The Trump victories have started before he is sworn in. Now the courts have ended the abuse of power by the union owned NLRB.
“Starbucks had appealed a NLRB ruling that the company had illegally threatened and fired two Philadelphia workers in 2020 for seeking union representation. In its appeal, Starbucks argued the board unlawfully ordered reimbursement beyond its powers.
The case and decision center around a controversial 2022 labor board ruling, Thryv, Inc., requiring employers to compensate victims of labor law violations for all “direct or foreseeable pecuniary harms” suffered from labor-law violations. The ruling significantly expanded the board’s remedial powers, allowing its administrative law judges to demand harsher financial compensation from employers.
But a 2022 Supreme Court ruling, SEC v. Jarkesy, restricted administrative law judges’ powers to enforce remedies. Because the Seventh Amendment protects the right to a jury trial in cases regarding legal (e.g. punitive and monetary) remedies, the Supreme Court wrote, administrative law judges can only call for equitable (e.g. corrective and nonmonetary) remedies.”
The tide is turning. Gvoernment, slowly, is being returned to honest actions. The next year will see a complete transformation of the totalitarian government back to a Constitutional government.
Third Circuit slashes NLRB authority in Starbucks unionization opinion
The labor board can no longer demand compensation for monetary harms caused by employer actions, the circuit court ruled.
Jackson Healy, Courthousenews, 12/27/24 https://www.courthousenews.com/third-circuit-slashes-nlrb-authority-in-starbucks-unionization-opinion/
PHILADELPHIA (CN) — Significantly limiting the National Labor Relations Board’s powers to demand compensation for victims of labor violations, the Third Circuit on Friday reversed a ruling ordering Starbucks to pay extensive relief to two former employees who were fired for seeking union representation.
Starbucks had appealed a NLRB ruling that the company had illegally threatened and fired two Philadelphia workers in 2020 for seeking union representation. In its appeal, Starbucks argued the board unlawfully ordered reimbursement beyond its powers.
The case and decision center around a controversial 2022 labor board ruling, Thryv, Inc., requiring employers to compensate victims of labor law violations for all “direct or foreseeable pecuniary harms” suffered from labor-law violations. The ruling significantly expanded the board’s remedial powers, allowing its administrative law judges to demand harsher financial compensation from employers.
But a 2022 Supreme Court ruling, SEC v. Jarkesy, restricted administrative law judges’ powers to enforce remedies. Because the Seventh Amendment protects the right to a jury trial in cases regarding legal (e.g. punitive and monetary) remedies, the Supreme Court wrote, administrative law judges can only call for equitable (e.g. corrective and nonmonetary) remedies.
Since Jarkesy, the labor board’s post-Thryv powers have sat in legal limbo — until now.
“Simply put, the Board’s current order exceeds its authority” under the National Labor Relations Act, U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote in his opinion. “While the Board can certainly award some monetary relief to the employees, that relief cannot exceed what the employer unlawfully withheld.”
Representatives for the labor board and Starbucks could not be immediately reached for comment.
From confusion to clarity
During a Third Circuit hearing on the matter in September, lawyers for both Starbucks and the labor board repeatedly frustrated the three-member panel as they struggled to provide a concise answer on the extent of the labor board’s authority.
Starbucks attorney Sarah Harris asserted that demands for compensation for “direct or foreseeable pecuniary harms” qualified as legal remedies, and therefore could not stand. She told the three-judge panel there was no basis “in the 90 years of the board’s history” to justify such relief.
But Harris expressed greater uncertainty when pressed by U.S. Circuit Judge Kent Jordan, a George W. Bush appointee, on exactly where the administrative law judges’ powers end.
“We candidly aren’t sure, especially post-Jarkesy, what the status of those things are, because many of them haven’t been tested,” Harris said. “I think it would be hard to gauge, because no one’s litigated on an as-applied basis.”
“So are you saying, ‘Good luck Third Circuit, because nobody knows?’” Jordan retorted. “I mean really, is that where we are?”
Harris clarified that per Starbucks’ position, the labor board could demand pecuniary relief as restitution.
Additional monetary damages, she said, were beyond the board’s authority.
Representing the labor board, attorney Eric Weitz meanwhile attempted a delicate balancing game, appearing to argue both that its sought relief was conservative and that the board’s powers remain expansive.
That legal interpretation seemed to draw the panel’s ire. “The brief seems to say, ‘Equitable schmequitable, who cares? It doesn’t matter, we’ve got the power,’” Jordan told Weitz. “If that is your position, why is the board working so hard to run away from the words ‘consequential’ and ‘compensatory’?”
In response, Weitz asserted that Congress never intended to limit the labor board’s authority to equitable relief when passing the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
“If you’re saying that Congress didn’t intend to limit [the board’s powers] to equitability, then you’ve got a Seventh Amendment problem — that’s a biggie for you,” U.S. Circuit Judge Theodore McKee, a Bill Clinton appointee, pushed back. That criticism would later be mirrored in Ambro’s majority opinion, forming the linchpin of the ruling for Starbucks.
Although Weitz suggested the court could limit its opinion to just this case, the panel stressed that any ruling could shape future legal interpretations of administrative law judges’ powers.
“The language that we use to draft this opinion, no matter who wins this thing, is there, and we have to be very concerned about that when we draft it,” said U.S. Circuit Judge Theodore McKee, a Bill Clinton appointee.
“We have to make some logical case for what we’re doing,” Jordan concurred. As for Weitz’s argument, “that just sounds to me like punting.”
