Douglas v. Wirtz, 9870.
Decision Date | 08 October 1965 |
Docket Number | No. 9870.,9870. |
Parties | R. D. DOUGLAS, Jr., Appellee, v. W. Willard WIRTZ, Secretary of Labor of the United States Department of Labor, Appellant. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Jacob I. Karro, Deputy Associate Sol., Dept. of Labor John W. Douglas, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Alan S. Rosenthal and Robert C. McDiarmid, Attys., Dept. of Justice (Charles Donahue, Sol., James R. Beaird, Associate Sol., and Nathan Dodell, Atty., Dept. of Labor, on brief), for appellant.
R. D. Douglas, Jr., Greensboro, N. C. (C. Kitchin Josey, and Douglas, Ravenel, Josey & Hardy, Greensboro, N. C., on brief), appellee, pro se.
Before BRYAN and BELL, Circuit Judges, and LEWIS, District Judge.
Certiorari Denied February 21, 1966. See 86 S.Ct. 893.
The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 519, particularly in § 203(b) and (c), 29 U.S. C. §§ 401, 433(b) and (c), was construed by the District Court at the suit of R. D. Douglas, Jr., an attorney at law, contrary to the administrative interpretation of the Secretary of Labor, who now appeals.
The substance of these sections of the law, and their present relevancy, are stated in the point pressed here by the Secretary. It is this: that since, concededly, a lawyer accepting retainment by an employer "to persuade employees to exercise or not to exercise, or persuade employees as to the manner of exercising, the right to organize and bargain collectively", is required by § 203(b) (1) to report these activities annually to the Secretary, the lawyer is also required by the further provisions of that section to include in such report, not only his receipts and disbursements in connection with those particular undertakings, but as well all his receipts (with related disbursements) in the same year for advice or services in respect to labor relations, even though the advice or services were not within the sphere of the statutory persuasions.
The District Court, in sustaining the argument of Douglas, held that § 203(c) exempts the lawyer from reporting any receipt or expenditure in connection with labor relations advice or services not incident to the employee-persuasion effort of § (b) (1). The terms of the Act and its legislative history, we believe, compel a contrary interpretation.
The sections just cited, § 203(b) and (c), are controlling here and provide:
Plaintiff-appellee, an attorney in good standing, raised the present issue in an action for a judgment declaring his obligations under the Act. In 1960 and 1961 he undertook persuasion services within the meaning of § 203(b) (1) and filed the required 30-day report. However, he refused in the annual report to note any of his receipts and expenses "on account of labor relations advice or service", or the sources thereof, which were not related to the persuasion outlined in § (b) (1). For some reportable activities under § (b) (1) in 1960 and 1961, final payment was not received from his employers until 1962 and no formal annual report was filed for the year 1962.
Section (b), we emphasize, prescribes two reports. One must be filed within 30 days after the agreement or arrangement for the persuasion activity has been consummated. It is confined to each undertaking for that purpose. Another and far more comprehensive report is required annually. It is this report, as already indicated, with which this case is concerned.
The annual report must designate the source and amount of "receipts of any kind from employers on account of labor relations advice or services", § (b) (A). Highly relevant is the reference to "advice". It is not mentioned in § (b) (1) — the persuasion clause — so that, the Secretary stresses, this reference contemplates the inclusion of advice which is beyond the scope of the persuasion of § (b) (1). Thus the language literally requires a report of payments for other advice unless the requirement of the annual report is narrowed by § (c). But we find no clause in § (c) explicitly delineating the advice which it excepts. Quite baldly it excludes the reporting of services comprising advice, representation and negotiation.
Thus it appears that "advice" is required to be reported by § (b) (A), but is exempted by § (c). A reasonable reconciliation of the conflict, we hold, is to compel the reporting of all income and expenditures in connection with labor relations advice and services, given or rendered aside from the persuasion activities, if the attorney has within the same reporting period also either acted or received payment as a persuader under § (b) (1). Consistently, he would not be required to report fees and expenses for independent advice if there has been neither a persuasion service performed, nor payment for a previous service received, in that year.
This is the necessary conclusion from the wording of §§ (b) (A) and (c). Unless "advice" in the former embraces independent advice, it has no meaning whatsoever. This result in itself would suggest misconstruction of the provision. As the word appears in § (c), it plainly refers to advice apart from the statutory persuasion. Indeed, this is the contention of the lawyer-appellee. The exemption in § (c) is an excusal of any filing whatsoever "by reason of * * * giving or agreeing to give advice." In our judgment the quoted phrase is to be understood to declare that advice in itself and alone does not create an obligation to report. But the two sections together declare that when persuasion services or receipts therefor and...
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Humphreys, Hutcheson & Moseley v. Donovan
...disclosure and reporting requirements of § 203(b). Finding support for his position in the Fourth Circuit's decision in Douglas v. Wirtz, 353 F.2d 30 (4th Cir.1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 909, 86 S.Ct. 893, 15 L.Ed.2d 665 (1966), and the Fifth Circuit's decision in Wirtz v. Fowler, 372 F.2......
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