NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

4 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
were recorded in last year's report. However, much of the energy
which had previously been spent mainly in attacking the constitutional
validity of the National Labor Relations Act was diverted into
other channels. Instead of being engaged in one critical struggle the
Board found itself fighting a number of battles on different fronts.
Some of these were obviously rear-guard actions in one form or
another, as for example the persistence of efforts to enjoin the
Board from even holding hearings pursuant to the act. 3 The issue
raised by these efforts was definitely settled in the Board's favor during
the year by three Supreme Court decisions. Also settled in the
Board's favor by action of the Supreme Court were a number of
important legal issues arising under the terms of the statute. The
Court sustained the Board fully in the five cases which were argued
during the year. In the four others which the Court declined to
review the Board's orders had been upheld in the circuit courts of
appeals. Thus, the Board went through a year of Supreme Court
litigation with a perfect record.
In the circuit courts of appeals, the Board was sustained in 18 cases
and lost in 6. During the early months of the year, the Board was
almost consistently successful. However, as the year drew to a close
there appeared a tendency in certain cases for the circuit courts to set
aside factual findings as unsupported by evidence. The statute provides
that the findings of the Board as to the facts, if supported by
evidence, shall be conclusive. It has been well established by the
courts that such provisions, in other statutes as well as in the National
Labor Relations Act, place the responsibility of weighing and appraising
the evidence upon the administrative or quasi judicial
agency. The tendency of some of the circuit courts, as it appears to
the Board, in departing from these principles raise an important
problem which will no doubt be resolved by the Supreme Court.
In several cases also the circuit courts of appeals have in the opinion
of the Board unduly limited the purposes of the act in the setting
aside of remedial orders designed to remedy situations caused by
unfair labor practices. The Board feels confident that final judicial
determinations will resolve this problem also.
E. THE BOARD AND THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS
Ironically enough, coincident with the appearance in decisions of
the circuit courts of the tendency to go behind the Board's evidentiary
findings criticism of the statute increased because, it was argued, the
act made the findings of the Board, if supported by any evidence,
conclusive. Adverse discussion of the provision seldom recognized
that the provision is not novel to the National Labor Relations Act,
that, as put by a recent writer, "Statute and decision have firmly
established the rule that administrative findings of fact, if supported
by evidence, are conclusive."
3 See Second Annual Report, ch. VIII, pp. 31-40.
In 2 of these cases the order of the Board was modified in minor respects.