Spencer v. N.L.R.B.

• Decision Date: 28 June 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-1851,82-1851
• Citation: 712 F.2d 539,229 U.S. App. D.C. 225
• Parties: 113 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3178, 229 U.S.App.D.C. 225, 98 Lab.Cas. P 10,266 Stanley SPENCER, et al., Appellants, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 539

712 F.2d 539

113 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3178, 229 U.S.App.D.C. 225,

98 Lab.Cas. P 10,266

Stanley SPENCER, et al., Appellants, v.NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, et al.

No. 82-1851.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued March 22, 1983.

Decided June 28, 1983.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia(D.C. Civil ActionNo. 79-2453).

Michael E. Avakian, Center on National Labor Policy, Inc., North Springfield, Va., for appellants.

David R. Marshall, Atty., N.L.R.B., Washington, D.C., of the Bar of the District of Columbia, pro hac vice, by special leave of the Court, with whom Elliott Moore, Deputy Associate Gen. Counsel, and Aileen A. Armstrong, Asst. Gen. Counsel, N.L.R.B., Washington, D.C., were on brief, for appellees.

Before MIKVA and EDWARDS, Circuit Judges, and SWYGERT, ^* Senior Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HARRY T. EDWARDS.

HARRY T. EDWARDS, Circuit Judge:

The appellants, a group of electrical and mechanical engineers employed by an electric utility company, seek attorneys' fees from the National Labor Relations Board("NLRB" or "Board") for legal expenses incurred in the course of their ultimately successful quest for a separate representation election.The appellants rely on section 204(a) of the Equal Access to Justice Act ("EAJA" or "the Act"), 28 U.S.C. § 2412(Supp. V 1981), which provides, inter alia, that, in a suit brought by or against the United States, the court shall award attorneys' fees to a private prevailing party who satisfies certain financial eligibility requirements, unless "the position of the United States was substantially justified or ... special circumstances make an award unjust."¹The District Court, 548 F.Supp. 256, found that the appellants met the eligibility requirements and had "prevailed" within the meaning of the Act.The court denied their application for attorneys' fees, however, on the ground that the position taken by the Board was substantially justified.The appellants contest the latter ruling.

Resolution of this appeal necessitates an inquiry into the theory and practice of the EAJA.We begin by construing two crucial, ambiguous phrases used in the Act--"the position of the United States" and "substantially justified."Next, we consider the standard of review by which a court of appeals should scrutinize a trial judge's determination of a party's entitlement to fees.We then bring our analysis to bear on the District Court's judgment in the case before us.We conclude that the court's findings and rulings were proper and accordingly affirm.

I.BACKGROUND

In 1938, the Utah Power and Light Company("the Company") voluntarily recognized Local 57 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ("the Union") as the exclusive bargaining representative of its employees.The Company and Union agreed that the bargaining unit would consist of all employees except management personnel and supervisory officials with the authority to hire and fire.Included in the unit, consequently, were non-supervisory engineers.The NLRB assented to the parties' "stipulation" and certified the Union.²

By 1978, there were 2,600 employees in the bargaining unit, approximately 100 of whom were highly educated electrical or mechanical engineers.During that year, 72 of the engineers filed a petition with the Board, seeking decertification of the Union as their bargaining representative.In support of their request, they argued that, as professional employees, section 9(b) of the National Labor Relations Act(as amended) guaranteed them a right to vote as a separate group regarding union representation.³Regional Director Francis Spearandeo dismissed the engineers' petition, on the ground that "[t]he Board's established policy and general rule is that the unit appropriate in a decertification election must be coextensive with the unit previously certified or the unit recognized."⁴The Board denied the engineers' petition for review of the dismissal.

In 1979, the engineers amended their petition to request clarification of the scope of the bargaining unit.The Regional Director dismissed this petition as well, on the ground that the engineers constituted neither a labor organization nor an employer and therefore lacked standing under the Board's regulations ⁵ to petition for unit clarification.⁶

Having failed to secure relief from the NLRB, the engineers sought the aid of the judiciary.In September 1979, they brought suit in the District Court for the District of Columbia against both Spearandeo and the Board.⁷They requested a declaration that they were indeed "professionals" within the meaning of section 2(12) of the National Labor Relations Act⁸ and an injunction compelling the Board to provide them a separate representation election.The Board admitted most of the factual allegations in the complaint, but responded that the engineers nevertheless had failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted and that the District Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the controversy.⁹The parties then filed cross-motions for summary judgment.

In 1980, while the case was pending in the District Court, two of the engineers filed a second decertification petition with the Board.This time the Board acceded to the petitioners' request.Utah Power & Light Co., 258 N.L.R.B. 1059(1981).The Board reasoned that the situation was "unique" insofar as "the professional employees seeking decertification have never had an opportunity to vote in a self-determination election"; under these special circumstances, it decided, "the policies inherent in Section 9(b)(1)" warranted making an "exception" to the general rule (which it reaffirmed) that a decertification election will not "normally" be ordered "in a unit not coextensive with the existing unit."Id. at 1061(footnote omitted).

The long-sought-after election was held on October 29, 1981, and the engineers voted overwhelmingly against continued representation by the Union.Eight days later, the Board moved to dismiss as moot the engineers' complaint.The engineers did not contest the motion, responding instead with an application for costs and attorneys' fees under the EAJA.The Board filed a memorandum opposing the application.

On May 28, 1982, the District Court granted the Board's motion to dismiss.Finding that the engineers qualified as "prevailing parties,"the court granted their motion for costs.¹⁰The court ruled, however, that the engineers were not entitled to attorneys' fees under either of the two arguably relevant provisions of the EAJA: first, since the engineers had not shown that the Board had acted in "bad faith,"they were not entitled to an award of fees under section 2412(b); second, since the Board had sustained its burden of showing that its position was "substantially justified,"appellants were precluded from receiving an award of fees under section 2412(d)(1)(A).¹¹

On appeal, no party contests the dismissal of the suit itself, the finding that the engineers constituted "prevailing parties," or the allocation of costs.The engineers challenge the denial of attorneys' fees.

II.THE EQUAL ACCESS TO JUSTICE ACT

A.Introduction

The background against which the Equal Access to Justice Act must be viewed is the so-called "American Rule" pertaining to the allocation of costs of counsel.Under that longstanding doctrine, each litigant ordinarily must pay his own lawyer.Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240, 247, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 1616, 44 L.Ed.2d 141(1975).¹²The rule has only two narrow exceptions: when a loser "has acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons,"he may be obliged to reimburse the winner for his attorneys' fees, F.D. Rich Co. v. United States, 417 U.S. 116, 129, 94 S.Ct. 2157, 2165, 40 L.Ed.2d 703(1974)(dicta);accordLipsig v. National Student Marketing Corp., 663 F.2d 178, 180(D.C.Cir.1980)(per curiam); and, when an individual litigant, by successfully maintaining a suit, has conferred a benefit on a group of persons, the court may allow him to recover his attorneys' fees from the beneficiaries, Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U.S. 375, 392-97, 90 S.Ct. 616, 625-28, 24 L.Ed.2d 593(1970).¹³Traditionally, the United States was even less vulnerable to an award of attorneys' fees than a private litigant; in the absence of an express statutory provision, even the aforementioned "bad faith" and "common benefit" rules could not be invoked against the federal government.Pealo v. Farmers Home Administration of the United States Department of Agriculture, 562 F.2d 744, 748(D.C.Cir.1977)(alternative holding);Rhode Island Committee on Energy v. General Services Administration, 561 F.2d 397, 405(1st Cir.1977).The protection from liability for attorneys' fees enjoyed by the United States under these circumstances derived from two sources: the general doctrine of sovereign immunity; and 28 U.S.C. § 2412, which, prior to its amendment by the EAJA, was "consistently construed as immunizing the United States against attorney's fees awards absent clear or express statutory authority to the contrary."NAACP v. Civiletti, 609 F.2d 514, 516(D.C.Cir.1979), cert. denied, 447 U.S. 922, 100 S.Ct. 3012, 65 L.Ed.2d 1114(1980).

Since at least the 1920s, the restrictive American doctrine pertaining to the allocation of attorneys' fees has been subjected to persistent attack.¹⁴In the 1960s and early 1970s, federal courts sensitive to these criticisms began to experiment with various alternative, more liberal, fee-shifting rules.The most important of these developments was the so-called "private attorney general" theory, under which prevailing parties were allowed to recover attorneys' fees when their suits resulted in enforcement of "important societal rights."¹⁵In 1975,...