Operations In Fiscal Year 1988 - National Labor Relations Board

78 Fifty-Third Annual Report of the National Labor Relations BoardApplying the Court's principles, the Board determined that, asthe state court had granted summary judgment on the businessinterference claim and no reason existed for not deferring to thatjudgment, the respondent's business interference claim lacked areasonable basis. The Board further found that the record establishedthat the respondent had filed the lawsuit in retaliation forthe employees' exercise of their Section 7 rights. Accordingly,the Board concluded that the respondent had violated the Act byfiling and prosecuting the business interference suit, and orderedthe respondent to cease and desist from engaging in such conductand to reimburse the employees for all attorneys' fees andother expenses they had incurred in defending against the suitbut not for filing their counterclaims.Regarding the libel claim, a Board majority determined thatthat claim had a reasonable basis because the state court haddenied the employee-defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment.Although the parties had entered into an agreement settling thelibel claim, the Board majority noted that the settlement agreement,by its terms, had not settled the unfair labor practicecharge and that the Court's opinion had not discussed the effectof a settlement agreement. As the state court would never reachthe merits of the libel claim in light of the settlement agreement,the Board majority determined that the General Counsel had notshown that the libel claim was baseless.In reaching that conclusion, the Board majority rejected theargument that the settlement of the libel claim was equivalent tothe withdrawal of the claim, and therefore meritless under theCourt's opinion. That result would discourage settlements andwould be contrary to Rule 408 of the Federal Rules of Evidence,which prohibits the use of a settlement agreement as evidence toestablish the validity or invalidity of a claim. Although nothingin the Court's opinion would preclude it from deciding themerits of the state court suit to resolve the unfair labor practicecase, the Board majority declined to do so on the basis that itsexpertise lay in resolving labor law questions that arise under theAct and that its resources were limited. Having found that thelibel claim was neither baseless nor withdrawn, the Board majorityconcluded that the filing and prosecution of the libel suit didnot violate the Act. Accordingly, it was unnecessary to decidewhether the libel suit was filed with a retaliatory motive.In a partial dissent, Chairman Stephens indicated that resolutionof the merits of the libel claim was beyond neither theBoard's jurisdiction nor its expertise. Noting that both the administrativelaw judge and the court of appeals had found that thelibel allegations lacked merit, he would have concluded that thelibel claim was otherwise shown to be without merit, and thereforebaseless under the Court's opinion, and filed with a retaliatorymotive. He thus would have concluded that the filing andprosecution of the libel claim violated the Act.