“In the context of a struggle to organize a union, ‘the most repulsive speech enjoys immunity provided it falls short of a deliberate or reckless untruth,’ so long as the allegedly offensive actions are directly related to activities protected by the Act and are not so egregious as to be considered indefensible.”
How later courts described this case
- “In the context of a struggle to organize a union, ‘the most repulsive speech enjoys immunity provided it falls short of a deliberate or reckless untruth,’ so long as the allegedly offensive actions are directly related to activities protected by the Act and are not so egregious as to be considered indefensible.”
- that government required supervision of driver by carrier merely one factor to consider in determining whether driver “employee” or “independent contractor”
- “[C]onsidering the entire context in which Thompson made his comments, we cannot find them to be recklessly malicious, insubordinate, or unrelated to his protected activity.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
O’SULLIVAN, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
I respectfully dissent from my brothers’ affirmance of the Board’s command that employee Johnson be reinstated with full back pay. I cannot believe that an employer is required to retain, or to restore to his payroll, a man who has given wide circulation to a story that such employer had avoided unionization by another union by a “payoff” of $20,000 a year to the President of that union. I share the relevant view of the Chairman of the NLRB.