Court Opinion

ID: 9652652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:29:43.262983+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:53.273227
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring).
I am in agreement with the order provided for in the opinion prepared by Judge HANEY. I am in general agreement with the reasoning of the opinion, but find myself unable to voice a full approval thereof.
The opinion should, as I view the problem, avoid basing the application of the Wagner Act to the cause upon the finding that the labor trouble could reasonably affect commerce in the manner denounced by the act. The Board went further and *790found as its judgment that such trouble would, so affect commerce.
The statement in the opinion to the effect that the expressions of the Supreme Court in the case of National Labor Relations Board v. Express Publishing Company, 61 S.Ct. 693, 85 L.Ed.-, March 3, 1941, leave the question therein, treated as to cease and desist orders in doubt is not well taken. In my opinion the Express Publishing Company case is perfectly clear, and constitutes an affirmance of the principles laid down by this court in the case of National Labor Relations Board v. National Motor Bearing Co., 9 Cir., 105 F.2d 652.
In this connection, I do not agree with the statement in Judge HANEY’S opinion in the instant case as to the holdings of this court in the Motor Bearing Company case.
In the latter case the facts as recited in our opinion show that there had been a violation by the respondent of each of the rights guaranteed employees in Section 7 of the Act, and that the Board had so found.
Section 7 reads, “Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities, for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”
Section 8 makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with, restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7.
The Board made its order requiring the respondent to cease and desist from “in any manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing its employees” in the exercise of the rights which the Board had found had been violated, referring to such rights in the terms of Section 7. The argument was advanced by the respondent that the Board had no power to order desistance from “in any manner” engaging in the unfair labor practice found, and that the only authority of the Board was to order desistance from the specific act by which the unfair labor practice was perpetrated.
This court by its majority opinion held that the argument of the respondent outlined above could not be supported, and that (105 F.2d page 660) “When the Board has made a finding, supported by substantial evidence, that an act has been done which is prohibited as an unfair labor practice, the fair intent of the statute is that the Board is warranted in ordering desistance from such an unfair labor practice generally and is not required to limit its order so as to compel cessation only of the particular and limited activity found to have taken place.”
Since, as I have pointed out above, the findings showed that the respondent had interfered with the employees in the exercise of each and every of the rights guaranteed them by Section 7, we held that the all encompassing cease and desist order was proper and should be enforced.
In the Express Company case, supra, the only unfair labor practice found was a refusal to bargain collectively with the representative of respondent’s employees. The Board’s order went further and ordered desistance from “in any manner” restraining, etc., its employees in the exercise of any of the rights guaranteed by Section 7. This the Supreme Court held was improper on the facts of the case. I quote from the opinion of the court, “We hold * * * that the National Labor Relations Act does not give the Board an authority, which courts cannot rightly exercise, to enjoin violations of all the provisions of the statute merely because the violation of one has been found. To justify an order restraining other violations it must appear that they bear some resemblance to that which the employer has. committed or that danger of their commission in the future is to be anticipated from the course of his conduct in the past.. That justification is lacking here.”
It should be noted, however, that the' court modified the order so as to require only that the respondent shall cease and desist from "In any manner interfering with the efforts of the Guild to bargain collectively with Express Publishing Company, San Antonio, Texas”. (Emphasis-supplied.)
Thus it is clear that it was not the “in. any manner” portion of the order of the Board which the Supreme Court held improper, but the fact that it was too broad under the facts of that case and ordered, desistance from unfair labor practices that were not found to have been committed.
There is nothing in the Express Publishing Company case which is inconsistent with the holding in the National Motor Bearing Company case, and in fact the Express Publishing Company case is in effect *791a complete affirmance of the decision we therein made, to-wit, that the cease and desist order was not necessarily to be directed against the commission of a specific act but instead could properly be directed against the violation of any right designated in Section 7 of which the specific act committed was evidentiary.