EDMUND M. TOLAND, Esquire, EXHIBIT NO. 1608-G NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, General Counsel, Special Committee to Investigate the National Labor Relations Board, Room 139, Old House Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. TOLAND: Supplementing my letter of October 19, 1939, I am writing to inform you of another complaint case which apparently comes within the class of cases which I discussed in that letter. In Matter of Thompson Cabinet Company, C-629, 11 N. L. R. B. 1106, when the case was reported to the Board on October 5, 1938, certain incidents and statements of witnesses in the record appeared unclear, and the Board tentatively decided that a further hearing should be held to clarify these points. Before ordering such a hearing, however, it decided that inquiry should be made of the Regional Director to determine whether a further hearing would accomplish the result desired. The review attorney who had reported the case to the Board was directed to prepare a memorandum, to be sent by the Secretary to the Regional Director, indicating the points which needed further clarification and inquiring as to the value of a further hearing. This memorandum was prepared by Mr. Willard Morris and sent by the Assistant Secretary to the Regional Director, Mr. Bowen, on October 7, 1938. A reply to this memorandum, dated October 14, 1938 was sent to the Secretary by Mr. Harold Cranefield, the Regional Attorney, who prepared the reply after consultation with Mr. E. Cross who had acted as Board's attorney in the proceeding. The reply urged that no further hearing was necessary and that evidence in the record and inferences which might be drawn therefrom made sufficiently clear the points in question. The review attorney examined this memorandum and reported the case again to the Board on December 28, 1938. It was determined that no further hearing should be held, and the Board's Decision and Order was issued on March 14, 1939. General Counsel, Special Committee to Investigate the National Labor Relations Board, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. TOLAND: This is in reply to your letter of October 27, 1939. As you requested, I have asked Mr. Witt if, during the time that he was in charge of the review division, he had any recollection of any trial attorneys who participated in the preparation of any findings of fact, conclusions of law and decision and order of the Board. He informs me that he recollects such participation in only two cases, which I have already described to you in my letter of October 1939: Matter of Dwight Manufacturing Company, R-9, 1 N. L. R. B. 309, and Matter of Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California, et al, C-178 to C-178ee, 15 N. L. R. B., No. 39. Your second request, that I furnish you with a list of the names of all attorneys either in the litigation, review, or any other division who assisted the trial examiners in the preparation of their Intermediate Reports, has been answered, to the extent that the Chief Trial Examiner, the Assistant Chief Trial Examiner, the Associate General Counsel in charge of the Litigation Section, the Associate General Counsel in charge of the Review Section, and I have any knowledge of such instances, by my letter of October 28, 1939. In preparing the tentative findings, conclusions, orders and decisions of the Board, review attorneys have before them only the following material: the formal file, the transcript of the stenographic record of the proceedings, the exhibits, the exceptions and the briefs. Occasionally they may also have a transcript of the stenographic record of the oral argument before the Board. Up to April of this year, review attorneys were also permitted to examine the informal file in the case. The purpose of this practice was to inform the review attorneys if there had been compliance with the Intermediate Report or if there had been any informal communications which, properly, should have been made the subject of formal action, such as requests for withdrawal, postponement, rebearing, etc. On April 3, 1939, the Board put into effect a rule forbidding the inspection of informal files by review attorneys, and an officer was appointed to act as a liaison officer between the review division and the Secreary's office. I enclose the memorandum, dated March 30, 1939, containing these instructions. The review division keeps a set of cards, a sample of which is enclosed herewith, which show the date a case was assigned to a review attorney and the date when final action was taken in the particular case. The task of annotating a list of review attorneys and cases with the number of pages of transcript in each case is going forward, and the annotated list will be returned to you under separate cover shortly. Yours sincerely, CHARLES FAHY, General Counsel. CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Mr. CHARLES FAHY, NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. FAHY: I have your letter of November 6 in reply to my letter of October 27. I have information that in other cases than those referred to in your previous letters trial attorneys participated in the preparation of findings of fact, conclusions of law and decision and order of the Board. Will you be good enough make a further check in this regard? Will you likewise make a further check in regard to the request referred to in the second paragraph of your letter? I did not receive the enclosed memorandum mentioned in the third paragraph of your letter or the sample of the ard kept in the Review Division. Very truly yours, EMT/sg EXHIBIT NO. 1608-I EDMUND M. TOLAND, General Counsel. EDMUND M. TOLAND, Esquire, NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, General