International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Locals No 15 v. Mining Smelting Co
| Decision Date | 28 May 1945 |
| Docket Number | EAGLE-PICHER,No. 337,337 |
| Citation | 325 U.S. 335,65 S.Ct. 1166,89 L.Ed. 1649 |
| Parties | INTERNATIONAL UNION OF MINE, MILL AND SMELTER WORKERS, LOCALS NO. 15, et al. v. MINING & SMELTING CO. et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Louis N. Wolf, of Joplin, Mo., for petitioners.
Mr. Alvin J. Rockwell, of Washington, D.C., for respondent, National Labor Relations Board.
Mr. John G. Madden, of Kansas City, Mo., for respondents Eagle-Picher Mining & Smelting Co. et al.
The question presented is whether the National Labor Relations Board after seeking and obtaining a court order o enforcement of its own order, in the absence of fraud or mistake induced by the respondent, and after expiration of the term, is entitled to have the provisions of the decree prescribing the nature of the remedy set aside and the case remanded to it, for the prescription of relief it deems more appropriate to enforce the policy of the National Labor Relations Act.1
In a proceeding instituted by the petitioner unions the Board found that the respondent companies had been guilty of unfair labor practices in violation of Sections 8(1) and 8(3) of the Act.2 The hearings were protracted both as to the alleged discrimination and as to the remedy which should be adopted. With all relevant data open to it, the Board ordered the employers to cease and desist from certain practices and to reinstate 209 employees with back pay. Based on the Board's understanding as to the opportunity for reinstatement of the 209 men in question and all others eligible for reemployment, it devised a for- mula for the calculation of back pay for the members of the class to whom the award was made.3
The employers were dissatisfied with the order and sought a review by the Circuit Court of Appeals. Thereupon the Board filed a transcript of the record in the same court and sought enforcement of its order. The Unions, who are petitioners in this court, were permitted to intervene and were heard in support of the Board's order. The court modified the order as to matters not here relevant and decreed enforcement.4 Two paragraphs of the decree thus obtained by the Board with the assistance of the present petitioners specified the method of computing back pay to the claimants whom the Board had found entitled. This decree was entered June 27, 1941. The companies proceeded to compute back pay due the claimants in accordance with the terms of the decree and tendered the amount they ascertained to be due thereunder. The Board, by its agents, examined the corporate records and reached the conclusion that a different method of compensation to the claimants should have been adopted in the original proceeding.
February 4, 1943, nearly two years after the final decree, and after attempted compliance by the employers, the Board petitioned the Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate that portion of its decree which dealt with the award of back pay and to remand the cause to the Board. The petitioner labor unions were permitted to intervene and to support the Board's petition.
It is somewhat difficult to characterize the allegations of the petition. It does not accuse the companies of fraud, but indicates that certain evidence produced by them created a wrong impression on the mind of the Board which could have been corrected had they gone into greater detail and disclosed certain facts within their knowledge, and it avers that the Board prescribed its remedy in reliance upon a mistaken understanding of conditions touching possible reemployment of the claimants. To this petition the employers replied challenging the jurisdiction of the court to vacate its decree, moved to dismiss the petition, and answered on the merits, categorically denying the averments of the petition. Thereupon the Board moved for judgment on its motion. The matter was heard. The court held that there had been no showing that the order and decree were obtained by misrepresentation or wrongful conduct of the employers or that any mistake of the Board had resulted in a decree which was unfair, and consequently held that there was no justification for revocation or remand of the portion of the decree involved. The petition of the Board was accordingly dismissed.5 The Board did not apply for certiorari but the intervening unions whose petition had also been dismissed applied for the writ. The Board was made a respondent in this court but app ared in support of the petition.
The employers made a persuasive showing that, as respects material elements of the problem of back pay, the record of the Board's hearing, and the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals enforcing the Board's order, demonstrate that all the facts now relied upon by the Board for revocation and reformation of its order sufficiently appeared prior to the entry of the order. In the view we take, it is unnecessary to consider this matter.
