Page:Cordúa Restaurants, Inc. v. NLRB (19-60630) (2021) Opinion.pdf/18

 Cordúa argues that Ramirez’s contravening testimony should not be credited because he committed “perjury.”

The Board discredited Reichman’s text message to Ambroa asserting that Ramirez had asked her to obtain other employees’ confidential records because this statement was not corroborated by the actual text message conversation between Reichman and Ramirez. The Board adopted the ALJ’s reasoning, which credited Ramirez’s “reluctant admission” in testimony that he only asked Reichman to obtain his own payroll records, to which he was entitled pursuant to Cordúa’s employee handbook. The Board further discredited Cordúa’s contention that Ramirez lied to Espinoza because Espinoza’s questions during his meeting with Ramirez were misleading.

We give special deference to the Board’s credibility determinations, upholding such determinations unless they are “inherently unreasonable or self-contradictory.” ''El Paso Elec. Co. v. NLRB, 681 F.3d 651, 665 (5th Cir. 2012); see also NLRB v. Cal-Maine Farms, Inc., 998 F.2d 1336, 1339–40 (5th Cir. 1993); IBEW, AFL-CIO, CLC, Local Unions 605 & 985 v. NLRB'', 973 F.3d 451, 457 (5th Cir. 2020).

As the Board noted, the text exchange between Reichman and Ramirez does not contain any request to obtain other employees’ personnel information. Though both Ambroa and Espinoza testified that the text message exchange between Reichman and Ramirez meant that Ramirez had asked Reichman to obtain other employees’ confidential information, both merely speculated as to the meaning of the texts and explained what they inferred after reading the texts. “Suspicion, conjecture, and theoretical speculation register no weight on the substantial evidence scale.” DISH Network Corp. v. NLRB, 953 F.3d 370, 378 (5th Cir. 2020) (quoting NLRB v. Mini-Togs, Inc., 980 F.2d 1027, 1032 (5th Cir. 1993)); see also Ernst & Young, 304 NLRB 178, 179 (1991) (declining to rely on speculative testimony in a