Court Opinion

ID: 9471377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:30:52.579368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:22.945296
License: Public Domain

BAILEY ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I have no problem with the result in this case, but wish to say more about the Midland rule. It is hard to think it was not fathered by frustration. I am unpersuaded by the Board’s expressed exasperation and surrendering to the difficulty of determining what is a “substantial” misstatement.1 If the matter is important, surely this cannot be an excuse for not deciding it. Its large backlog, and the relative low cost of the very substantial benefits to be obtained by contesting elections, not unnaturally *730causes the Board to seek remedies. With respect, however, Midland seems to be burning down the barn to get rid of the rats; an abnegation of the Board’s recognized duty to ensure a fair and free choice of bargaining.
None of the reasons given, either in Midland, or herein, seem to me to support such an extreme rule. Finality of elections is attractive, but it can exact a price if all falsehoods are to be routinely overlooked.2 Protection of speech has never extended to intentionally false, material misstatements. Cf. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 1964, 376 U.S. 254, 279-80, 84 S.Ct. 710, 725-26, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (speech about public officials is protected unless deliberately false or made with reckless disregard for the truth); Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Ass’n, 1978, 436 U.S. 447, 461-62, 98 S.Ct. 1925, 1921-22, 56 L.Ed.2d 444 (in-person solicitation by lawyers may be regulated because of state’s interest in preventing “fraud, undue influence, intimidation” or “misrepresentation”). I have no objection to a strict standard with regard to intent, and a very high standard as to materiality, but the Midland rule is a departure in kind, not in degree.
I am particularly troubled by the analogy to political elections. A political candidate subject to misrepresentations must take his lumps; he has no place to turn. The Board, however, was created precisely to supervise and achieve fairness.
As to the Board’s assertion that what is said during an election campaign is of no moment anyway, I can only ask why are there union campaigns, and why should falsehoods be manufactured and spread if the result was preordained? I can agree with the Board that hyperbole and exaggeration may be the hallmark of electioneering, and that sophisticated employees may be expected to make allowances. But by calling all falsehoods “propaganda” the Board does not meet the difference between seller’s talk, even of the sort that might be condemned by the Federal Trade Commission, and flat statements of positive fact.
Sophistication does not mean that - one knows everything to be false. Indeed a forgery, n. 2, ante, might well appear more suspicious than many apparently plausible statements of positive fact. Nor does the Board in any way explain how employees’ “skepticism” will adequately discount statements of facts, but may be unable to deal with “promises.” Midland, ante, at 1494.
Finally, I must wonder whether Midland, although it happened to involve employer misrepresentation, will not be in practice basically a pro-union rule. Since there is to be no penalty, obviously the rule creates a strong temptation to tell last minute falsehoods. If the union tells such, and loses the election anyway, it suffers no harm. If it wins, and the falsehood is discovered, some employees may be disgruntled, but there is nothing they can do about it. On the other hand, if the employer tells last minute falsehoods, win or lose, their subsequent revelation may have a serious effect on its labor relations. Without assigning any greater morality on one side than the other, I suspect that unions will be the ones more likely to take advantage of the virtually unbridled license now afforded by Midland. Any such inequality would be regrettable.
Turning to the case at bar, although the Board did not attempt to apply what I would regard a proper rule, I am satisfied that such a rule — and I agree with the court that this is not the time to determine its exact bounds — would lead to the present result. While the timing seems to indicate the union’s improper intent, and prevented the employer’s response, the materiality of the misrepresentation could be found not high. I accordingly concur.

. Midland Nat’l Life. Ins. Co., 263 N.L.R.B. No. 24, 110 L.R.R.M. 1489, 1492-93.

. The Board does except forgeries, because “no voter could recognize the propaganda ‘for what it is.’ ” Midland National Life Ins. Co., ante, at 1493.