Abf Freight System, Inc. v. Nlrb

• Decision Date: 24 January 1994
• Docket Number: No. 92-1550.,92-1550.
• Citation: 510 U.S. 317
• Parties: ABF FREIGHT SYSTEM, INC. <I>v.</I> NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

510 U.S. 317

ABF FREIGHT SYSTEM, INC.v.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

No. 92-1550.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued December 1, 1993

Decided January 24, 1994.

After Michael Manso gave his employer, petitioner ABF Freight System, Inc. (ABF), a false excuse for being late to work, ABF ascertained that he was lying and fired him on the asserted ground of tardiness. He filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (Board) and repeated his false tardiness excuse while testifying under oath before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), who denied him relief upon concluding that he had lied and that ABF had discharged him for cause. The Board reversed in relevant part, finding that ABF did not in fact fire Manso for lying but had seized upon his tardiness as a pretext to discharge him for earlier union activities. Notwithstanding his dishonesty, the Board ordered ABF to reinstate him with backpay. The Court of Appeals enforced the order, rejecting ABF's argument that awarding reinstatement and backpay to an employee who lied to his employer and to the ALJ violated public policy.

Held: Manso's false testimony under oath before the ALJ did not preclude the Board from granting him reinstatement with backpay. Although such misconduct is intolerable in a formal proceeding, 29 U. S. C. § 160(c) expressly delegates to the Board the primary responsibility for making remedial decisions, including awarding reinstatement with backpay, that best effectuate the policies of the National Labor Relations Act (Act) when the Board has substantiated an unfair labor practice. Confronted with that kind of express delegation, courts must give an agency's decision controlling weight unless it is arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the Act. It cannot be said that the Board's remedial order in this case was an abuse of its broad discretion or that it was obligated to adopt a rigid rule that would foreclose relief in all comparable cases. Nor can its conclusions be faulted that Manso's reason for being late to work was ultimately irrelevant to whether antiunion animus actually motivated his discharge and that ordering effective relief in a case of this character promotes a vital public interest. It would be unfair to sanction Manso while indirectly rewarding the lack of candor of several ABF witnesses, whose testimony the ALJ and the Board refused to credit. Moreover, a categorical rule against relief might force the Board to divert its attention away from its primary mission and toward resolving collateral credibility disputes. Pp. 322-325.

982 F. 2d 441, affirmed.

STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and BLACKMUN, KENNEDY, SOUTER, THOMAS, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 325. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which O'CONNOR, J., joined, post, p. 326.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

John V. Jansonius argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Jill J. Weinberg and Alan Wright.

Deputy Solicitor General Wallace argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Days, Michael R. Dreeben, Jerry M. Hunter, Nicholas E. Karatinos, Norton J. Come, Linda Sher, and John Emad Arbab.^*

JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Michael Manso gave his employer a false excuse for being late to work and repeated that falsehood while testifying under oath before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). Notwithstanding Manso's dishonesty, the National Labor Relations Board (Board) ordered Manso's former employer to reinstate him with backpay. Our interest in preserving the integrity of administrative proceedings prompted us to grant certiorari to consider whether Manso's misconduct should have precluded the Board from granting him that relief.

I

Manso worked as a casual dockworker at petitioner ABF Freight System, Inc.'s (ABF's) trucking terminal in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from the summer of 1987 to August 1989. He was fired three times. The first time, Manso was 1 of 12 employees discharged in June 1988 in a dispute over a contractual provision relating to so-called "preferential casual" dockworkers.¹ The grievance Manso's union filed eventually secured his reinstatement; Manso also filed an unfair labor practice charge against ABF over the incident.

Manso's return to work was short lived. Three supervisors warned him of likely retaliation from top management— alerting him, for example, that ABF was "gunning" for him, App. 96, and that "the higher echelon was after [him]," id., at 96-97. See also ABF Freight System, Inc., 304 N. L. R. B. 585, 592, 597 (1991). Within six weeks ABF discharged Manso for a second time on pretextual grounds— ostensibly for failing to respond to a call to work made under a stringent verification procedure ABF had recently imposed upon preferential casuals.² Once again, a grievance panel ordered Manso reinstated.

