Court Opinion

ID: 9419650
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:50:47.389458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:19.808669
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murphy,
dissenting.
This case raises important questions concerning the relationship of courts and administrative agencies subsequent to the entry of a judicial decree enforcing an administrative order. Because the particular facts of this case are so essential to a proper determination of these questions and because the Court has not seen fit to refer to the factual situation in other than general terms, it is necessary to review the facts at some length before discussing my reasons for disagreement with the Court’s conclusion.
The National Labor Relations Board, after conducting proceedings instituted upon charges filed by the petitioner unions, found that the respondent companies had committed unfair labor practices in violation of Sections 8(1) and 8 (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, 452. On October 27, 1939, the Board entered an order requiring the companies to cease and desist from their unfair labor practices and to take certain affirmative action, including the reinstatement of 209 employees with back pay. Inasmuch as the record at that time convinced the Board that employment opportunities with the companies had been permanently and substantially curtailed subsequent to the critical date of July 5, 1935, the Board felt the normal remedy of full back pay would be inappropriate. Under the assumed circumstances, the normal remedy would require the companies to pay in back wages an amount greater than that which they would have paid to the victims of discrimination had *345there been no unfair labor practices. And it would also give the group of 209 employees more than it presumably would have received under curtailed employment opportunities. The Board therefore devised and set forth in its opinion a special formula giving each claimant only a portion of the full back pay to which he otherwise would have been entitled.1 16 N. L. R. B. 727; amended in 18 N. L. R. B. 320.
The companies then filed a petition for review in the court below on November 6, 1939, and the Board countered with a cross-petition for enforcement of its order. On February 10, 1940, the petitioner unions sought and obtained permission from the court to intervene in the proceedings on the claim that since certain of their members had been allowed affirmative relief by the Board they were “vitally concerned with the enforcement of said order of the Board.” Leave was also given them to file briefs and participate in the oral argument. Subsequently, on May 21, 1941, the court below rendered an opinion affirming the Board’s order with certain modifications not here material and a decree enforcing the order was entered accordingly. 119 F. 2d 903.
On August 23, 1941, the companies offered reinstatement to the 209 employees, thereby fixing that day as the terminal date of the period commencing July 5, 1935, for which back pay was due under the terms of the court’s decree enforcing the Board’s order. The companies submitted their back pay computations to the Board in May, 1942, and tendered the sum of $8,409.39 in purported full payment of all back pay, although they later averred that no more than $5,400 was due under the formula specified by the Board. In accordance with its usual procedure the Board thereupon examined the pertinent pay rolls and records of the companies to verify their computations *346and to determine whether there had been compliance with the decree. This investigation was completed in October, 1942, at which time the Board became convinced that the provisions of its order as enforced by the court contained certain errors and mistakes relating to back pay and that in framing the special formula it had misconceived the facts as to the availability of employment with the companies for the 209 employees. It appeared to the Board that the companies during the period from July 5, 1935, to August 23, 1941, had been in a position to accord full employment to these 209 claimants as well as to all other former employees reapplying for work and that the normal back-wage computations should have been used.
The Board on February 1, 1943, filed a petition with the court below setting forth the situation. It requested that the pertinent paragraphs of the court’s decree enforcing the Board’s order be vacated and that so much of the cause as was thereby affected be remanded to the Board for further consideration. The companies filed an answer. The unions also filed a brief and participated in the oral argument on this matter. The court, treating the Board’s petition as one “in the nature of a bill of review to set aside, for fraud, mistake and newly discovered evidence, paragraphs 2 (d) and 3 (b) of the final decree of this Court,” dismissed the petition on its merits. 141 F. 2d 843. The court later denied without opinion the Board’s petition for rehearing and the union’s separate motion to modify the decree or to vacate the paragraphs in question and remand to the Board.
I
Turning to the facts relative to the alleged error, we find that the Board in framing its back pay formula for the 209 employees expressly desired to make them whole and “to restore the. situation, as nearly as possible, to that which would have obtained but for the illegal dis*347crimination.” 16 N. L. R. B. at 834. Normally the Board would have directed payment of full back pay to each claimant from the date of discrimination to the date of offer of reinstatement or placement on a preferential rehiring list, allowing due credit for net interim earnings received from other employment. But the Board felt that “the peculiar factual situation here presents unusual difficulties in fashioning our remedy so as to restore the status quo,” 16 N. L. R. B. at 834, and that a special remedy should be devised.
