McDonald's Restaurants of Tennessee, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 9, 2015

10-CA-131969 (N.L.R.B. Feb. 9, 2015)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BEFORE THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
MCDONALD’S USA LLC
and Cases 10-CA-131969
10-CA-132995
MID-SOUTH ORGANIZING COMMITTEE 10-CA-134812
10-CA-134816
ORDER1
The Employer’s petition to quash subpoena duces tecum B-1-JDCRTV is granted
in part and denied in part. The subpoena seeks contact information for employees who
have worked at the Employer’s facility since February 1, 2014. However, the Regional
Director issued a consolidated complaint on December 19, 2014 concerning the
allegations in Cases 10-CA-131969 and 10-CA-134812. Therefore, the information
sought regarding those allegations is not relevant to a determination by the Region as to
whether a complaint is warranted. Accordingly, the petition to revoke is granted with
respect to information regarding employees employed from February 1, 2014 through
May 31, 2014 (the time period applicable solely to the aforementioned cases).2
With respect to Cases 10-CA-132995 and 10-CA-134816, the subpoena seeks
information relevant to the matter under investigation and describes with sufficient
particularity the evidence sought, as required by Section 11(1) of the Act and Section

1 The National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a
three-member panel.
2 This Order is without prejudice to the Region’s issuance of a further subpoena
seeking the additional information should the other subpoenaed documents provided by
the Employer prove inadequate to determine the merits of the charges in Cases 10-CA-
132995 and 10-CA-134816.
2
102.31(b) of the Board’s Rules and Regulations. Further, the Employer has failed to
establish any other legal basis for revoking the subpoena.3 See generally NLRB v.
North Bay Plumbing, Inc., 102 F.3d 1005 (9th Cir. 1996); NLRB v. Carolina Food
Processors, Inc., 81 F.3d 507 (4th Cir. 1996).
Accordingly, we deny the petition to revoke the subpoena with respect to
information pertaining to the allegations in Cases 10-CA-132995 and 10-CA-134816;

3 With respect to burdensomeness, Member Johnson notes that the original
subpoena effectively asked for contact information for approximately 92 employees,
which in his view, is overbroad in these circumstances. Even with the narrowed
subpoena, he would additionally find the following: The remaining charges in Cases 10-
CA-132995 and 134816 allege that the Employer violated Section 8(a)(3) and (1) by
disciplining employee James Woods beginning on June 13 and discharging him on July
17 because of his union and protected concerted activity. The Employer contends that
the subpoena should be limited to those individuals who worked at the times of Woods’
incidents of claimed misconduct that are at issue in those charges, and further contends
that such incidents occurred “on only the following dates: June 13, 22, 25, 30, and July
7 and July 8, 2014.” Member Johnson would grant the petition and revoke the
subpoena, without prejudice to a later subpoena by the Region, except as to the
requested employees who worked on any of those dates.
With respect to privacy, Member Johnson also would find in accordance with his
stated views in other subpoena cases that, to the extent that a state law privacy interest
is implicated by a petitioner’s privacy claim, that such privacy interest would be
generally cognizable in the context of objections to Board subpoenas. See Taylor
Farms Pacific, Inc./Slingshot Connections, LLC/Abel Mendoza, Inc., 32-CA-116854
(05/23/2014). However, here the Employer argued a generalized privacy objection but
made no showing that the disclosure of the sought-after types of contact information of
the potential witnesses would be protected under state law, and he accordingly does not
reach the issue here. See generally, Patterson v. Convention Center Authority, 421
S.W.3d 597 (Tenn.2013) (state court of appeals found that state statutes did not prevent
the disclosure of third party contactor’s employee contact information to union, and
declined to find public policy exception that would exempt disclosure of employee
residential addresses from statutory requirement of openness).
3
specifically, the Employer shall provide contact information for employees employed
from June 1, 2014 through the date of the subpoena.
Dated, Washington, D.C., February 9, 2015
MARK GASTON PEARCE, CHAIRMAN
PHILIP A. MISCIMARRA, MEMBER
HARRY I. JOHNSON, III, MEMBER