Manso's third discharge came less than two months later. On August 11, 1989, Manso arrived four minutes late for the 5 a.m. shift. At the time, ABF had no policy regarding lateness. After Manso was late to work, however, ABF decided to discharge preferential casuals—though not other employees—who were late twice without good cause. Six days later Manso triggered the policy's first application when he arrived at work nearly an hour late for the same shift. Manso telephoned at 5:25 a.m. to explain that he was having car trouble on the highway, and repeated that excuse when he arrived. ABF conducted a prompt investigation, ascertained that he was lying,³ and fired him for tardiness under its new policy on lateness.

Manso filed a second unfair labor practice charge. In the hearing before the ALJ, Manso repeated his story about the car trouble that preceded his third discharge. The ALJ credited most of his testimony about events surrounding his dismissals, but expressly concluded that Manso lied when he told ABF that car trouble made him late to work. Id., at 600. Accordingly, although the ALJ decided that ABF had illegally discharged Manso the second time because he was a party to the earlier union grievance,⁴ the ALJ denied Manso relief for the third discharge based on his finding that ABF had dismissed Manso for cause. Ibid.

The Board affirmed the ALJ's finding that Manso's second discharge was unlawful, but reversed with respect to the third discharge. Id., at 591. Acknowledging that Manso lied to his employer and that ABF presumably could have discharged him for that dishonesty, id., at 590, n. 13, the Board nevertheless emphasized that ABF did not in fact discharge him for lying and that the ALJ's conclusion to the contrary was "a plainly erroneous factual statement of [ABF]'s asserted reasons."⁵ Instead, Manso's lie "established only that he did not have a legitimate excuse for the August 17 lateness." Id., at 589. The Board focused primarily on ABF's retroactive application of its lateness policy to include Manso's first time late to work, holding that ABF had "seized upon" Manso's tardiness "as a pretext to discharge him again and for the same unlawful reasons it discharged him on June 19."⁶ In addition, though the Board deemed Manso's discharge unlawful even assuming the validity of ABF's general disciplinary treatment of preferential casuals, it observed that ABF's disciplinary approach and lack of uniform rules for all dockworkers "raise[d] more questions than they resolve[d]." Id., at 590. The Board ordered ABF to reinstate Manso with backpay. Id., at 591.

The Court of Appeals enforced the Board's order. Miera v. NLRB, 982 F. 2d 441 (CA10 1992). Its review of the record revealed "abundant evidence of antiunion animus in ABF's conduct towards Manso," id., at 446, including "ample evidence" that Manso's third discharge was not for cause, ibid. The court regarded as important the testimony in the record confirming that Manso would not have been discharged under ABF's new tardiness policy had he provided a legitimate excuse. Ibid. The court also rejected ABF's argument that awarding reinstatement and backpay to an employee who lied to his employer and to the ALJ violated public policy.⁷ Noting that "Manso's original misrepresentation was made to his employer in an attempt to avoid being fired under a policy the application of which the Board found to be the result of antiunion animus," the court reasoned that the Board had wide discretion to ascertain what remedy best furthered the policies of the National Labor Relations Act (Act). Id., at 447.

II

The question we granted certiorari to review is a narrow one.⁸ We assume that the Board correctly found that ABF discharged Manso unlawfully in August 1989. We also assume, more importantly, that the Board did not abuse its discretion in ordering reinstatement even though Manso gave ABF a false reason for being late to work. We are concerned only with the ramifications of Manso's false testimony under oath in a formal proceeding before the ALJ. We recognize that the Board might have decided that such misconduct disqualified Manso from profiting from the proceeding, or it might even have adopted a flat rule precluding reinstatement when a former employee so testifies. As the case comes to us, however, the issue is not whether the Board might adopt such a rule, but whether it must do so.

False testimony in a formal proceeding is intolerable. We must neither reward nor condone such a "flagrant affront" to the truth-seeking function of adversary proceedings. See United States v. Mandujano, 425 U. S. 564, 576-577 (1976). See also United States v. Knox, 396 U. S. 77 (1969); Bryson v. United States, 396 U. S. 64 (1969); Dennis v. United States, 384 U. S. 855 (1966); Kay v. United States, 303 U. S. 1 (1938); United States v. Kapp, 302 U. S. 214 (1937); Glickstein v. United States, 222 U. S. 139, 141-142 (1911). If...