Here's an interesting story from this week, courtesy of an NLRB press release which tells us the whole sordid affair, no middle man required. Turns out you can, in fact, arrest and jail employers for not complying with the law and generally being shitty to their employees. Food for thought.
All the small business tyrant shit that got us here
On September 1, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (the Court) issued a “writ of body attachment”, directing the United States Marshals Service to take two corporate officials of Haven Salon + Spa in Muskego, Wisconsin into custody until they comply with the Court’s order. The officials, Timothy and Carley Dillett, repeatedly failed and refused to comply with an enforced Board order.
In 2021, the Board found that Haven Salon + Spa violated the National Labor Relations Act (the Act) when it discharged an employee for raising concerns about the adequacy of the company’s COVID-19 safety protocols during the height of the pandemic. In raising those concerns, the employee had engaged in protected concerted activity within the meaning of the Act. The Board’s order required Haven Salon + Spa to offer the employee reinstatement, expunge references to the discharge from its files, provide records relevant to calculating backpay to the Board, post a notice of employee rights at its facility, and file a certificate of compliance with the Board’s Region 18 office in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Court enforced the Board’s order later that year.
What actually got these people arrested
After Haven Salon + Spa failed to fully comply with the Court-enforced order, the Board filed a motion to hold Haven Salon + Spa in contempt, which the Court granted in February 2023. The Court’s contempt order imposed escalating daily fines on Haven that could be forgiven in full if it complied with the Board’s order within a week’s time.
But Haven Salon + Spa still did not comply, so the Board filed another motion with the Court in August 2023 to liquidate the fines, add the Dilletts as additional respondents in contempt, and issue a writ of body attachment. The Board argued that the Dilletts, as Haven Salon + Spa’s corporate officials, were responsible for the company’s noncompliance with the Court’s orders. In its motion, the Board also pointed to evidence suggesting that the Dilletts had deliberately evaded service of those orders on multiple occasions.
The Court granted the motion in full and ordered Haven Salon + Spa to pay the Board over $30,000 in fines and attorney’s fees. The U.S. Marshals Service for the Eastern District of Wisconsin took the Dilletts into custody on September 12th for a same-day hearing at which they committed to a United States Magistrate Judge that they would promptly comply with the Court’s orders.
