National Labor Relations Board v. Bottling Co of Miami

• Decision Date: 12 January 1953
• Docket Number: SEVEN-UP,No. 217,217
• Citation: 73 S.Ct. 287,344 U.S. 344,97 L.Ed. 377
• Parties: NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. BOTTLING CO. OF MIAMI, Inc
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

344 U.S. 344

73 S.Ct. 287

97 L.Ed. 377

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

v SEVEN-UP BOTTLING CO. OF MIAMI, Inc.

No. 217.

Argued Dec. 19, 1952.

Decided Jan. 12, 1953.

Mr. Mozart G. Ratner, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Mr. Frank A. Constangy, Atlanta, Ga., for respondent.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

Acting under § 10(c) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (the Taft-Hartley Act), 61 Stat. 136, 147, 29 U.S.C. (Supp. IV) § 160(c), 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(c), the National Labor Relations Board ordered the reinstatement of eleven discriminatorily discharged employees of the Seven-Up Bottling Company, with back pay 'to be computed upon a quarterly basis in the manner established by the Board in F. W. Woolworth Company.' 92 N.L.R.B. 1622, 1640. In the Woolworth case, 90 N.L.R.B. 289, the Board said:

'The public interest in discouraging obstacles to industrial peace requires that we seek to bring about, in unfair labor practice cases, 'a restoration of the situation, as nearly as possible, to that which would have obtained but for the illegal discrimination.' In order that this end may be effectively accomplished through the medium of reinstatement coupled with back pay, we shall order, in the case before us and in future cases, that the loss of pay be computed on the basis of each separate calendar quarter or portion thereof during the period from the Respondent's discriminatory action to the date of a proper offer of reinstatement. The quarterly periods, hereinafter called 'quarters,' shall begin with the first day of January, April, July, and October. Loss of pay shall be determined by deducting from a sum equal to that which (the employee) would normally have earned for each such quarter or portion thereof, (his) net earnings, if any, in other employment during that period. Earnings in one particular quarter shall have no effect upon the back-pay liability for any other quarter.' 90 N.L.R.B., at 292—293.

In the proceeding in which the Board sought enforcement of the order against the Seven-Up Bottling Com- pany, the Court of Appeals sustained the claim of the Company that the Woolworth formula could not be applied against it: 'The employee is entitled to be made whole, but no more. The employees here involved were not compensated on a quarterly basis. We see no sufficient reason to so compute their back pay during suspension. * * * There is nothing to indicate that the conditions apprehended by the Board in the Woolworth case, exist here.' 5 Cir., 196 F.2d 424, 427—428. Accordingly, the court modified the Board's order so that back pay would be awarded on the basis of the entire period during which an employee was denied reemployment in violation of the Act rather than on a quarterly basis. Since the general method of computing back pay is obviously a matter of importance in the administration of the Act, we brought the case here. 344 U.S. 811, 73 S.Ct. 39.

Section 10(c) of the Taft-Hartley Act, under which the Board made its award, derives unchanged, so far as is now relevant, from the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act. 49 Stat. 449, 454. It charges the Board with the task of devising remedies to effectuate the policies of the Act. Of course the remedies must be functions of the purposes to be accomplished, and in making back pay awards, the Board operates under a further limitation. It must have regard for considerations governing the mitigation of damages; it must, that is, heed 'the importance of taking fair account, in a civilized legal system, of every socially desirable factor in the final judgment.' Phelps Dodge Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 313 U.S. 177, 198, 61 S.Ct. 845, 854, 85 L.Ed. 1271. Subject to these limitations however, the power, which is a broad discretionary one, is for the Board to wield, not for the courts. In fashioning remedies to undo the effects of violations of the Act, the Board must draw on enlightenment gained from experience. When the Board, 'in the exercise of its informed discretion,' makes an order of restoration by way of back pay, the order 'should stand unless it can be shown that the order is a patent attempt to achieve ends other than those which can fairly be said to effectuate the policies of the Act.' Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 319 U.S. 533, 540, 63 S.Ct. 1214, 1218, 87 L.Ed. 1568. The Woolworth formula, as a general method of computation, is, under this test, proof against judicial challenge.

