test, which ultimately became the Taft-Hartley standard.7
. Against this background the Supreme Court said that “Congress has left no room for doubt as to the kind of scrutiny which a court of appeals must give the record before the Board to satisfy itself that the Board’s order rests on adequate proof.” 8
After carefully examining the legislative history of the Taft-Hartley Amendments, the Supreme Court set out the language so often paraphrased as the Universal Camera standard:
To be sure, the requirement for canvassing “the whole record” in order to ascertain substantiality does not furnish a calculus of value by which a reviewing court can assess the evidence. Nor was it intended to negative the function of the Labor Board as one of those agencies presumably equipped or informed by experience to deal with a specialized field of knowledge, whose findings within that field carry the *288authority of an expertness which courts do not possess and therefore must respect. Nor does it mean that even as to matters not requiring expertise a court may displace the Board’s choice between two fairly conflicting views, even though the court would justifiably have made a different choice had the matter been before it de novo. Congress has merely made it clear that a reviewing court is not barred from setting aside a Board decision when it cannot conscientiously find that the evidence supporting that decision is substantial, when viewed in the light that the record in its entirely furnishes, including the body of evidence opposed to the Board’s view. (Emphasis added)
340 U.S. at 488, 71 S.Ct. at 464, 95 L.Ed. at 467-468. Accord: J. H. Rutter-Rex Mfg. Co. v. NLRB, 5 Cir. 1968, 399 F.2d 356, 359-360, cert. granted 393 U.S. 1116, 89 S.Ct. 991, 22 L.Ed.2d 121 (U.S.Mar. 3, 1969) (No. 925); NLRB v. Brown & Root, Inc., 8 Cir. 1963, 311 F.2d 447, 451. See generally 3 CCH Lab. Law Rep. ¶ 6025 (examining conclusiveness of Board findings under Taft-Hartley (.22) and former Wagner Act tests (.82).
I am of the opinion that Congress, by repeating the same substantiality standard in both § 10(e) and § 10(f), insured that the mutually exclusive enforcement and review provisions 9 would apply the same sufficiency test. The Taft-Hartley Act nowhere intimates any Board right to enforcement except upon satisfaction of the substantiality standard.
The role of the enforcing court in pre-Taft-Hartley days was described by the Second Circuit in NLRB v. Kellburn Mfg. Co., Inc., 2 Cir. 1945, 149 F.2d 686:
As is well understood, an enforcement proceeding is therefore, a combination of an appeal from the order, and a motion to enforce it. In its first aspect, i. e., as an appeal, we think that it rests upon the respondent to show at least that the findings have no substantial support in evidence; and, if so, it follows that when, as here the respondent defaults, it is not necessary to make that examination. We are called upon therefore to go no further than to examine the findings, decide whether they support the order, and whether the order itself is in accordance with the statute.
In a post-Taft-Hartley case 9A the Seventh Circuit, relying on Kellburn, and without consideration of the effect of the 1947 amendments and Universal Camera, restated the idea that in an enforcement proceeding the burden is on the respondent to show want of substantial evidence, and that the default of the employer before the enforcing court operates as a confession of the allegations of the enforcement petition, so that all the court then need do is to see if the findings support the order and whether the order complies with the statute, issues on which the Board has the burden of proof.
But power of the court to enforce a Board order is statutory. Once Congress has written into the statute a *289standard of review the court cannot give itself power to enforce under a lesser standard, articulated for procedural efficiency and expedition.10
