Court Opinion

ID: 9471137
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:25:47.982675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:17.154496
License: Public Domain

A. LEON HIGGINBOTHAM, Jr., Circuit
Judge, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that there was not “substantial evidence on the record” to support “the Board’s determination that the Union’s list-keeping had only a de minimis impact on the election”, p. 1001.
This is indeed a classic case concerning the degree of judicial restraint a court must exercise when reviewing an agency’s factual determination that we may have decided differently if we had had the obligation to consider the matter ab initio as the original factfinders. Thus, if my esteemed colleagues were writing as hearing officers or as members of the National Labor Relations Board, their findings might be appropriate and permissible; accordingly, a reviewing court could conclude that even the quite different findings now made by the majority are supported by substantial evidence. However, the vice of the majority opinion is its failure to appreciate that, on appeal, one record may contain substantial evidence to support two diametrically opposed conclusions — just as in a negligence case there can be substantial evidence which supports the diametrically opposed conclusions that the plaintiff was negligent or that the plaintiff was not negligent.
The hearing officer stressed that “only one voter .. ., Earline Clark, whose testimony I credit, was shown to have known that the unauthorized list of voters was being maintained.” App. at 644 (Emphasis added). He found “that the list-keeping [was] de minimis ... where it [was] shown that only one employee in a bargaining unit of over 300 employees knew of the unauthorized list’s maintenance and use.” Id. (Emphasis added) He ruled that the one proven sporadic incident of list-keeping did “not warrant setting aside the election.” Id. On the basis of the record, I think that the hearing officer’s findings were permissible and based on substantial evidence.
The view which the employer asserts before us now was argued vigorously before the Board by Board Member Hunter in his dissent and answered by the Board. The Board stated “[o]ur dissenting colleague would sustain this objection and set aside the election. Although he concedes that there is no direct evidence that any voter other than Clark saw the list, he would infer from the circumstances that knowledge of the list was more widespread. We find that such an inference is unwarranted.” J.A. 660. (Emphasis added)
In light of our limited scope of review, the fundamental question before us is whether as a matter of law on the de minimis issue the facts of this case required the fact finders to construe this record only as *1002the dissenting Board member did and as the majority of this Court now does. Or does the record permit the different inferences that accord with the findings of the hearing examiner and the majority of the Board?
Despite all that is written in the majority’s opinion there is still no direct evidence that any voter other than Clark saw the list checking. Of course, there is evidence which could cause one to make broader inferences, but the point is that no one need necessarily make those broader inferences.
From my review of this record, the Board could have made either of two contradictory inferences from the circumstantial evidence as to the number of persons who saw the list checking. It could have adopted the view pressed by dissenting Board Member Hunter or the view taken by the majority Board members.
This summer, as my mind occasionally wanders beyond the confines of the courthouse, I think that the members of the NLRB sometimes are somewhat like a baseball umpire behind home plate making judgment calls on pitches that are on or near the edge of the strike zone. When a fast ball comes in over the plate, quite close to the knees, some persons might think it was a strike, others a ball, but whatever way the umpire calls it, there was probably substantial evidence to justify his judgment. Despite the seeming serenity in an appellate courtroom, the black robes and the historic formalism of the adjudicatory process, sometimes fact finding in the court or before administrative agencies is not much more of a precise science than umpiring in a ball park.1 In this case, with commendable candor, the hearing officer said he had to decide a factual question that “is a close one.” App. at 644. When there is substantial evidence to support the Board’s conclusion, I do not believe that simply because a case is close the Board must lose, even though others might have “called” it differently.

. To those who are not devotees of baseball and would prefer a black letter law translation, in this case seven persons in the adjudicatory process have reviewed the record — the hearing examiner, three board members and three appellate judges. Four of the seven persons obligated to review the record believe that the Board’s opinion is supported by substantial evidence and three of the seven think it is not. In cases of this type, we are no more precise or scientific in our fact finding than are homeplate umpires.