Hughes v. Getreu

266 F. Supp. 15
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Ohio
DecidedFebruary 25, 1967
DocketNo. 6359
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 266 F. Supp. 15 (Hughes v. Getreu) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hughes v. Getreu, 266 F. Supp. 15 (S.D. Ohio 1967).

Opinion

HOGAN, District Judge.

In September, 1966, a representative election was held at the Ohio Division of Champion Papers, Inc. at Hamilton, Ohio, atvthe request of United Paper-makers and Paperworkers, AFL-CIO [16]*16(the “Union”) by and under the supervision of the Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) which was subsequently held to be invalid by the Board. The employer and the Union thereafter, with the approval of the Board, entered into an agreement as to those eligible to vote in a second representative election, which was held in January, 1967. The Union received a majority of the votes in this election.

The plaintiffs, eight in number, bring this action on behalf of themselves and allegedly on behalf of approximately six hundred employees of the Division. The plaintiffs place themselves in various classes of persons (consisting over all of approximately sixty-seven persons) who, for one reason or another, were eligible to vote in the first election and not eligible to vote in the second election, under the agreement heretofore referred to. For example, the plaintiffs allege that employees of the “Shipping Department,” four in number, were permitted to vote in the September election, but were ineligible in the January election. The January election was a close one (919 to 905 votes). Immediately after the election the plaintiffs requested the Board to be made parties to the proceedings before the Board and to file objections to the determinations of the Board with respect to the appropriate unit and eligibility to vote. There is no indication that any of the plaintiffs or that the “Committee for an Independent Champion” (the 600 employees) either made any effort, prior to the election, to “intervene” and become a party to the proceedings before the Board (although the Board has permitted such types of intervention —see Leedom v. Kyne, 358 U.S. 184, at page 185, 79 S.Ct. 180, 3 L.Ed.2d 210 (1958)) — nor is there any indication that any objection to the eligibility determinations was made by anyone prior to the January election. The objections tarried pending the result.

When, after the election, the plaintiffs sought to become parties and file objections before the Board, the Board declined; that is to say, the Board would not permit either the filing of objections or the addition of the plaintiffs as parties, or any hearing. The complaint alleges that the Regional Director will certify the Union as the bargaining representative and basically prays that the defendant Board be enjoined from certifying the Union as the bargaining representative of the Ohio Division employees. A temporary restraining order without notice was declined by this Court and a hearing, on notice, of a non-evidentiary character was held.

The complainants rely on Leedom v. Kyne, supra, and Fay v. Douds, 172 F.2d 720 (2d, 1949).

In Leedom v. Kyne, the Supreme Court upheld the jurisdiction of a Federal District Court in an original suit to set aside the Board’s determinations of questions pertinent to a representative election. (28 U.S.C. § 1337) However, the Board in the factual situation therein involved plainly violated a statutory mandate in Section 9(d) of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. § 159).

We have carefully examined the allegations of error attributed to the Board in the complaint in this case and measured them against the statutory mandates. The most that can be said is this — the complainants do not set forth any violation of a statutory mandate, but at the most complain of alleged erroneous decisions arrived at by the Board in the exercise of power granted to it by the statute. For example, no mention is made of absentee ballots in the statute, and one of the complaints is that absentee ballots were not permitted at the challenged election. The Kyne case has subsequently been dealt with by the Supreme Court in Boire v. Greyhound Corporation, 376 U.S. 473, 84 S.Ct. 894, 11 L.Ed.2d 849 (1964), in which, as in this case, the complaint is not and cannot be “clear violation of statute”, but an error in construction or. fact. In the Boire case, the Supreme Court said:

“Whether Greyhound possessed sufficient indicia of control to be an ‘employer’ is essentially a factual issue, [17]*17unlike the question in Kyne, which depended solely upon construction of the statute. The Kyne exception is a narrow one, not to be extended to permit plenary district court review of Board orders in certification proceedings whenever it can be said that an erroneous assessment of the particular facts before the Board has led it to a conclusion which does not comport with the law. Judicial review in such a situation has been limited by Congress to the courts of appeals, and then only under the conditions explicitly laid down in § 9(d) of the Act.”

There is no question that in the normal course of events Board orders in certification proceedings are not directly reviewable in the courts. Such decisions, under the Act, become reviewable only when the dispute concerning the correctness of the certification eventuates in a finding that an unfair labor practice has been committed, such as where the employer refuses to bargain with a certified representative on the ground that the election was held in an inappropriate unit. § 9(d) of the Act provides for judicial review of the underlying certification order in such instances in the courts of appeal. While such an indirect method of obtaining the review imposes delays on challenges to elections, that appears to be exactly what Congress intended in the enactment of the Act. The question of judicial review upon certification was carefully considered by Congress at the time of the passage of the Act in 1935, with the result that the review was limited in the Act to the manner set forth in 9(d) and above mentioned. Congress concluded that prompt certification, not subject to immediate legal court review, lessened the occasion for strikes.

The Supreme Court has fashioned only one other exception to the general rule that the Act itself limits the jurisdiction of district courts to review certifications. That involves “the presence of public questions particularly high in the scale of our national interest because of their international complexion.” There is no claim that the exception is applicable here, nor could there be.

The complainants rely on what sometimes has been referred to as another exception fashioned by the Second Circuit in the Fay case, supra. In the Fay case, the Second Circuit upheld the jurisdiction of a district court to review or enjoin a Board certification where the complainant asserts a constitutional right which is not transparently frivolous. The right asserted by the complainant in the Fay case was a property right, based on a contract. The rights asserted by the complainants in this case are rights claimed under the Wagner Act as amended and, being claimed under the statute, must stand or fall with the statute and the reasonable construction thereof. No other Circuit has as yet adopted the exception fashioned by the Second Circuit.

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266 F. Supp. 15, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hughes-v-getreu-ohsd-1967.