The majority rely upon a line of cases predicated upon NLRB v. Cheney Cal. Lumber Co., 1946, 327 U.S. 385, 66 S.Ct. 553, 90 L.Ed. 739. Cheney is inapposite. It involved a clear default in the agency proceedings. The employer in Cheney simply failed to file exceptions to the Trial Examiner’s intermediate report and failed to request oral argument before the Board. 327 U.S. at 386, 66 S.Ct. 553. The Supreme Court merely invoked the orthodox § 10(e) statutory prohibition11 against judicial examination of an issue not raised before the Board. 327 U.S. at 388-389, 66 S.Ct. 553.12 The employee sub judice has vigorously protested the supervisory issue in all agency proceedings. The §• 10(e) prohibition has no application.
In NLRB v. Local 111, United Broth. of Carpenters, 1st Cir. 1960, 278 F.2d 823, 825 Judge Aldrich writing for the First Circuit, set out what seems to me correct:
Any order entered following a decision by the Board is, of course, the court’s order, and not that of the Board. In this respect the matter differs from an appeal from a district court. We are correspondingly more concerned with the content of the order. For if, on default, we must automatically enter any order prepared by the Board Congress would in effect be giving to an administrative board the final word in the formulation of our injunctions. We recognize no such power, even if it could be thought that there was such an intent.
278 F.2d at 825. Then he departed from that to say that “full scrutiny need not be accorded a party who has failed to diligently preserve and prosecute his Section 10(f) rights.” But the inquiry is whether in the interest of the national policies represented by the Congressional labor enactments, including the 1947 Amendments, the court should enforce the order. The less than full scrutiny standard of Local 111, in effect a penalty against a nondiligent employer and a reward to the Board, is simply not allowed by § 10(e).13 Moreover Cheney *290does not stand for such a rule. NLRB v. Filtron, Inc., 2 Cir. 1962, 309 F.2d 184, 185 is a per curiam adoption of the rationale of Local 111 and also relies on Cheney. NLRB v. Kellburn Mfg. Co., Inc., supra, and NLRB v. National Minerals Co., 7 Cir. 1943, 134 F.2d 424, 425-426, cert. denied 320 U.S. 753, 64 S.Ct. 58, 88 L.Ed. 448, antedate TaftHartley and Universal Camera.14 The presumption of correctness attending the proceedings of administrative agencies cannot dispense with or water down the standard of review specifically established by Congress for enforcement of Board orders.
I would review the Hearing Officer’s report15 under the Universal Camera -§ 10(e) test.16
II. The Substantiality of the Evidence
The Hearing Officer, appointed by the Regional Director to conduct the post-election hearing to determine the supervisory status of Schilling and Wiley, adopted as his legal guide to § 2 (11) NLRB v. Beaver Meadow Creamery, Inc., 3 Cir. 1954, 215 F.2d 247, 251. He concluded that Beaver Meadow Creamery held that “the term supervisor is to be read disjunctively and that the possession of any one of the Section 2(11) powers will make one a supervisor.”
*291According to the Hearing Officer, (1) Schilling’s shift overlapped the other two shifts, (2) he was announced as “foreman” sometime in early Spring by Lunt, the department supervisor, (3) he subsequently received a 25 to 75 cent an hour pay raise, although it was expressly found that no discussion ever followed with respect to his duties, responsibilities, or authority, (4) he “gives employees the work, checks the negatives before they make their plates, and looks at the plates after they make them.” (5) the order of jobs is given to Schilling by Lunt, whose presence in the department varies from none to 20-30 times a day, (6) Schilling tells men which jobs to do, including occasionally writing instructions for the night shift on a blackboard when Lunt does not do so, (7) he confers with the lithographic department supervisor on approximately 90 percent of the plate quality control problems, and (8) he cheeked on several occasions time card entries made by department employees and notified them of mistakes made.
