# Glacier Northwest v. Teamsters/Opinion of Justice Thomas

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 21–1449
GLACIER NORTHWEST, INC., DBA CALPORTLAND, PETITIONER v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 174 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF WASHINGTON [June 1, 2023]
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Gorsuch joins, concurring in the judgment.
I agree that petitioner’s state-court claims are not pre-empted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The majority reaches this conclusion, however, by applying the Court’s precedent in San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 (1959), which held that state courts are disabled from adjudicating state-law claims that concern conduct “arguably” protected under the NLRA. Id., at 245–246. Because this Court has previously held that the type of conduct alleged here is not protected, I join Justice Alito’s opinion concurring in the judgment. I write separately to emphasize the oddity of Garmon’s broad pre-emption regime.
This Court typically applies a high bar before concluding that federal law “strip[s] state courts of jurisdiction to hear their own state claims.” Atlantic Richfield Co. v. Christian, 590 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2020) (slip op., at 11–12). Likewise, the Court generally requires a “clear” purpose to displace state law before finding that a federal statute does so. Wyeth v. Levine, 555 U. S. 555, 565 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).
As the majority notes, however, Garmon “goes beyond the usual preemption rule.” Ante, at 3. In Garmon, the Court ​determined that, “[w]hen an activity is arguably subject to §7 or §8 of the Act” (which, respectively, concern employees’ right to engage in concerted activity and unfair labor practices), “the States as well as the federal courts must defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board [(NLRB or Board)].” 359 U. S., at 245. The Court went on to explain that this prophylactic rule of pre-emption may apply even to state-court claims arising under state private law (rather than the NLRA or a comparable state regulatory scheme) and even to claims seeking remedies not available from the Board. Id., at 246–248. Nor, under the Court’s rule, is the State’s power to act restored if the NLRB “fail[s] to determine the status of the disputed conduct by declining to assert jurisdiction, or by refusal … to file a charge; or by adopting some other disposition which does not define the nature of the activity with unclouded legal significance.” Id., at 245–246.
Garmon acknowledged that the NLRA’s pre-emption implications “ ‘are of a Delphic nature,’ ” leaving the States’ residual power in a “ ‘penumbral area [that] can be rendered progressively clear only by the course of litigation.’ ” Id., at 240–241 (quoting Machinists v. Gonzales, 356 U. S. 617, 619 (1958); Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U. S. 468, 480–481 (1955)). It thus emphasized that “Congress has entrusted administration of the labor policy for the Nation to a centralized administrative agency,” making it “essential to the administration of the Act” that determinations about protected and prohibited conduct “be left in the first ​instance to the [NLRB].” 359 U. S., at 242, 244–245. To do otherwise, it feared, “would create potential frustration of national purposes” and invite “the danger of state interference with national policy.” Id., at 244–245.
Justice Harlan concurred in the result, warning that the majority’s rule would “reduc[e] to the vanishing point” States’ “power to redress wrongful acts in the labor field” and provide any “effective remedy under their own laws for … tortious conduct.” Id., at 253–254. The years since have borne out that warning. Garmon elevates “even the remotest possibility of conflict,” thereby “overstat[ing] the likelihood and significance of conflicts and … set[ting] up an unreal goal of doctrinal and factual harmony.” L. Jaffe, Primary Jurisdiction, 77 Harv. L. Rev. 1037, 1053 (1964). In effect, “Garmon doctrine completely pre-empts state-court jurisdiction unless the Board determines that the disputed conduct is neither protected nor prohibited by the [NLRA].” Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Carpenters, 436 U. S. 180, 199, n. 29 (1978).
The majority opinion today underscores the strangeness of the Garmon regime. Here, the Supreme Court of the United States reassures a state court of its power to adjudicate a state-law tort claim. The Court does so, not based on its own judgment that federal law does not pre-empt the claim, but because the NLRB’s existing precedents adequately remove any “[c]lou[d]” over the matter. 359 U. S., at 246. But, if the Board’s precedents left the matter “arguable” (and the NLRA did not plainly dictate an answer), then the state courts would be “ousted” of jurisdiction. Longshoremen v. Davis, 476 U. S. 380, 396 (1986). The upshot of this approach appears to be that the scope of the NLRA’s pre-emption of state-court jurisdiction over state claims is defined—not by the statutory text—but by “penumbra[s]” that wax and wane as the Board develops, or declines to develop, its own carefully insulated common law ​of labor relations. Garmon, 359 U. S., at 240 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The parties here have not asked us to reconsider Garmon, nor is it necessary to do so to resolve this case. Nonetheless, in an appropriate case, we should carefully reexamine whether the law supports Garmon’s “unusual” pre-emption regime. Ante, at 2. In doing so, I would bear in mind that any proper pre-emption inquiry must focus on the NLRA’s text and ask whether federal law and state law “are in logical contradiction,” such that it is impossible to comply with both. Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht, 587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (Thomas, J., concurring) (slip op., at 2); see also PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing, 564 U. S. 604, 617–618 (2011).