It appears that a strike, beginning on May 8, 1935, caused the. companies to close down for several weeks. On that day approximately 1,100 men were employed by the companies. Operations were resumed on June 12 and the Board found that thereafter the companies discrim-inatorily refused to rehire the 209 employees in question, referred to as the claimants. Evidence was introduced by the companies, however, to show that after July 5, 1935, the effective date of the Act, certain of their mines were sold, many operations suspended, production methods reorganized and specific jobs abolished — resulting in a drastic curtailment of the number of available jobs. According to the Board, only about 600 men were employed by July 5. Some 350 of the 500 employees not then working were claimants in the case, although discrimination was found only as to 209 of them. After July 5 a substantial number of additional men were put to work, but the total number of employees was still considerably short of the pre-strike level of 1,100. The Board apparently assumed that all 1,100 men would reapply for work after the settlement of the strike, thus making the number of available jobs insufficient. As it later became evident, however, not all of the 1,100 reapplied and there were, according to the Board, sufficient opportunities at substantially all times for all who actually reapplied, including the 209 victims of discrimination.
*348On the assumption that “there were presumably at all times less jobs open than old employees available,” 16 N. L. R. B. at 834, and that there was no way of knowing which men would have been reinstated had the companies acted legally, the Board devised a special formula for computing back pay. It directed that there be computed as a lump sum the total amount of wages actually paid to all persons hired or reinstated from and after July 5, 1935, up to the date of compliance with the Board order reinstating or placing the 209 employees on a preferential list. The Board indicated that “we shall not credit the entire lump sum to the claimants discriminated against, since we cannot assume that they and only they would have been given these jobs had the respondents acted lawfully. But we can and do assume for this purpose that a proportionate amount of such claimants would have been given the jobs.” 16 N. L. R. B. at 835, 836. Accordingly, the Board directed that a proportion of the lump sum should be distributed to the 209 claimants. This proportion was to be determined by a governing fraction having as its numerator the number of claimants and as its denominator the total number of claimants and all other pre-strike employees who reapplied for work, whether successfully or not, after July 5, 1935. Thus, by way of illustration, if the lump sum amounted to $360,000 and there were 200 claimants and 100 other reapplicants, the governing fraction would be two-thirds and the basic sum of $240,000 would be divided among the 200 claimants, with adjustments being made for net earnings elsewhere. Neither the Board’s order nor the court’s enforcing decree fixed the amount of back pay due under this formula. The determination of that sum was left to be made after the period of discrimination ended.
Following the close of the period of discrimination, the Board examined the payrolls and other records of the companies to determine the exact amount of back wages *349due the 209 claimants. According to the Board, this investigation revealed that, despite any curtailment of employment, the companies at virtually all times after July 5, 1935, had jobs opening up in numbers equal to and at times in excess of the total number of claimants and reapplicants and that such positions were available at virtually all times to all the claimants and reapplicants. This information was submitted by the Board in support of its petition to vacate and remand the portions of the court's decree relating to back pay. It claimed that it had been led into error in framing its original formula by the evidence and contention of the companies relative to curtailed employment and that such a formula, under the facts as they now appeared to the Board, would be grossly inequitable to those who had suffered deprivation of earnings as a consequence of the companies' unfair labor practices.
The parties differ as to whether the Board at the time it framed the special formula was aware of or had access to the facts which it now relies upon. The Board alleges that it was ignorant of these facts and thus misconceived the remedy. The companies state, however, that the Board actually knew of these facts and that, in the exercise of its discretion, it decreed that partial rather than full back wages should be paid. We need not pause to determine this controversy for it appears obvious that, assuming the figures submitted by the Board are true, the special formula specified by the Board is grossly inadequate and falls far short of achieving the expressed desire of the Board in this case “to restore the situation, as nearly as possible, to that which would have obtained but for the illegal discrimination.”
If it were true that there were insufficient jobs for the 209 claimants as well as for the other reapplicants the special formula would be appropriate. Then it could be said that it was impossible to tell whether the 209 claimants would all have been employed by the companies sub*350sequent to July 5, 1935, and that it was therefore necessary to apportion the available jobs among claimants and other reapplicants for purposes of determining how much back pay was due the claimants. But if it is a fact that there were sufficient employment opportunities for all the 209 claimants and the reapplicants at virtually all times, the back pay formula framed by the Board becomes inadequate. Since all of the claimants would then presumably have been employed by the companies at all times but for the discrimination, all of them suffered the loss of the full wages which they would have received and any formula which gives them less than that amount fails to make them whole. And the companies escape paying the full amount of wages they would have paid had they acted legally.
We cannot ascribe to the Board a deliberate intention to prescribe something less than a full make whole remedy. Nothing appears in the Board’s opinion or order to that effect. Indeed, the Board’s statements of its objectives in this case expressly negative such an intention. And the reason given for fashioning the special formula — the fact that there were presumably at all times less jobs open than old employees available — is consistent only with a desire to compensate the claimants as fully and as equitably as possible under the facts as then contemplated.
