Court Opinion

ID: 9464026
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:23:36.793445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:25.572785
License: Public Domain

COFFIN, Chief Judge,
dissenting in part.
While I agree with the court that Sta-Hi violated § 8(a)(1) by blaming the union for the withholding of the wage increase, I would not set aside the Board’s remedial backpay order. I think established principles require that this portion of the order be enforced, but even if the matter were doubtful, I think a remand is mandatory.
It is elementary that the Board’s power to choose sanctions is “a broad discretionary one, subject to limited judicial review”, Fiberboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U.S. 203, 216, 85 S.Ct. 398, 406, 13 L.Ed.2d 233 (1964). A remedial order may not be disturbed “unless it can be shown that the order is a patent attempt to achieve ends other than those which can fairly be said to effectuate the policies of the Act.” Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. NLRB, 319 U.S. 533, 540, 63 S.Ct. 1214, 1218, 87 L.Ed. 1568 (1943). See also Butz v. Glover Livestock Comm’n Co., 411 U.S. 182, 186 n.3, 93 S.Ct. 1455, 36 L.Ed.2d 142 (1973); NLRB v. Seven Up Bottling Co., 344 U.S. 344, 346, 73 S.Ct. 287, 97 L.Ed. 377 (1953).
To begin, there is no doubt that the back-pay order in the case at bar, if not vitiated by any descriptive language, would be well within the Board’s remedial powers. The August 4 announcement had been found to discourage the employees from exercising their § 7 right to organize by informing them that such activity carried with it a risk of economic injury. The backpay order would undo the effects of the § 8(a)(1) violation by restoring to the employees what Sta-Hi said had been withdrawn. This remedy, the Board could conclude, is not only reasonably necessary to reassure the employees that they will be fully protected in the exercise of their right to organize but also appropriate as a means of deterring other employers from engaging in similar misconduct. See NLRB v. Otis Hospital, 545 F.2d 252, 257 (1st Cir. 1976). I observe that the general, if not uniform, practice of the Board in cases such as this is to award backpay beginning at the time of the unlawful act. See Colorado Seminary, 219 N.L.R.B. 1068 (1975); cf. NLRB v. Otis Hospital, supra.
While recognizing the force of these considerations, the court refuses to enforce this portion of the order because it believes it rests on a clearly erroneous ground: that is, that the August 4 announcement deprived the employees of a wage increase. I have difficulty understanding why the court insists on regarding the Board’s remedial decision as defectively rationalized. It is pertinent to quote the troublesome portion of the Board’s decision:
“[W]e find the initial decision by [Sta-Hi] on July 31, 1975 to cancel the wage increase was lawful and not a violation of [the Act] . .. We shall therefore modify the recommended Order accordingly. Furthermore, we shall change the recommended make-whole order to provide for compensation to employees for wages they lost between August 4 and October 25, 1975, rather than July 31 and October 25, 1975.”
While the Board did use the technically inaccurate language “compensation, for wages lost”, making the employees whole for an economic injury simply cannot be the Board’s rationale for the backpay order. Since the Board held that the July 31 decision to cancel the wage increase was lawful, it obviously knew that, in a technical sense, no wages had been lost. Unless we attribute an immediate loss of memory to the Board, the only plausible explanation is that this language was intended only to indicate the formula for determining the *477amount of the backpay, cf. NLRB v. Otis Hospital, supra at 257, and that the Board failed to state its actual justification for the backpay order because it assumed that — in light of its established practice — the justification would be obvious to all. If limited review and deference to the Board’s remedial choices mean anything, I would think it is our obligation to find a reasonable interpretation for the Board’s decision and not to set aside an order because inartful and technically inaccurate language appears in it.
While I would enforce the order, I can see the merit in insisting on less misleading language in Board opinions. Yet even if the Board’s decision has to be taken as defectively rationalized, the proper course for the court would be to remand, rather than simply to refuse to enforce this portion of the order. SEC v. Chenery, 318 U.S. 80, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943) establishes the proposition that when an agency gives the wrong reasons for a supportable decision of law or policy, the reviewing court is to send the case back for a new determination. Accord NLRB v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 380 U.S. 438, 85 S.Ct. 1061, 13 L.Ed.2d 951 (1965); Phelps Dodge Corp. v. NLRB, 313 U.S. 177, 61 S.Ct. 845, 85 L.Ed. 1271 (1941); see 2 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 16.12 at p. 480 (1958 ed.). Since the backpay order could, even in the court’s view, be supported, I think a remand is mandatory.
I would therefore not set aside the back-pay provision of the Board’s order.