Counsel, Special Committee to House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. TOLAND: This is in answer to your letter of November 1, 1939. I think that your request for information whether the litigation attorneys sisted in the preparation of the intermediate reports of the trial examiners has been answered in my letters of October 28 and November 6, 1939. I am enclosing herewith four copies of a chart showing the set-up of the Board with the various divisions, the responsible heads, and the number of employees in each unit. You will note that this chart differs in some respects from that which I furnished you in response to an earlier request. The previous hart was discovered to contain certain inaccuracies which have been corrected in the one enclosed herewith. You ask whether trial examiners and attorneys in the review division consult with or receive assistance from any other employee of the Board in the preparation of intermediate reports, findings of fact, conclusions, orders and decisions. With the exceptions noted in my letter of October 28, 1939, trial examiners, far as is known to the Chief Trial Examiner, the Assistant Chief Trial Examiner, or myself, consulted with or received assistance from only the following: other members of the trial examiners' division and the staff of the division economic research. The nature of assistance received from other members the trial examiners' division is described in my letter of October 28. Trial exa iners are permitted to avail themselves of the services of the division of e nomic research for assistance of two types: (1) the analysis of complicat economic data appearing in the record, and (2) the securing of information the class of which judicial notice may be taken. With the exceptions noted in my letter of October 19, 1939, attorneys in t review division, so far as is known to the Associate General Counsel in charį of the review division, the Assistant General Counsel assigned to that divisio or myself, have consulted with or received assistance from only the following other members of the review division, the staff of the division of econom: research, and certain members of the Washington staff of the General Counse I will not describe the supervisory methods of the review section, as I believ that you already have this information. The assistance which review attor neys may obtain from the division of economic research is of the same kin as that which the trial examiners may secure. The types of assistance whicl review attorneys may obtain from the General Counsel's staff are as follows Procedural problems, problems of jurisdiction, and particularly important prob lems of interpretations of the law are sometimes referred to the General Coun sel, either directly or at the request of the Board. Problems of the adequacy of stipulations submitted to the review section for the drafting of Board orders are occasionally taken up by review attorneys with members of the General Counsel's staff. Occasionally review attorneys consult members of the General Counsel's staff with respect to legal problems in which that staff has made research. With respect to your request for a list of all the so-called Board cases, I understand from Mr. Hawes that Mr. Robb has indicated that the cases referred to are the complaint cases which were transferred after hearing to the Board without intermediate report. A list of such cases with the names of the attorneys requested is being prepared and will be forwarded to you separately. You request also information as to the policy of the Board with respect to making a case a Board case. This policy has varied at different times. The present policy is to transfer a case to the Board without an intermediate report in the following situations: (1) When, because of illness or because the trial examiner leaves the Board or for any other reason, there is a change of trial examiners during the course of hearing, so that no one trial examiner hears the whole case; (2) When the case is so long or complicated that, to require an intermediate report, would mean loss of the trial examiner's services in the hearing of other cases for a long period; (3) When, because of the importance of the case, special speed appears necessary; (4) When, because the case involves a new and important question of the application of the Act, the Board wishes to be the first tribunal to express an opinion upon it. Earlier in the Board's history, transfers of cases without intermediate reports occurred under the following conditions also: (1) When the trial examiner left the employment of the Board after a hearing and before he had prepared an intermediate report; (2) When the trial examiner became ill after the close of the hearing or became involved in other work; for example, was transferred to the post of Regional Director; (3) When the Board wished to consider a particular case along with others in a group believed to be similar; (4) When the Chief Trial Examiner recommended the omission of a report because a draft of the report submitted by the trial examiner showed such lack of comprehension of the issues involved that preparation of a proper report would have involved serious delay. The trial examiner has no part in preparing the findings, conclusions, orders and decisions of the Board in cases which are transferred to th eBoard without an intermediate report. The only known exception to this statement is that of Matter of Consumers Power Company (C-790, 9 N. L. R. B. 701), where the trial examiner and the review attorney collaborated in the preparation of the Board's Proposed Findings of Fact, Proposed Conclusions of Law, and Proposed Order. CHARLES FAHY. General Counsel. Yours sincerely, |