In addition to the alleged inappropriateness of the formula as a whole, the Board claims that there are numerous other errors in the back pay provisions that warrant remand for purposes of correction. Thus footnote 185 of the Board’s opinion inadvertently contains a serious omission which, contrary to the Board’s intention, limits the lump sum used in the formula to the earnings of only 209 employees rather than to the earnings of 209 employees plus the number of old employees reapplying.2 *351The governing fraction includes the latter employees and the lump sum should in turn reflect their earnings. Otherwise the claimants are limited to a small part of their proportionate loss in wages. Moreover, the formula illogically requires that there be deducted from each claimant’s share the full amount rather than a pro rata share of his interim earnings. These errors and certain ambiguities3 serve to make the partial back pay formula an ineffective means for making the employees as whole as possible even on the assumption that employment opportunities had been curtailed. The remedy which the Board originally found to be essential to carry out the purposes of the Act is thereby rendered inadequate.
The practical impact of this situation on the employees involved is serious and substantial. Under the Board’s partial and mathematically inaccurate back pay formula, which this Court now insists must be followed, the companies claim that the 209 employees are entitled to only $5,400. But if the true facts are as represented by the Board and if it should be determined that the full back pay formula should be utilized under such circumstances, approximately $800,000 would be due these 209 employees *352after allowance for interim earnings elsewhere. Thus these employees must bear the loss of nearly $795,000 in unpaid back wages resulting from the unfair labor practices -of the companies. On them rests the penalty for what this Court euphemistically calls “little more than a mistake in arithmetic.”
It is thus clear that unless the Board is given some opportunity to reexamine its back pay remedy much of the loss resulting from the companies’ unfair labor practices may be shifted from the companies to the employees and the public policy of the Act may be largely circumvented. Our concern here is not with the truth of the facts alleged by the Board or with the appropriateness of any other remedy the Board might devise. It is enough that the Board has cast sufficient doubt on the appropriateness and correctness of its original remedy to warrant resubmission of the matter to the Board for further consideration. The Court today does not attempt to deny that the situation is an intolerable one in light of the alleged facts or that modification or remand of the back pay provisions of the decree is a reasonable request under such circumstances. Hence, unless some principle of law or statute compels the opposite conclusion, such a remand should have been made.
II
The pertinent legal and statutory rules, in my opinion, do not preclude remand of the back pay provisions of the court’s decree to the Board under these circumstances.
The companies argue that the exercise of the Board’s discretion in devising a back pay formula became a finality by virtue of the enforcing decree of the court below and that this formula cannot be modified or reconsidered at this late date. It is claimed that all rights' and liabilities under the decree were fixed and fully accrued on August 23,1941, the terminal date of the period of discrimination, *353and that the court below had no jurisdiction to vacate or remand any portion of that decree subsequent to the end of the term in which it was entered.
But it is plain that the back pay formula, as enforced by the court's decree, was at most provisional and tentative in character. Cf. United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U. S. 106, 114. It did not pretend to be based upon detailed and comprehensive findings as to actual employment opportunities and actual losses suffered during the entire period of discrimination, facts which were impossible to determine until after the close of that period. Even though the hearing closed on April 29, 1938, that part of the order relating to back pay spoke as of July 5, 1935. The Board merely assumed from certain evidence and allegations that there would be decreased employment opportunities at all times after July 5, 1935, and left to the future the problem of uncovering the complete facts. The formula was drawn in light of that assumption, an assumption that necessarily contemplated that undisclosed or new facts or a removal of a misconception of the true facts might call for an adjustment in the remedy to be applied. And the enforcing decree of the court in no way affected the tentative and unexecuted nature of this formula.
The rights and liabilities under such a back pay formula could not become final until the Board or the courts were satisfied with the application of the formula to the actual facts or until the formula ripened into an executed decree. The sole purpose of the remedy was to vindicate the public policy by compensating the employees for the losses they had suffered due to the unfair labor practices of the companies rather than to punish the companies. Until it was authoritatively determined that the remedy did accomplish this purpose as applied to the actual facts, or until the decree was fully executed, no rights and liabilities can be said finally to have accrued. *354Thus the companies had no vested right on the day they ceased their discriminatory policy relative to the 209 employees to compensate those employees according to a formula which woefully failed to make the employees whole. The relevant portions of the decree could still be modified or remanded.
