Court Opinion

ID: 9480643
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:54:27.064154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:49.250669
License: Public Domain

ENGEL, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
After reviewing the entire record as a whole in these proceedings, I had originally reached the conclusion that although the case was close, we were probably obliged to enforce. At the same time I realized, as Judge Kennedy has pointed out, that “the insulation of a stockholder from the debts and obligations of his corporation is the norm, not the exception.” NLRB v. Deena Artware, 361 U.S. 398, 402-03, 80 S.Ct. 441, 443-44, 4 L.Ed.2d 400 (1960). Thus our analysis begins with the premise that there is nothing illegal or immoral with the well-established legal principle that individuals can create corporate entities through which to undertake and also to limit risk of personal responsibility for their private enterprises. This scheme encourages commerce and the expansion of trade, and it is difficult to find evil in an institution of such long standing and which finds its lawful use openly accepted and encouraged by jurisdictions throughout the world. I was also impressed by the fact that the Mills seem to have organized and carried on their businesses in a manner singularly free of any ulterior motivation which ran afoul of the general notions of corporate law and valid limitations of liability. Particularly, the openness with which the various corporate entities were handled, the care taken not to intermingle assets, and the entire absence of any fraud were most indicative of a legitimate use of the corporate form to achieve legitimate personal objectives, including insulation of liability and even more importantly, achievement of family estate planning objectives. Equally important to me was the fact that the separate corporations whose validity the Board sought to override had been created well before the labor difficulties in this case arose. Nonetheless, I was initially inclined to enforce the Board’s order because of the deference which is customarily accorded to Board decisions. Further, the Board here had articulated reasons which at least plausibly supported the theory that Sllim was an alter ego of Fullerton Transfer, and that respondents had deliberately set about to create a corporate structure which would protect them and their corporate holdings from future liability, including liability from labor difficulties. As the son-in-law and daughter of the founder of North American Van Lines and as operators in a highly unionized field of business, the Mills *343undoubtedly knew the trucking business well and were well-versed in labor and corporate law. Thus, the Board’s determination that the rather complex corporate structure of the Mills’ transfer enterprise was erected and maintained simply to enable them to evade future liability such as that from violations of the National Labor Relations Act could support a holding that their corporations were in fact alter egos.
Where I finally have come to agree with the majority has been in my realization that no particular deference is due to the Board’s alter ego conclusion to the extent that it answers a question of law beyond the Board’s expertise. Unlike purely factual conclusions by the Board, this conclusion is not entitled to deference on appeal. See Seafarers Local 777 v. NLRB, 603 F.2d 862, 869 n. 17, 872 (D.C.Cir.1979) (special deference accorded to the Board’s legal conclusions on questions of law under the National Labor Relations Act does not extend to what is essentially an interpretation of the common law of agency); see also Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Local 1-547 v. NLRB, 842 F.2d 1141, 1144 n. 2 (9th Cir.1988) (retroactive application of a new standard under the Act is a question of law beyond the Board’s special competence and subject to de novo review); NLRB v. Better Building Supply Corp, 837 F.2d 377, 378 (9th Cir.1988) (no special deference to the Board’s interpretation of the Bankruptcy Code).
I therefore conclude that we are free to examine the entire transaction and to decide for ourselves upon the record that the corporate history of the several companies owned and operated by the respondents was proper and in accordance with normal precepts of American corporation law in general and the federal common law in particular. Having recognized this, I simply have to conclude that the record does not support a conclusion that there was an abuse of the corporate form. Any conjecture that the Mills harbored some undisclosed intent to gain a labor advantage out of that corporate structure far in the future is speculative, subjective, and insufficient to upset the conclusion that the respondents did precisely what the law permitted them to do. In fact, no more has been proved in this case than that. Accordingly, I concur.