EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE, RESTRAINT, COERCION; EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE WITH, RESTRAINT, OR COERCION OF EMPLOYEES – In General; Standards

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Where a charging party alleges that a respondent has interfered with or retaliated against protected activities via litigation-related conduct, PERB applies the principles articulated in Bill Johnson’s Restaurants, Inc. v. NLRB (1983) 461 U.S. 731, thereby following “a qualified litigation privilege that preserves parties’ ability to litigate colorable legal rights while disallowing baseless, bad faith conduct that tends to harm protected labor rights.” (Victor Valley Union High School District (2022) PERB Decision No. 2822, p. 10 (Victor Valley).) Under these principles, the charging party must prove that the respondent acted without any reasonable basis and for an unlawful purpose. (Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3, AFL-CIO (Wagner et al.) (2021) PERB Decision No. 2782-M, p. 11.) Here, the Board applied the traditional Bill Johnson’s analysis, and concluded that the entirety of the employer’s lawsuit, which alleged trespassing and unlawful picketing and sought to ban union representatives from non-work areas of a public medical center, was without a reasonable basis and for an unlawful purpose, and thus constituted interference.