As the court below recognized, it retained “jurisdiction over the enforcement of all of the provisions of its decree which remain unexecuted.” 141 E. 2d at 845. A court has the unquestioned and continuing power to make corrections and changes in its unexecuted decrees even after the term of court in which they were originally entered has expired. See Root v. Woolworth, 150 U. S. 401; Shields v. Thomas, 18 How. 253 ; 8 Cyclopedia of Federal Procedure (2d ed.) § 3598 and cases there cited. This includes the power to modify or grant additional relief in the interest of enforcing or effectuating decrees. Thus the doctrine of finality of judgment has no relevance as applied to unexecuted decrees and cannot be utilized to deny power in the court below to modify or remand the back pay provisions of the decree to the Board. No specific provision in the National Labor Relations Act, moreover, is necessary in order to appreciate that any decree requiring future action is upon entry partly final and partly unexecuted. “A continuing decree of injunction directed to events to come is subject always to adaptation as events may shape the need.” United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U. S. 106, 114. As to the unexecuted portion of the decree below, finality obviously has not accrued.
On the facts alleged in the Board’s petition and in the unions’ motion, the court below plainly erred in refusing to allow the Board to reconsider the back pay remedy. Under § 10 (c) of the Act, the Board is authorized to require such affirmative remedial action, “including reinstatement of employees with or without back pay, as will effectuate the policies of this Act.” As the Court *355recognizes, the nature and extent of the back pay remedy are thus primarily and peculiarly matters lying within the administrative discretion of the Board, and a court’s function is limited to imparting legal sanction to the back pay remedy once it has determined that the Board has acted within the confines of its authority. A court cannot exercise the discretion that Congress has given only to the Board. But if, as conceded, a court can neither affirm nor reverse a Board order relating to back pay on the basis of its own conception of effectuating the policies of the Act, no less should it refuse to allow the Board to reconsider an unexecuted remedy once proposed if the Board reasonably feels that the public policy which it guards demands such action. The special competence of the Board to require affirmative remedial action necessarily includes a special competence to modify, amend or repeal such a requirement prior to its consummation.
It does not follow, as the Court assumes, that the Board at any time and for any reason satisfactory to it may recall that part of the enforcing decree relating to affirmative relief and start afresh. The requirement of reasonableness applies here as elsewhere. If the Board’s request is so baseless and unnecessary as to exceed the bounds of reasonableness, refusal to remand lies within the sound discretion of the court. But here it is undeniable that if the facts stated by the Board are true the unexecuted remedy is entirely inadequate to achieve the purposes for which it was designed. Employees suffer for the sins of their employers and the public policy underlying the requirement of back pay is largely frustrated. To deny a remand under such circumstances is to abuse a court’s discretion and to transform the judicial system into a weapon against the innocent victims of an administrative error.
The responsibility of the Board for proposing remedies to effectuate the policies of the Act is a continuing one. Cf. Franks Bros. Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 702, 705-*356706. It is not necessarily lifted by reason of the entry of a judicial decree of enforcement, although it may be suspended temporarily during the pendency of review proceedings in the appellate court. Ford Motor Co. v. Labor Board, 305 U. S. 364. If at any time before the decree is executed the Board becomes convinced that the remedy as tentatively approved by the court will no longer serve the statutory purposes, reason and justice dictate that the Board should have the opportunity to reconsider the matter. Whether the inadequacy of the remedy be due to inadvertence, negligence, fraud or other reasons, there is no recognizable public or private interest in executing such a remedy. To hold that a particular back pay remedy must be imposed when the Board reasonably suspects that it is incorrect or inadequate is to project legalism to an absurd and dangerous length.
We are not dealing here with an ordinary common law money judgment which one party seeks to set aside for fraud, mistake, or newly discovered evidence. Nor are we met with an ordinary litigant seeking relief for itself from a judicial decree. We are concerned, rather, with the attempt of an administrative agency to effectuate the policies set forth in a Congressional mandate. Until those policies are effectuated through the enforcement and execution of statutory remedies, the agency and the courts should coordinate their efforts to realize the plain will of the people. United States v. Morgan, 307 U. S. 183, 191.
Me. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Rutledge join in this dissent.

 This special formula was noted by this Court in Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177, 198-199, note 7.

 This footnote appears at 16 N. L. R. B. at 835. With the words in brackets originally being omitted by the Board and being added here *351to indicate the Board’s intended modification, this footnote reads as follows:
“If at any given time during this period the number of such new or reinstated employees then working exceeds the number of claimants discriminated against [plus the number of old employees reapplying], only the earnings of a number of such employees equal to the number of claimants discriminated against [plus the number of old employees reapplying] shall be counted in computing the lump sum. . . .”

 The Board claims that since the number of claimants and reappli-cants varies from week to week, the formula is ambiguous as to whether a single governing fraction, based on the average or on the maximum numbers of claimants and reapplieants, or successive governing fractions, based on the actual numbers, are to be constructed for the period of discrimination. It is also said that the formula fails to define the “average earnings” referred to in the last sentence of footnote 185 of the Board’s opinion.