Court Opinion

ID: 9467128
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:39:17.312497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:10.597492
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent because I think the record is wholly devoid of any evidence connecting Sparks’ union activity to his discharge, while his violation of a perfectly valid company rule is admitted.
Especially missing from the majority opinion is the company rule which Sparks violated and which I suggest the majority opinion infers (see esp. footnote 4, p. 319) does not exist. It is as follows:
“Any employee having been found to have violated any of the following will be subject to discipline or discharge depending upon the circumstances in each situation:
4. Fighting, playing, gambling, indecent conduct or language while on duty or on company property.”
As the Administrative Law Judge correctly points out in his opinion, Sparks admittedly had knowledge of this rule.
Sparks also admittedly violated the rule.
Sparks’ last union activity known to the company or otherwise was more than six months prior to his discharge, and the other union activity with which Sparks was connected was some five years before his discharge. There was admittedly no union campaign going on in the plant at the time of Sparks’ discharge.
Because these facts are correct beyond contradiction, the question of the motive behind the company’s discharge of Sparks boils down to a question of the credibility of witnesses. The Administrative Law Judge who saw the witnesses and heard them testify credited the company’s witnesses rather than drawing the strained inference taken by the Board in this case and upheld by the majority. Had there been other employees caught by a supervisor committing the same offense who had not been discharged, for example, the result might well be different, but there were none. Indeed, the only other evidence of an employee charged with indecent conduct (circulating an obscene drawing) showed that he escaped discharge only because he did not return to work after his 3-day suspension.
In summary, I would not enforce the order of the Board for the reasons set forth by the Administrative Law Judge in his fully documented and thoroughly analytical opinion, which is summarized in the following quotation from it:
“The reasonableness of such restriction cannot be gainsaid. Management concern over the use of the outside premises as a restroom would thus provide a legitimate basis for disciplinary action. Given the reasonableness of the concern, union membership or support would not license an employee to urinate outside designated restroom areas any more than it would license him to urinate on the factory floor. [Footnote reference Omitted]”