TOP OF WAIKIKI, INC., PETITIONER,
v.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, RESPONDENT

9th Cir. | 1970-06-29
No. 24402
Before JERTBERG, BROWNING and HUFSTEDLER, Circuit Judges.
429 F.2d 419 United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (1970) Positive Treatment
Cited by 2 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The court held that there was substantial evidence supporting the National Labor Relations Board's finding that the employer unlawfully discharged employees for engaging in protected, concerted activities for mutual aid and protection.


Facts & Procedural History

Top of Waikiki, Inc. petitioned to vacate an NLRB order requiring reinstatement of employees disciplined and discharged for alleged protected activiti…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM:

PER CURIAM:

This case is before the court on petition of Top of Waikiki, Inc., pursuant to Section 10(e) and (f) of the National Labor Relations Act, to vacate and set aside portions of the order of the National Labor Relations Board requiring petitioner to reinstate, with back pay, its discharged employees, David Kochi, Michael Leslie, and Dwight Yamaguchi, and the Board’s cross-petition for enforcement of its order. The board’s decision and order are reported at 176-77 N.L.R. B. No. 6. No jurisdictional issue is present.

The Board found that petitioner violated Sec. 8(a) (1) of the Act by disciplining, and then later discharging, the above named employees for engaging in protected, concerted activities for the purpose of mutual aid and protection within the meaning of Sec. 7 of the Act.

The Board also found that petitioner violated Sec. 8(a) (3) and (1) of the Act in respect to nine other named employees by refusing to reinstate them after a protected walkout. Petitioner acquiesced in the enforcement of the Board’s order in respect to them, and we are, therefore, not concerned with them in this review.

On this review petitioner earnestly contends that the findings of the Board that petitioner violated Sec. 8(a) (1) of the Act by disciplining and then later discharging the above named employees while engaging in protected, concerted activities for the purpose of mutual aid and protection within the meaning of Sec. 7 of the Act are not supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole. In support of this contention petitioner asserts that the record as a whole reveals that the three employees named above “had been suspended for proper cause by reason of their imputation of Company dishonesty and insubordination in grumbling about the change in the method of pooling of tips on the one night of New Year’s Eye and were thereafter discharged when they made a later appearance to attend a meeting of employees called by the Company during the period of their suspension.” The reviewing power of this Court over orders of the Board is set forth in Sec. 10(f) of the Act, which states:

“[Tjhe findings of the Board with respect to questions of fact if supported by substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole shall in like manner be conclusive.”

The standard of review set forth in that provision is elaborated upon in Universal Camera Corp. v. N.L.R.B., 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951) and its companion case, N.L.R.B. v. Pittsburgh S. S. Company, 340 U.S. 498, 71 S.Ct. 453, 95 L.Ed. 479 (1951). If the findings are not supported by substantial evidence on the record when considered as a whole, it is our duty to set aside and refuse enforcement of the order of the Board. Universal Camera Corp. v. N.L.R.B., supra; N.L.R.B. v. Isis Plumbing & Heating Co., 322 F. 2d 913 (9th Cir. 1963); Lozano Enterprises v. N.L.R.B., 357 F. 2d 500 (9th Cir. 1966).

Under the rationale expressed in Universal Camera, supra, it is our duty in determining the substantiality of evidence supporting a Labor Board decision to take into account contradictory evidence or evidence from which conflicting inferences could be drawn.

“The substantiality of evidence must take into account whatever in the record fairly detracts from its weight.” Universal Camera, supra, 340 U.S. at 488, 71 S.Ct. at 464. We recognize that an affirmative duty rests upon General Counsel to establish by substantial evidence thkt, in respect to the discharges in question, petitioner was motivated to do so because the discharged employees had engaged in protected, concerted activities.

We have carefully reviewed the entire record in this case, pot only in the light of the governing principles of law set forth above in this opinion, but also in light of petitioner’s contention that the discharged employees were acting solely for themselves and not for other employees.

We conclude that there is substantial evidence from which the Board could infer that the activities of the dis-

charged employees, leading to their discharge, were engaged in with, or on behalf of, other employees and not solely by and on behalf of themselves, and thus were “concerted activities for the purpose of * * * mutual aid or protection” within the meaning of Sec. 7 of'the National Labor Relations Act protected by Sec. 8(a) (1) of the Act. See: Pacific Electricord Company v. N.L.R.B., 361 F. 2d 310 (9th Cir. 1966); Signal Oil and Gas Company v. N.L.R.B., 390 F. 2d 338 (9th Cir. 1968).

The petition to vacate and set aside the decision and order of the Board is denied, the petition is dismissed, and the cross-petition of the Board for enforcement of its order is granted.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw