National Labor Relations Board v. Citizen-News Co.

The National Labor Relations Board, hereinafter referred to as the Board, has petitioned this court to enforce its order made in a proceeding instituted by the issuing of a complaint by the Board on June 27, 1938. The complaint was issued during a strike called on May 15, 1938, by employees who were members of the Los Angeles Newspaper Guild. Thirty-three days after the issuing of the complaint a contract was entered into between the respondent and the Guild for the purpose of settling the strike and disposing of the issues raised by it.

The immediate cause of the strike was the discharge of three employees of respondent who were members of the Guild. Two more were discharged after the strike was voted and before it became effective.

The Board, in its findings, fairly summarized its complaint as follows: “The complaint alleged, in substance, that the respondent (1) discriminatorily discharged and refused to reinstate Roger C. Johnson, Mellier G. Scott, Jr., Elizabeth Yeaman, Karl Schlichter, and Helen Blair Thurlby, and did thereby discourage membership in a labor organization; (2) refused to bargain collectively in good faith with the Guild, the collective bargaining agency…

(dissenting).

A. The majority decides an important federal question in conflict with the decisions of the Supreme Court. It rejects pertinent testimony as not substantial, and substitutes its inferences for equally if not more rational inferences of the Board supporting its findings of “Interference, restraint and coercion”.

The decisions so in conflict are National Labor Relations Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, 1937, 303 U.S. 261, 271 , 58 S.Ct. 571, 576 , 82 L.Ed. 831 , 115 A.L.R. 307 , in which, in holding that continued recognition of a company union would be an obstacle to the exercise of the employees’ rights, the Court said, “The inferences to be drawn were for the Board and not the courts.” And National Labor Relations Board v. Link-Belt Co., 1940, 311 U.S. 584, 597 , 61 S.Ct. 358, 365 , 85 L.Ed. 368 , where the Court reversed the Circuit Court’s refusal to enforce an order saying, “We are of the opinion that the Court of Appeals in reaching that conclusion substituted its judgment on disputed facts for the Board’s judgment — a power which has been denied it by the Congress.” See also National Labor Relations Board v. Waterman S. S. Co., 1939, 309 U.S. 206, 208,…