Court Opinion

ID: 9460384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:48:53.596564+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:35.749400
License: Public Domain

PELL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In my opinion, with regard to Ser-gott’s back pay entitlement for the period subsequent to April 30, 1970, the trial examiner in a well reasoned and eminently fair opinion reached the only correct result. I therefore respectfully dissent.
Nickey Chevrolet is not a newcomer to the halls of this court. The present disposition marks the second time that a panel of this court had found clearly erroneous findings of fact made by a front line trier of fact following an evidentiary hearing. On the first occasion, the master, a United States district court judge, to whom this court referred the case found that there was no evidence that Sergott was discharged in retaliation for his union activities. The finding was held to be clearly erroneous. NLRB v. Nickey Chevrolet Sales, Inc., No. 15,122, 76 LRRM 2849 (1971).
The panel found Nickey Chevrolet in contempt and, inter alia,, ordered that Sergott be offered full reinstatement (which was subsequently done) and that he be made whole for all pay and benefits lost due to the discrimination against him. 76 LRRM at 2852.
The case is now back with us again in the anomalous procedural posture which Judge Fairchild has carefully and, in my opinion, correctly analyzed. Again, however, this court has disagreed with the trier of fact, who had the opportunity to hear and evaluate witnesses, to the extent of holding his findings on the post-April 1970 period to be clearly erroneous.
I think it well at this point to look at the pertinent portion of the trial examiner’s opinion:
“A different conclusion is warranted, however, with regard to Sergott’s efforts to find employment after the expiration of his employment benefits on April 30, 1970. Those efforts cannot be deemed reasonable on the facts presented herein. After April 30, 1970, he kept applying to the same employers repeatedly although there is no indication he was receiving any encouragement. For example, between April 30, 1970, and March 17, 1971, he applied at (or telephoned) Stamer Cadillac, 11 times; Moell Cadillac, 11 times; Gateway Chevrolet, 11 times; Briganee Chevrolet, 11 times. These were all dealers to whom he had applied before April 30. Not until November 18, after a period of 6% *110months, did he apply to a new dealer. Thereafter, he contacted another new dealer on January 4, 1971; another one on January 8, 1971; and yet another on March 12, 1971. There is no explanation why, having limited his search to 21 dealers over a period of 13 months, - Sergott decided to expand his search, and yet to do so in such a limited fashion. In my judgment, many of the contacts made by Sergott were window dressing. An undetermined number were merely telephone calls, and as previously noted they were repeat calls. Given the size of the employment market, and the fact that he was no longer registered with the State Employment office, it cannot be said that such efforts to find equivalent employment were reasonable. Sergott is 44 years old with 18 years of experience. It is inconceivable to me that he would have been unemployed for 18 months had he made reasonable efforts to find equivalent employment. On the facts of this case, I conclude that Sergott is not entitled to backpay for the period after April 30, 1970.”
Elsewhere in the decision it is pointed out that other than with regard to the dealers mentioned in the foregoing quoted portion, twenty-four in all, Sergott ignored the rest of some 500 Chicago area dealers through the entire back pay period, including a number of sizable dealers in the immediate area of his residence, that he discontinued reporting to the State Employment office as soon as his unemployment compensation benefits stopped, and that he did not contact a previous employer, Brigance Chevrolet, until nearly four months after his discharge.
Some of these additional matters just mentioned were, of course, not directly germane to the period subsequent to April 30, 1970. They are worthy of mention, however, in two respects. First, as I have mentioned, it appears to me that the trial examiner was eminently fair. Thus, he did not disqualify Sergott for an initial period even though Sergott waited four months to get in touch with Brigance. He was afforded similar favorable treatment notwithstanding that he did not apply to any employer until forty days after his termination. Second, it appears to me that the general attitude of Sergott reflected during the initial period serves as a background for evaluation of his efforts during the period here in question.
The standards for determining whether there is back pay entitlement are correctly outlined in the majority opinion. These synthesize into a requirement that the employee make an honest, good faith and reasonable effort to find other work. Despite what appears to me to be a complete lack of meeting these standards on the part of Sergott, the majority opinion overturns the finding of the trial examiner on the basis that the burden of proof on the company was not met.
