George Arakelian Farms, Inc. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd.

• Decision Date: 21 October 1980
• Docket Number: R,AFL-CI
• Citation: 168 Cal.Rptr. 537,111 Cal.App.3d 258
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: GEORGE ARAKELIAN FARMS, INC., a California Corporation, Petitioner, v. AGRICULTURAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD of the State of California, Respondent, UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA,eal Party in Interest. Civ. 21097.

Page 537

168 Cal.Rptr. 537

111 Cal.App.3d 258

GEORGE ARAKELIAN FARMS, INC., a California Corporation, Petitioner, v. AGRICULTURAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD of the State of California, Respondent UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, Real Party in Interest.

Civ. 21097.

Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 2, California.

Oct. 21, 1980.

Hearing Denied Jan. 14, 1981.

Dressler, Stoll & Jacobs, Marion I. Quesenbery, Newport Beach, and Laurie A. Laws, for petitioner

Marvin J. Brenner, Sacramento, and William B. Eley, Davis, for respondent.

Marco E. Lopez, Carlos M. Alcala, Francis E. Fernandez, Keene, Carmen C. Flores, Jerome Cohen, Tom Dalzell, Salinas, Sanford N. Nathan, San Francisco, and Dianna Lyons, Sacramento, for real party in interest.

OPINION

KAUFMAN, Associate Justice.

George Arakelian Farms, Inc. (Arakelian or petitioner) seeks statutory review (Lab.Code, § 1160.8) of a decision of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB or Board) determining that petitioner committed three unfair labor practices and of Board's order based thereon. (All statutory references will be to the Labor Code unless otherwise specified.)

Arakelian is an agricultural employer (§ 1140.4, subsec. (c)) subject to the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (§ 1140, et seq. (hereafter ALRA)). It is a California corporation engaged in the growing, harvesting and marketing of flat and row crops such as alfalfa, cotton, cantaloupes and lettuce in portions of both Riverside and Imperial Counties. At peak it employs over 150 workers. George Arakelian is the president of the corporation.

On charges filed by United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW), a labor organization within the meaning of subsection (f) of section 1140.4, ALRB's General Counsel issued a complaint accusing petitioner of eight acts allegedly constituting unfair labor practices. Arakelian filed an answer in essence denying the charges. The case was heard by an Administrative Law Officer (ALO) between November 29 and December 8, 1977, in Blythe. The ALO determined that petitioner had committed only one of the eight charged unfair labor practices, the discriminatory discharge of a cantaloupe harvesting crew for engaging in concerted activities.

The ALO's proposed order would have required petitioner to: (1) cease and desist from in any manner interfering with, restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of their rights under section 1152 of the ALRA; (2) cease and desist from discriminating in regard to the hiring or tenure of employment, or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization; (3) make whole all those members of the Gilberto Pena cantaloupe harvesting crew for any losses in pay they may have suffered as a result of petitioner's termination of said crew; and (4) post and read to employees during the 1978 peak period of employment a notice informing the employees of their rights under the ALRA.

All parties filed exceptions to the ALO's recommended decision and proposed order. On the basis of the existing record, on February 14, 1979, Board issued its final decision and order which are the subjects of this review.

The Board adopted the findings and affirmed the conclusions of the ALO that petitioner committed an unfair labor practice in discriminatorily discharging the cantaloupe harvesting crew. However, contrary to the ALO's findings and recommended decision, the Board also determined that petitioner had committed two other unfair labor practices: (1) discriminatorily assigning employee Menesis to do more arduous work than was customary and (2) discriminatorily laying off six irrigators and shovelers. Board modified the ALO's proposed order accordingly and ordered petitioner to take, in addition to that proposed by the ALO, the following affirmative action: (1) offer to reinstate the six irrigators and shovelers laid off in September 1977 and make them whole for any losses in pay and other economic losses they may have suffered as a result of the lay-off; and (2) post and read to the employees during the 1979 peak employment period the ALRB's notice of employee rights under the ALRA.

Arakelian contends that none of the three unfair labor practices found by the Board are supported by substantial evidence on the whole record. It further contends that even if the Board's determination that it committed one or more of these unfair labor practices is supported by substantial evidence, Board's order is punitive, arbitrary and capricious.

Scope of Review

Inasmuch as insufficiency of the evidence is claimed with respect to all three of the unfair labor practices found by the Board, we discuss the law pertaining to the scope of review at the outset.

