United States First Circuit

Petition for review of a final decision and order of the U.S. Department of Labor's Administrative Review Board's (Board) award of backpay and other expenses to an employee, a commercial trucker, in determining that the employee's termination violated the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 (STAA), is denied where: 1) it was not an abuse of the ALJ's broad discretion to admit DOT reports not as character evidence but both pursuant to the "public records and reports" hearsay exception and as proof of petitioners' knowledge concerning their history of complying with the driving regulation; 2) substantial evidence supports findings that a causal connection existed between the employee's protected activity and the adverse employment action against him, and that the petitioner's proffered reason for terminating the employee was actually a pretext for unlawful retaliation; and 3) the Board's legal ruling that petitioners waived their claim regarding backpay was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/26/2010
• Published 08/26/2010

Judges

• TORRUELLA

Court

• United States First Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• James F. Laboe, Ronald J. Gottlieb