WASHINGTON, DC – Following today’s decision at the Supreme Court in Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney, a case in which the Court considered what standard courts should apply when deciding whether to grant a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) request for a temporary injunction to halt an alleged unfair labor practice, Constitutional Accountability Center Appellate Counsel Smita Ghosh issued the following reaction:

In a disappointing decision today, the Supreme Court rejected the NLRB’s argument that courts should apply a deferential standard when adjudicating requests for temporary relief during proceedings to determine whether an unfair labor practice has occurred.

The Court’s decision is at odds with the history of American labor law. As our amicus brief made clear, Congress drafted the relevant portion of the National Labor Relations Act to confer limited authority on district courts to grant injunctive relief when the Board convinced them that such relief was appropriate. This history is important because courts’ exercise of equitable discretion must be informed by context—here, as Justice Jackson put it in a partial dissent, the “ignominious history of abuse” that led Congress to restrict the role of federal courts in labor disputes.

The Court’s majority should have respected that history today.

##

Resources:

Case page in Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney: https://www.theusconstitution.org/litigation/starbucks-corp-v-mckinney/

##