The standard is whether the Board's findings are supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole. (§ 1160.8; Tex-Cal Land Management, Inc. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., 24 Cal.3d 335, 349, 156 Cal.Rptr. 1, 595 P.2d 579; Sunnyside Nurseries, Inc. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., 93 Cal.App.3d 922, 930-931, 156 Cal.Rptr. 152.) The language in section 1160.8 prescribing the standard of review was taken verbatim from the corresponding section of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. § 160(f)), and federal decisions under the federal statute are of precedential value in fleshing out the parameters of the standard. (Sunnyside Nurseries, Inc. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., supra ; see also Belridge Farms v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., 21 Cal.3d 551, 557, 147 Cal.Rptr. 165, 580 P.2d 665.)

The leading federal decision discussing the "substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole" standard of review is Universal Camera Corp. v. National L. R. Bd. (1951) 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456, in which the history of section 10(f) of the NLRA, the demands for more extensive judicial review of NLRB decisions and the consequent amendment of NLRA to provide for such review are thoroughly discussed. ¹ The court stated: "Whether or not it was ever permissible for courts to determine the substantiality of evidence supporting a Labor Board decision merely on the basis of evidence which in and of itself justified it, without taking into account contradictory evidence or evidence from which conflicting inferences could be drawn, the new legislation definitely precludes such a theory of review and bars its practice. The substantiality of evidence must take into account whatever in the record fairly detracts from its weight. This is clearly the significance of the requirement in both statutes that courts consider the whole record.... (P) To be sure, the requirement for canvassing 'the whole record' in order to ascertain substantiality does not furnish a calculus of value by which a reviewing court can assess the evidence. Nor was it intended to negative the function of the Labor Board as one of those agencies presumably equipped or informed by experience to deal with a specialized field of knowledge, whose findings within that field carry the authority of an expertness which courts do not possess and therefore must respect. Nor does it mean that even as to matters not requiring expertise a court may displace the Board's choice between two fairly conflicting views, even though the court would justifiably have made a different choice had the matter been before it de novo. Congress has merely made it clear that a reviewing court is not barred from setting aside a Board decision when it cannot conscientiously find that the evidence supporting that decision is substantial, when viewed in the light that the record in its entirety furnishes, including the body of evidence opposed to the Board's view." (340 U.S. at pp. 487-488, 71 S.Ct. at pp. 463-464, 95 L.Ed. at pp. 467-468.)

Although it recognized the futility of attempting to articulate with precision the standard to be employed by the reviewing courts, the Supreme Court stated: "The legislative history of these Acts demonstrates a purpose to impose on courts a responsibility which has not always been recognized.... (P) We conclude, therefore, that ... courts must now assume more responsibility for the reasonableness and fairness of Labor Board decisions than some courts have shown in the past. Reviewing courts must be influenced by a feeling that they are not to abdicate the conventional judicial function. Congress has imposed on them responsibility for assuring that the Board keeps within reasonable grounds. That responsibility is not less real because it is limited to enforcing the requirement that evidence appear substantial when viewed, on the record as a whole, by courts invested with the authority and enjoying the prestige of the Courts of Appeals. The Board's findings are entitled to respect; but they must nonetheless be set aside when the record before a Court of Appeals clearly precludes the Board's decision from being justified by a fair estimate of the worth of the testimony of witnesses or its informed judgment on matters within its special competence or both." (Universal Camera Corp. v. National L. R. Bd., supra, 340 U.S. at pp. 489-490, 71 S.Ct. at p. 465, 95 L.Ed. at pp. 468-469; accord: Sunnyside Nurseries, Inc. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., supra, 93 Cal.App.3d at pp. 930-931, 156 Cal.Rptr. 152.)

As noted by the Supreme Court in Tex-Cal Land Management, Inc. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., supra, 24 Cal.3d at p. 349, 156 Cal.Rptr. 1, 595 P.2d 579, the standard of review prescribed by section 1160.8 is exactly the same as that provided with respect to the review of workers' compensation proceedings in Labor Code section 5952 as explicated in LeVesque v. Workmen's Comp. App. Bd., 1 Cal.3d 627, 637, 83 Cal.Rptr. 208, 463 P.2d 432; Lamb v. Workmen's Comp. Appeals Bd., 11 Cal.3d 274, 280-281, 113 Cal.Rptr. 162, 520 P.2d 978; Garza v. Workmen's Comp. App. Bd., 3 Cal.3d 312, 317, 90 Cal.Rptr. 355, 475 P.2d 451. (See also ...