On the other hand, the Hearing Officer also made three other important findings, best set out in his own language :
Lunt, the admitted supervisor of the department, is not a plate maker by trade, and has only a general knowledge of the plate making techniques. It appears from the record that Lunt is responsible for the over-all supervision of the department or section, but that internally the method of operation is left up to Schilling who has the technical knowledge necessary for the making of plates, (emphasis added). * * *
Testimony reflects that those considered by the Employer to be supervisors are salaried while both Schilling and Wiley are hourly paid as are other hourly employees. Other supervisors are rated on an annual basis, while Schilling and Wiley are rated on a semi-annual basis as are other hourly rated employees. Neither attends regularly scheduled supervisor meetings as do the admitted supervisors.17
******
It is clear from the record that neither Schilling nor Wiley has the authority to hire, fire, promote, discipline, suspend, lay off, recall, discharge, or reward their employees or to effectively recommend such action.
The Hearing Officer then framed the supervisory issue in a nutshell: “[T]he evidence does reflect that both of them [Schilling and Wiley] assign work and transfer employees from one assignment to another. The question is whether such actions are of a merely routine clerical nature or whether, in the exercise of this authority, they use independent judgment.”
The Regional Director disagreed as to Wiley. But he adopted as his own decision the Hearing Officer’s determination of Schilling’s status, a finding rubber-stamped without review by the Board in both its representation and unfair labor practice capacities.18
This court has only recently held that § 2(11), defining under the NLRA who constitutes a “supervisor,” is a pragmatic test. In Ross Porta-Plant, Inc. v. NLRB, 5 Cir. 1968, 404 F.2d 1180, 1182, the court noted that the definition re*292quired “actual authority effectively to direct others.” The Court explained:
By this we mean the type of authority which flows from management and tends to associate an individual with management.
In enacting § 2(11) of the Act Congress did not intend to exclude from its protection any individuals except those who possess true managerial powers. This section is designed to apply to supervisors with genuine management prerogatives as distinguished from “straw bosses, leadmen, set-up men, and other minor supervisory employees.” S.Rep.No. 105 on S. 1126, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 4. The company’s designation of these employees as “department heads,” “assistant foremen” or “foremen” is not controlling in the absence of delegation to them of bona fide managerial powers.
404 F.2d at 1182. See NLRB v. American Mfg. Co. of Texas, 5 Cir. 1968, 405 F.2d 473, 474 (per curiam); NLRB v. Security Guard Service, Inc., 5 Cir. 1967, 384 F.2d 143, 149. See generally 1 CCH Lab.Law Rep. ¶ 1675.11 and ¶ 1675.147 (duties not title determine supervisory status).
The Hearing Officer’s overly restrictive reliance upon Beaver Meadow Creamery resulted in his determination that Schilling’s functions as the top plate maker and right hand man for Lunt, the non-craftsman supervisor, made Schilling a supervisor, notwithstanding- the finding that Schilling lacked all of the indicia of supervisory status possessed by the recognized company hierarchy. Substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole fails to show that Schilling was anything more than a “lead man” or “straw boss”. I would deny enforcement.

