National Labor Relations Board v. Smoky Mountain Stages, Inc.

447 F.2d 925, 78 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2217, 1971 U.S. App. LEXIS 8131
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedSeptember 10, 1971
Docket15121_1
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 447 F.2d 925 (National Labor Relations Board v. Smoky Mountain Stages, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
National Labor Relations Board v. Smoky Mountain Stages, Inc., 447 F.2d 925, 78 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2217, 1971 U.S. App. LEXIS 8131 (4th Cir. 1971).

Opinions

BOREMAN, Circuit Judge.

On the Labor Board’s application for enforcement of its order, the sole issue is whether substantial evidence supports the Board's finding that Smoky Mountain Stages, Inc., (hereafter the Company) discharged a bus driver, Edgar Wells, because of his prounion activity rather than for cause.

Wells had been a bus driver for the Company for some twenty years prior to his discharge in early 1967. He had driven over a million “safe” miles until May of 1966, when the Company advised Wells that it had received a report from a private investigating service that Wells had been observed more than once driving his bus at excessive speeds. Wells requested and was granted permission to examine the reports, along with the investigating service’s photographs showing Wells’ bus traveling eighty-five miles per hour in a sixty-five mile per hour zone. Wells was placed on probation for a year by Vincent Batts, the Company’s Supervisor of Drivers and Equipment.

During 1965 and 1966 Wells was an active supporter of the Amalgamated Transit Union (hereafter the Union). In fact, Wells was the person who first contacted the Union and urged it to organize the Company’s employees; Wells then talked to all but three of the thirty drivers in the Company’s Atlanta Division, urging them to sign union cards. The Union lost an election in 1965. However, a second election was won by the Union in December of 1966.

On January 10, 1967, Wells was preparing to depart on his regular 11:15 a. m. run from Charlotte to Atlanta. This scheduled departure time coincided with the scheduled arrival of a Carolina Scenic Coach Company bus from Raleigh. Wells asked Dispatcher Jones sometime between 11:15 and 11:30 if his bus could leave. In the hearing of two other men, Jones told Wells that he had been informed by the Carolina Scenic dispatcher that its Raleigh bus was running twenty-five minutes late so Wells should wait until the Raleigh bus arrived. At 11:30 Wells left with his bus, ten minutes before the Raleigh bus arrived at 11:40, thereby causing incoming passengers on the Raleigh bus to miss their connection and to be rerouted at considerable inconvenience to them. Dispatcher Jones reported Wells’ premature departure to Batts, who in turn notified John F. Ray, the Company’s Director of Safety and Legal Counsel, who normally handled investigations of complaints concerning employees. Without interviewing Wells, Batts and Ray investigated this incident and determined that it, combined with Wells’ earlier disciplinary probation for speeding, called for his dismissal. On January 18, 1967, Wells was called into Batts’ office and told that he was being discharged for unsatisfactory service. As was apparently consistent with usual Company policy, Wells was not then given a specific reason for his discharge.

Throughout the proceeding before the hearing examiner Wells steadfastly denied leaving the terminal on January 10 before the arrival of the Carolina Scenic bus from Raleigh, and he repeatedly asserted that he had not left the terminal until 11:45. He even testified that he knew that the Raleigh bus had arrived before his departure because he had observed the Raleigh bus driver board the bus “with his satchel” in preparation for departure on the continuation of his run. Wells further claimed that Jones had not told him anything about a connecting bus being late, and that Wells really did not know why Jones had held him beyond his scheduled departure time of 11:15. The two men who had overheard the conversation between Jones [927]*927and Wells testified that Jones had told Wells that the Raleigh bus was late and that Wells was to wait until it arrived. Wells was confronted at the hearing with his tachometer chart and sign-out chart, both of which bore his signature and which plainly showed an 11:30 departure time, but he still contended that he had not left until 11:45. The hearing examiner discredited Wells’ testimony as to this incident, concluding that the evidence clearly showed that Wells had left at 11:30 and before the arrival of the Carolina Scenic bus from Raleigh.

That the Company had a valid and proper reason to discharge Wells for cause is not open to question. However, the Board concluded that the Company discharged Wells for another reason, i.e., his prounion activities. We have held that where evidence indicates that the conduct of discharged employees warranted discharge, there must be substantial evidence of an unlawful motivation for the discharges before the Board can find that an improper, rather than the proper, motivation led to the discharges. Riggs Distler & Company v. N. L. R. B., 327 F.2d 575 (4 Cir. 1963). Thus, we turn to the record to determine whether the Board’s finding of improper Company motivation in discharging Wells is supported by substantial evidence. In finding' improper Company motivation, the Board relied upon two bases: (1) a deviation by the Company from its usual investigatory procedures during the investigation of Wells’ premature departure on January 10; and (2) antiunion statements allegedly made to Wells by Company representatives.

In finding an alleged deviation from the Company’s normal investigatory procedures, the Board seized upon Batts’ testimony at an earlier representation hearing. Batts’ testimony there could possibly be interpreted as indicating that the Company usually interviewed employees under investigation, while in this instance Wells was not interviewed during the investigation. However, the Company points out that Batts’ testimony is susceptible of a different interpretation. The Company contends that Batts’ testimony dealt only with the Company’s usual procedure in investigating employees for possible reprimands and that, in fact, usual Company policy is to interview employees who are being investigated for possible reprimands. The Company maintains that it does not normally interview employees being investigated for possible discharges since Company policy dictates that discharged employees are not given specific reasons for their discharges. Since it is uncontroverted that the Company has the established policy of refusing to give specific reasons for discharges, its argument as to the interpretation of Batts’ testimony is quite plausible. The Company further complains that the representation hearing testimony was introduced at the unfair labor practice hearing by the Board’s General Counsel only to relitigate the supervisory status of the dispatchers and that company counsel did not know what was in the transcript and had no opportunity to comment upon, or offer evidence regarding, the matter of usual Company investigatory procedures.

We have held that factual matters resolved at a representation hearing are subject to summary judgment at a subsequent unfair labor practice phase of a case where the issues are substantially the same. LTV Electrosystems, Inc. v. N. L. R. B., 388 F.2d 683 (4 Cir. 1968). However, it does not follow that either a company or a union should be bound to accept for all purposes, with no opportunity to comment upon or to rebut, testimony from an earlier representation hearing which dealt with different issues, especially where, as here, such testimony is capable of different interpretations.

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447 F.2d 925, 78 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2217, 1971 U.S. App. LEXIS 8131, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-labor-relations-board-v-smoky-mountain-stages-inc-ca4-1971.