Court Opinion

ID: 9465561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:50:02.7759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:14.858360
License: Public Domain

STANLEY, Senior District Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
My concurrence in the panel’s opinion filed July 28, 1978 was based — I now think incorrectly — on my belief that the decision of the Supreme Court in Beth Israel Hospital v. NLRB, 437 U.S. 483, 98 S.Ct. 2463, 57 L.Ed.2d 370 (decided July 22, 1978), compelled enforcement of the Board’s order.
As noted by the majority the opinion of the Supreme Court in Beth Israel deals, like the case at bar, with the issue whether union solicitation activity can be prohibited by a hospital in a hospital cafeteria and coffee shop which is accessible to patients and the public as well as to the employees.
This case originated with the discharge of Richard Blake, an employee of the hospital and an organizer for a union. The principal reason given for his termination was “inconsiderate treatment of a patient” (Meyer Sharlin) while Blake was treating him. The Board found “some merit in respondent’s argument that in view of Blake’s failure to give his account of what occurred, the Blake-Sharlin incident as reported by Sharlin would constitute ample justification for Blake’s discharge. The issue, however, is not whether the incident, would constitute such justification but whether, in fact, Blake’s discharge was motivated solely by this incident, or whether it was motivated in whole, or in part, by Blake’s union activities” and “that Blake’s discharge was motivated, at least in part, by his violation of the no solicitation rules”. It is clear that the Board’s decision was based on its conclusion that the hospital’s rule, insofar as it banned solicitation in the cafeteria and coffee shop, was invalid, and that his discharge violated Section 8(a)(1) and (2) of the National Labor Relations Act.
The majority holds that the decision of the Supreme Court in Beth Israel considers and resolves all of the issues posed in this case and concludes that it is fully applicable and controlling. I cannot agree. The function of the Board, according to Beth Israel, is to balance conflicting legitimate interests to effectuate fundamental national labor policy. In cases affecting the health care industry the conflicting interests are, on the one hand, the hospital’s desire to protect its patients from disturbance and, on the other, the union’s desire to organize the hospital’s employees. As noted by Mr. Justice Brennan “it may be [in the health care field] that the importance of the employer’s interest here demands use of a more finely calibrated scale.” The Board itself has concluded that the special characteristics of hospitals justify a rule different from that which the Board generally applies to other employers. St. John’s Hospital v. School of Nursing, Inc., 222 NLRB 1150 (1976).
On the basis of the record before the Board in Beth Israel the Supreme Court held that the Board had correctly evaluated the relative strengths of the competing interests and considered all factors appropriately to be taken into account. The record in Beth Israel differs in each material area from the record before the Board in the case at bar.
In Beth Israel the hospital “was unable to introduce any evidence to show that solicitation or distribution [in the cafeteria] was or would be harmful.” (Emphasis in the original.) The majority opinion in our case includes the statement.
The record before us provides no factional basis for a conclusion that the patients *917at National Jewish Hospital suffered upset or experienced disruption of tranquility as a result of union solicitation in the cafeteria or in other places.
I do not find support in the record for that observation. At the hearing before the Administrative Law Judge the uncontroverted evidence was that Jewish Hospital differs notably from a general hospital; that its patients may remain in the hospital six to nine months or longer; that 90 to 95 percent of the patients are ambulatory and take their meals in the cafeteria; that medical care is provided to asthmatic patients who have been unable to cope with this condition on an outpatient basis; that asthma is considered a psychophysiological disorder “which has an organic, biological medical basis complicated by emotional factors such as stress, anxiety, anger and tension. The extent to which an asthmatic can cope with these emotions can be a determining factor in how well he manages his asthma.” Despite this evidence — undisputed — the Board, although recognizing that the hospital’s basic function is patient care, concluded that the rule prohibiting solicitation in the cafeteria patronized by 95 percent of the patients was not necessary to avoid disruption of that function.
In Beth Israel a patient was allowed to visit the cafeteria only when his doctor certified that he was well enough to do so and the Supreme Court deemed it “of critical significance that only 1.56 percent of the cafeteria patrons are patients.” In the case at bar about 95 percent of the patients, including some receiving intravenous fluids and oxygen treatment frequent the cafeteria.
In Beth Israel the Supreme Court held that consideration of the availability of alternate space where union activities were permitted was inapposite “where the only areas in which organizational rights are permitted is not conducive to their exercise”. There only a fraction of 2200 regular employees had access to any of the areas (six separate and scattered locker rooms containing only 613 lockers) in which union solicitation was permitted. In the case at bar the approximately 650 employees of Jewish Hospital had access to four lounges and two locker rooms where solicitation was permitted.
I believe that in this case the Board, on the record before it, failed utterly to take into account the unique character of Jewish Hospital or the effect of stress upon the patients. I believe also that the Board’s decision, insofar as it deals with solicitation in the hospital cafeteria, is not rational; is not supported by the evidence, or for that matter by the findings of the administrative law judge adopted by the Board; and that the Board’s own standards as announced in St. John’s Hospital were misapplied.
I would deny enforcement of those parts of the Board’s order requiring the respondent to cease and desist from promulgating any rule prohibiting solicitation or the distribution of literature in the cafeteria and coffee shop; requiring the respondent to expunge from its records reports on the activities of Richard Blake; requiring the respondent to offer to Richard Blake reinstatement to his former job or an equivalent position; and requiring the respondent to make Richard Blake whole for his loss of earnings.