Court Opinion

ID: 9442818
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:00:49.232106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:14.879935
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
As to the narrow point of back pay to the 1945 strikers during the 30-day cooling-off period, I think it more logical and reasonable to follow the Sixth Circuit fully or not at all. Judge Miller in Hamilton v. N. L. R. B., supra, showed that provisions making violations of the W. L. D. A. also forfeiture of rights under the N. L. R. A. were struck out during the passage of the former Act through Congress and con- • eluded that failure to comply with it was therefore subject only to the sanction therein specifically provided. So 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 1508(c) states that anyone under a duty to perform any act required under subsec. (a) “who willfully fails or refuses to perform such act shall be liable for damages resulting from such failure or refusal to any person injured thereby and to the United States if so injured,” with appropriate jurisdiction of suit therefor granted to the district courts of the United States. We cannot well hold the Board order here a subversion of the whole purpose of the W. L. D. A. without repudiating the necessary foundation of Judge Miller’s reasoning.
The other suggestion, that circuity of action would thereby be- avoided because the damages under the quoted subsection would be the payment to the strikers during the period, seems — I suggest with deference — overjngenious. It is a way of setting aside the Sixth Circuit interpretation pro tanto. The damages for which recovery is granted — suffered by the United States or anyone else — are quite clearly those constituting some direct loss from failure of production, such as the loss of a. war-production contract or the incurring of penalties for delay under such a contract. The stressed purpose of the Act is to- prevent labor disputes “which threaten seriously, to interrupt war production.” Sec. 1508(a), and see also §§ 1503, 1506(a), 1507(a). To avoid circuity of action, it may well be that the N. L. R. B. should be accorded power to reduce any back-pay award by the amount of proven damages in the case of an employee who willfully violates the W. L. D. A.; and I should not object to a return of the case to the Board for consideration of this issue, even though respondent among its many vigorous contentions does not include a claim of actual damage suffered. But to say that a penalty legitimately assessed by a governmental agency against a person found in violation of a Congressional Act is itself the damage sustained by the violator under another Act seems to me to travel in a circle ending in the negation of the legitimate penalty.
Moreover, in view of the large measure of discretion accorded the N. L. R. B. in determining remedies for violation of the N. L. R. A., I think we ought not to interfere thus limitedly without more assured legal grounds than are here disclosed.