. We are not faced with the orthodox bar to judicial review imposed in the absence of “extraordinary circumstances,” by § 10(e) to objections not raised before the Board (and hence outside the record on review). See 3 CCH Lab.Law.Rep. ¶ 6015.67; cf. Texaco, Inc. v. NLRB, 5 Cir. 1969, 408 F.2d 142 (intervenor claim not raised before Board rejected).

. The petition to set aside alleges that the order is not supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. But this assertion is not, without brief or argument, sufficient to present that contention for § 10(f) review.

. Any other position would conflict with the provisions of 29 C.F.R. § 102.69(c), and with recent decisions of this Court establishing the test for determining when an objecting or challenging party in a representation case has a right to a post-election hearing — where “substantial and material factual issues” are controverted. See NLRB v. Smith Industries, Inc., 5 Cir. 1968, 403 F.2d 889, 892 n. 5, 6. See also Southwestern Portland Cement Co. v. NLRB, 5 Cir. 1969, 407 F.2d 131; NLRB v. Genesco, Inc., 5 Cir. 1969, 406 F.2d 393.

. 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(f) :
“Review of final order of Board on petition to court
“(f) Any person aggrieved by a final order of the Board granting or denying in whole or in part the relief sought may obtain a review of such order in any United States court of appeals in the circuit wherein the unfair labor practice in question was alleged to have been engaged in or wherein such person resides or transacts business, or in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, by filing in such a court a written petition praying that the order of the Board be modified or set aside. A copy of such petition shall be forthwith transmitted by the clerk of the court to the Board, and thereupon the aggrieved party shall file in the court the record in the proceeding, certified by the Board, as provided in section 2112 of Title 28. Upon the filing of such petition, the court shall proceed in the same manner as in the case of an application by the Board under subsection (e) of this section, and shall have the same jurisdiction to grant to the Board such temporary relief or restraining order as it deems just and proper, and in like manner to make and enter a decree enforcing, modifying, and enforcing as so modified, or setting aside in whole or in part the order of the Board, the findings of the Board with respect to questions of fact if supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole shall in like manner be conclusive.”

. 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(e) :
“(e) The Board shall have power to petition any court of appeals of the United States, or if all the courts of appeals to which application may be made are in vacation, any district court of the United States, within any circuit or district, respectively, wherein the unfair labor practice in question occurred or wherein such person resides or transacts business, for the enforcement of such order and for appropriate temporary relief or restraining order, and shall file in the court the record in the proceedings, as provided in section 2112 of Title 28. Upon the filing of such petition, the court shall cause notice thereof to be served upon such person, and thereupon shall have jurisdiction of the proceeding and of the question determined therein, and shall have power to grant such temporary relief or restraining order as. it deems just and proper, and to make and enter a decree enforcing, modifying, *287and enforcing as so modified, or setting aside in whole or in part the order of the Board. No objection that has not been urged before the Board, its member, agent, or agency, shall be considered by the court, unless the failure or neglect to urge such objection shall be excused because of extraordinary circumstances. The findings of the Board with respect to questions of fact if supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole shall be conclusive * * *"

. 340 U.S. at 476 n. 1, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. at 461 n. 1 and accompanying text.

. 340 U.S. at 477, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 462.

. 340 U.S. at 477-483, 484 n. 17, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. at 461-465, 465 n. 17 and accompanying text; 340 U.S. at 485 n. 21, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. at 466 n. 21.

. 340 U.S. at 487, 71 S.Ct. at 464, 95 L.Ed. at 467.

. The review provisions are mutually exclusive not by virtue of the standard of review, but by differing rights of respective parties seeking to invoke the jurisdiction and equitable power of the appellate court. An aggrieved party triggers the review procedure only through § 10(f) with the Board cast in the role of respondent. The Board seeks enforcement under § 10(e) with tire aggrieved party, if he has not petitioned under § 10(f), the respondent. Upon the filing of either a § 10(e) or § 10(f) petition, the court is required to apply the same standard of review. Under either section the Board’s order must withstand the same standard or it is subject to being modified or set aside in whole or in part.

. NLRB v. Wagner Iron Works, 7 Cir. 1955, 220 F.2d 126. See also NLRB v. Flora Construction Company, 10 Cir. 1962, 311 F.2d 310.

. This court has only recently reiterated the standard for appellate review of representation cases under the NLRA, holding:
“While a representation proceeding alone would not be subject to direct review by this Court, where an unfair labor practice is charged for refusal to bargain, and the employer has refused to recognize the certification, the election proceeding is properly here. Under those circumstances, the representation case and the unfair labor practice case become one, and the complete record is fully reviewable. NLRB v. Tampa Crown Distributors, Inc., 272 F.2d 470 (5 Cir. 1959). See also: NLRB v. Genesco, 406 F.2d 393 (5 Cir. 1969). In order to arrive at a decision in this matter, we must consider the record to determine whether the Board’s certification of the Union, and consequent finding of an unfair labor practice by petitioner, were based on facts supported by substantial evidence and on the application of correct legal standards. Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951).”
Electra Mfg. Co. v. NLRB, 5 Cir. 1969, 408 F.2d 570 (Emphasis added).

. 29 U.S.C. § 160(e) (1964) :
“No objection that has not been urged before the Board, its member, agent, or agency, shall be considered by the court, unless the failure or neglect to urge such objection shall be excused because of extraordinary circumstances.”
See NLRB v. Int’l Union of Operating Eng., Local 66, 3 Cir. 1966, 357 F.2d 841, 843-844 and cases cited therein; see generally 3 CCH Lab.Law Rep. ¶ 6015.67.