They also attack the standing of the petitioners to seek review by this court when the Board, the body charged with the enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act, has elected not to seek review. We think that, in the circumstances disclosed, the petitioners, though they could not have instituted enforcement proceedings,6 had stand- ing to seek review of the order denying the Board's petition.7
The important question presented is whether, despite a decree entered at the Board's behest, prescribing the method of enforcement of the relief granted by the Board, that body retains a continuing jurisdiction to be exercised whenever, in its judgment, such exercise is desirable and may, therefore, oust the jurisdiction of the court and recall the proceeding for further hearing and action.
It will be noted that this is not a bill of review based upon fraud or mistake. If it were to be treated as such obviously the relief prayed could not be granted without a trial, in view of the issues made by the employers' answer. The Board's insistence is that, upon its petition, the averments of which are denied, it is entitled to an opening of the decree and the remand of the cause upon its mere statement that it now thinks the relief originally granted was inappropriate to the situation as the Board now conceives it.
We are not dealing here with an administrative proceeding. That proceeding has ended and has been merged in a decree of a court pursuant to the directions of the National Labor Relations Act. The statute provides that if, in the enforcement proceeding, it appears that any further facts should be developed the court may remand the cause to the Board for the taking of further evidence and for further consideration. (§ 10(e).8 But it is plain that the scheme of the Act contemplates that when the record has been made and is finally submitted for action by the Board the judgment 'shall be final.' It is to have all the qualities of any other decree entered in a litigated cause upon full hearing, and is subject to review by this court on certiorari as in other cases. (§ 10(e) supra). The position of the petitioners is, and necessarily must be, that, while the court's decree is final as respects the matter of the alleged unfair labor practices found by the Board, it is never final as respects the relief prescribed by the Board. It must follow that at any time, however remote, and for any reason satisfactory to the Board, it may recall the proceeding from the Circuit Court of Appeals insofar as concerns the relief granted and start afresh as if an enforcement decree had never been entered.
Finality to litigation is an end to be desired as well in proceedings to which an administrative body is a party as in exclusively private litigation. The party adverse to the administrative body is entitled to rely on the conclusiveness of a decree entered by a court to the same extent that o her litigants may rely on judgments for or against them. The petitioners' contention is that the nature and extent of the back pay remedy are primarily and peculiarly matters lying within the administrative discretion of the Board, (see Phelps Dodge Corporation v. National Labor Relations Board, 313 U.S. 177, 194, 61 S.Ct. 845, 852, 85 L.Ed. 1271, 133 A.L.R. 1217; National Labor Relations Board v. Link-Belt Co., 311 U.S. 584, 600, 61 S.Ct. 358, 366, 85 L.Ed. 368) and that a court's function is limited to imparting legal sanction to the back pay remedy once it has determined that the Board has acted within the confines of its authority, since a court is prohibited from exercising the discretion reposing exclusively in the Board; and it can, therefore, neither affirm nor reverse a Board order relating to back pay on the basis of its own conception of effectuating the policies of the Act.
All this is true, and we have allowed the Board great latitude in devising remedies which it deems necessary to effectuate the purposes of the Act. But it is not we who essay to interfere with the discretion of an administrative body; it is the Board which is seeking to vacate a court order. The Board had exercised its discretion and devised a remedy. It gave long consideration to the problem of adequate relief for the employees discriminated against, and now asserts that it made a mistake. That is all that it asserts—not even the Board claims that the court below is usurping its functions. What the Board complains of is that it is not permitted to exercise its admittedly wide discretion a second time, or any number of times it may choose.
Administrative flexibility and judicial certainty are not contradictory; there must be an end to disputes which arise between administrative bodies and those over whom they have jurisdiction. This does not mean that the Board could not frame an order which by its terms required modification should conditions change. But here the order was definite and complete; it contemplated only arithmetical computation. The conditions remained the same; what had changed was the Board's...
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