Because of the rather unusual procedural aspect of the present case, arising as it does not from an unfair labor practice, a question might potentially exist as to who did have the burden of proof. However, noting statements such as “[t]he cases are unanimous that the defense of wilful loss of earnings is an affirmative defense, and that the burden is on the employer to prove the defense,” NLRB v. Reynolds, 399 F.2d 668, 669 (6th Cir. 1968), I will assume that once the General Counsel had established the gross amount of back pay the burden was on Nickey. NLRB v. Madison Courier, Inc., 153 U.S.App.D.C. 232, 472 F.2d 1307, 1318 (1972). However, I do not conceive that this burden is to prove the lack of reasonable effort beyond a reasonable doubt but only by the greater weight of all of the credible evidence, considering the record as a whole. NLRB v. Madison Courier, Inc., supra at 1318. The burden, in any event, is only to show the lack of reasonable effort, not that a “discriminatee would have located suitable interim employment had he only made the required effort.” Id. at 1319 (emphasis in the original).
It also appears to me that at some point in any fact finding process the burden is subject to being shifted and *111that that should have been the case here. I am unable to say that a fact finding is clearly erroneous where it involves a man who only got in touch with twenty-four dealers out of some five hundred in the metropolitan area where he lived and then only sporadically, frequently by telephone, and many times where he had been turned down without any invitation to return. In other words, the company had met its burden of proof, and this proof was not overcome by any contrary evidence, at least, insofar as saying that it was clearly erroneous is concerned.
I do not agree with the majority’s interpretation of the trial examiner’s characterization of many of Sergott’s contacts as “window dressing.” The trial examiner had an opportunity to hear Sergott’s testimony, and I read the characterization as a finding that Sergott was less than credible.
The Board in reversing did not do so on the basis of failure to meet the burden of proof but simply on a sweeping statement, which I find virtually unsupported other than by the Board’s own assertion, that Sergott continued to make a reasonable search. The facts speak for themselves. The Board laid emphasis on (1) the fact that there was no evidence that Sergott at any time during the period received or refused any job offers; (2) that there was no showing that any jobs were available at any of the dealers to whom he applied or at any of the other Chicagoland dealers; and (3) that Sergott testified that he had not applied to the other dealers because he only applied to the dealers that gave him hope of getting a job.
Certainly, it appears to me, the lack of evidence that he was not offered a job bears only minimally on whether he used reasonable efforts; and the lack of evidence that he did not refuse one does not bear at all on the reasonableness-of-search question. I find incredible the thought that nearly half a thousand automobile dealers during nearly a year long period would not through normal processes of turnover, death, removals from the territory, promotions, and numerous other factors common to all businesses have had need for hiring experienced salesmen. I find equally incredible the necessity for showing by a widespread canvass this fact of everyday knowledge. Lastly, the hope that Ser-gott supposedly had when he made his repeat calls appears to be of gossamer quality and after several turn downs would not even seem to be of that magnitude.
Further, the majority opinion, as well as the Board, appears to rely on the fact that there may have been a lack of available suitable émployment. In my opinion, this adds an improper element above and beyond the requirement that there be the good faith reasonable effort. Presumably there could be economic disaster areas where unemployment was so widespread that to attempt to seek a job would be obviously fruitless. I express no opinion as to whether even so there should not be some requirement of effort because that is not the ease we have here. With a lack of diligence, “ ‘the circumstance óf a scarcity of work and the possibility that none would have been found even with the use of diligence is irrelevant.’ American Bottling Co., 116 N.L.R.B. 1303, 1307 (1956),” Madison Courier, Inc., supra, at 1319. (footnote omitted).
There is a basis for the belief that Nickey Chevrolet had assumed the status of persona non grata in the eyes of the Board by its long continuing appearances before the Labor Board and its representatives. That such status had been achieved, if it was, is no reason for reaching a different result than plainly indicated by the facts. I think the Board has done so in this case, whatever the motivating factors may have been, and I therefore in the particular procedural posture of this case would order payment by Nickey Chevrolet in accordance with the trial examiner’s findings insofar as the period subsequent to April 30, 1970, is concerned. Otherwise, I concur in the opinion of the majority.