Court Opinion

ID: 9463603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:10:36.932718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:10.876673
License: Public Domain

CRAVEN, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I agree with my brothers that the findings of the Board that the hospital unlawfully discharged Chapman, Ross and Patterson because of concerted activity are supported by substantial evidence.
On the peculiar facts of the case, and because the respondent is a hospital, I also agree that the Board’s remedy of reinstatement to Ross is too extreme. Sick people ought not be unnecessarily disturbed. Because they need peace and quiet, it seems to me a hospital may be more discriminating in the selection of employees than a factory or place of commerce. As documented in the majority opinion, Ross has a record as long as his arm, and more significantly for my concern, it is a record of violence, drunkenness and disorderly conduct. By concurring in the denial of reinstatement relief to Ross, I do not mean to participate in the establishment of any rule of law that convicts may lawfully be denied employment opportunity and are outside the protection of the labor laws, and I do not read the majority opinion as establishing any such doctrine.
My brothers deny relief to Patterson on the ground that Patterson was offered reinstatement but rejected it. The Board found otherwise. My brothers feel free to displace the Board’s finding with their own because the testimony of management that Patterson was offered reinstatement is uncontradicted. They omit to say that Patterson had left the vicinity and could not be found. Our Brass Works language, relied upon by the majority, comes very close to a rule of the Fifth Circuit specifically rejected by the Supreme Court. In NLRB v. Walton Mfg. Co., 369 U.S. 404, 408, 82 S.Ct. 853, 855, 7 L.Ed.2d 829 (1962), the Fifth Circuit test in reinstatement cases was said to be “that the employer’s statement under oath must be believed unless there is ‘impeachment of him’ or ‘substantial contradiction,’ or if there are ‘circumstances’ that ‘raise doubts’ they must be ‘inconsistent with the positive sworn evidence on the exact point.’ ” In rejecting such a rule, the Supreme Court noted that the examiner sees the witnesses and hears them testify while the Board and the reviewing court look only at cold records. The Supreme Court quoted favorably from a Second Circuit opinion as follows:
For the demeanor of a witness “may satisfy the tribunal, not only that the witness’ testimony is not true, but that the truth is the opposite of his story; for the denial of one who has a motive to deny, may be uttered with such hesitation, discomfort, arrogance or defiance, as to give assurance that he is fabricating, and that, if he is, there is no alternative but to assume the truth of what he denies.”
It has always seemed absurd to me to suggest that I must believe Ananias so long as he is uncontradicted and to then fail to *926consider why he may have been uncontra-dicted.
Stated differently, if reinstatement is an affirmative defense, surely the burden of proof to show an offer of reinstatement and thus stop the running of back pay is upon the employer. If that is correct, the Board may properly conclude that the employer failed to sustain that burden for the simple reason that the examiner did not believe the witness. A failure to find the fact in favor of one who has the burden of proving that fact does not, of course, depend upon substantial evidence, but instead, upon a want of credible evidence.
I would enforce the Board’s order of reinstatement and back pay for Patterson. To do so is not unfair to the hospital. The Board represented to us in oral argument that the question of entitlement to reimbursement for back pay will be determined in a compliance proceeding. If Patterson never shows up, there is obviously no one to pay, and I should think that would be the end of it. If he does show up, I would have no objection to an instruction that the Board take his testimony and determine anew whether he had been offered reinstatement.