The Board's very first published order awarded as back pay wages which would normally have been earned 'during the period from the date of * * * discharge to the date of (an) offer of reinstatement * * * less the amount * * * earned subsequent to discharge * * *.' Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., 1 N.L.R.B. 1, 51 (1935)', enforced sub nom. National Labor Relations Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., 303 U.S. 261, 58 S.Ct. 571, 82 L.Ed. 831. For fifteen years the Board followed the practice it had laid down in that case and calculated back pay on the basis of the entire period between discharge and offer of reinstatement. In 1950, in F. W. Woolworth Company, supra, the Board said: 'The cumulative experience of many years discloses that this form of remedial provision falls short of effectuating the basic purposes and policies of the Act.' 90 N.L.R.B., at 291. The Board considered that its Pennsylvania Greyhound formula for computing back pay adversely affected 'the companion remedy of reinstatement.' When an employee, sometime after discharge, obtained a better paying job than the one he was discharged from, it became profitable for the employer to delay an offer of reinstatement as long as possible, since every day the employee put in on the better paying job reduced back pay liability. Again, the old formula, in the same circumstances, put added pressure on the employee to waive his right to reinstatement, since by doing so he could terminate the running of back pay and prevent the continuing reduction of the sum coming to him. To avoid these consequences the Board laid down its new method of computation. 90 N.L.R.B., at 292 293.

It is not for us to weigh these or countervailing considerations. Nor should we require the Board to make a quantitative appraisal of the relevant factors, assuming the unlikely, that such an appraisal is feasible. As is true of many comparable judgments by those who are steeped in the actual workings of these specialized matters, the Board's conclusions may 'express an intuition of experience which outruns analysis and sums up many unnamed and tangled impressions * * *'; and they are none the worse for it. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. Co. v. Babcock, 204 U.S. 585, 598, 27 S.Ct. 326, 329, 51 L.Ed. 636. It is as true of the Labor Board as it was of the agency in the Babcock case that '(t)he board was created for the purpose of using its judgment and its knowledge.' Ibid.

It will not be denied that the Board may be mindful of the practical interplay of two remedies, back pay and reinstatement, both within the scope of its authority. Surely it may so fashion one remedy that it complements, rather than conflicts with, another. It is the business of the Board to give coordinated effect to the policies of the Act. We prefer to deal with these realities and to avoid entering into the bog of logomachy, as we are invited to, by debate about what is 'remedial' and what is 'punitive.' It seems more profitable to stick closely to the direction of the Act by considering what order does, as this does, and what order does not, bear appropriate relation to the policies of the Act. Cf. National Labor Relations Board v. Gullett Gin Co., 340 U.S. 361, 71 S.Ct. 337, 95 L.Ed. 337. Of course, Republic Steel Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 311 U.S. 7, 61 S.Ct. 77, 85 L.Ed. 6, dealt with a different situation, and its holding remains undisturbed.

It is urged, however, that no evidence in this record supports this back pay order; that the Board's formula and the reasons it assigned for adopting it do not rest on data which the Board has derived in the course of the pro- ceedings before us. But in devising a remedy the Board is not confined to the record of a particular proceeding. 'Cumulative experience' begets understanding and insight by which judgments not objectively demonstrable are validated or qualified or invalidated. The constant process of trial and error, on a wider and fuller scale than a single adversary litigation permits, differentiates perhaps more than anything else the administrative from the judicial process. '(T)he relation of remedy to policy is peculiarly a matter for administrative competence * * *.' Phelps Dodge Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, supra, 313 U.S., at page 194, 61 S.Ct. at page 852. That competence could not be exercised if in fashioning remedies the administrative agency were restricted to considering only what was before it in a single proceeding.

This is not to say that the Board may apply a remedy it has worked out on the basis of its experience, without regard to circumstances which may make its application to a particular situation oppressive and therefore not calculated to effectuate a policy of the Act. The Company in this case maintains that it operates a seasonal business, that its employees may earn three times as much in the first and fourth quarters of a year as in the second and third, and that a quarterly calculation of back pay would in this context be obviously unjust. The Board suggests that it will be time enough to deal with such special facts in this case if the Board and the Company cannot agree on the fair application of the Woolworth formula after the order is sustained. But in case of such disagreement, the Company can be heard as of right on the issue it now raises only in the course of contempt proceedings and at the risk involved in them. We do not think contempt proceedings are...