. Also Cheney antedated both the Taft-Hartley Amendments and Universal Camera.

. Of course, the court can keep its own house in order. It can decline to grant enforcement, for default of the Board in failing to press an enforcement petition. But this does not answer whether the court can grant affirmative relief in favor of the Board without determining if there is evidence to support it.

. I agree with the language of the majority in NLRB v. Red Spot Electric Co., 191 F.2d 697 (9th Cir. 1951) :
“In any event, it has now been held that the amendments of the Act required a stricter rule of construction than hitherto and that the courts have a much broader sphere of action in determining what orders are to be enforced. Universal Camera Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456; National Labor Relations Board v. Pittsburgh Steamship Co., 340 U.S. 498, 71 S.Ct. 453, 95 L.Ed. 479.
“Therefore, simply because the power of a party in default to take action as of right may have been delimited by Congress, there is no intimation that the power of judicial scrutiny was destroyed when the Board came as suitors praying sanctions upon a report, neither the entry nor the contents of which has been considered by them. As a result, summary enforcement has been denied.”
In Red Spot, pursuant to 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(c) and the Board’s regulation, 29 C.F.R. § 101.12 and 102.48, the Board automatically adopted the trial examiner’s report because the employer did not file exceptions to the report. The court held it would not grant summary enforcement without examining the record. The First Circuit declined to follow Red Spot in NLRB v. Auburn Curtain Co., Inc., 1 Cir. 1951, 193 F.2d 826. Red Spot was concerned with the Cheney problem — the effect of default in the agency proceedings — and the disclaimer of it in Auburn Curtain, correctly points out that it is inconsistent with Cheney. See also NLRB v. Int’l Union of Operating Eng. Local 66, supra, 357 F.2d at 846 n. 10. But none of this has to do with the scope of review in a case such as is before us where there has been no default in the agency proceedings and hence no scope of action for the statutory prohibition of § 10 (e).

. The Board effectively rubber-stamped the Hearing Officer’s report and its findings as to Schilling’s supervisory status when it denied review of the Regional Director’s decision adopting the report foreclosing any relief in the § 9 representation proceeding; by adoption without a hearing of its Trial Examiner’s decision in the unfair labor practice case, including his invocation of the no-relitigation rule (29 C.F.R. § 102.67(c), the Board effectively foreclosed any relief in the § 10 proceeding.

. If the majority conclusion, based on Cheney, is otherwise correct we still should apply the “extraordinary circumstances” exception to the § 10(e) review prohibition. Cf. NLRB v. Spiewak, 3 Cir. 1950, 179 F.2d 695. In the instant case the § 10 order is wholly conditional upon the validity of the § 9 finding. To enforce the former without careful scrutiny of the latter in accordance with the substantial evidence test may result in a certification and bargaining order being forced by judicial abdication upon less than a majority of the employees whose rights are paramount. See NLRA, Sections 7 and 9(a), 29 U.S.C. §§ 157 and 159(a) (1964). Judicial enforcement was made an integral part of the statutory scheme to assure protection of employee rights guaranteed under the Act, not to insure either employer or union success.

. In an elaborate footnote, the Regional Director set out the company’s supervisory hierarchy in his Decision and Direction of Election pursuant to § 9(c). (R. 9 n. 2). In fact, he adopted the organizational structure, with the exception of certain inspectors, stipulated by the parties. An Excelsior list of employees’ names and addresses was also required, thereby clearly showing who should be considered eligible voters when the supervisory personnel are defined. Cf. Groendyke Transport, Inc. v. Davis, 5 Cir. 1969, 406 F.2d 1158, cert. applied for 394 U.S. 1010, 89 S.Ct. 1628, 23 L.Ed.2d 39; Wyman-Gordon Co. v. NLRB, 1 Cir. 1968, 397 F.2d 394, cert. granted 393 U.S. 932, 89 S.Ct. 301, 21 L.Ed.2d 268.

. See note 10, supra.