Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-01045/USCOURTS-caDC-14-01045-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
National Labor Relations Board
Respondent
SSC Mystic Operating Company, LLC
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 24, 2015 Decided September 18, 2015

No. 14-1045

SSC MYSTIC OPERATING COMPANY, LLC, DOING BUSINESS AS 

PENDLETON HEALTH & REHABILITATION CENTER,

PETITIONER

v.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

RESPONDENT

Consolidated with 14-1089

On Petition for Review and Cross-Application

for Enforcement of an Order of 

the National Labor Relations Board

J. Michael McGuire argued the cause and filed the briefs 

for petitioner. 

Kellie Isbell, Attorney, National Labor Relations Board, 

argued the cause for respondent. On the brief were Richard F. 

Griffin, Jr., General Counsel, John H. Ferguson, Associate 

General Counsel, Linda Dreeben, Deputy Associate General 

Counsel, Julie B. Broido, Supervisory Attorney, and Jared D. 

Cantor, Attorney.

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Before: GRIFFITH and SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judges, and 

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN.

Dissenting opinion filed by Senior Circuit Judge 

SENTELLE.

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge:

After agreeing to a representation election in which the 

union prevailed, employer SSC Mystic challenged the results. 

For the reasons set forth below, we reject each of Mystic’s 

arguments and affirm the decision of the National Labor 

Relations Board upholding the outcome.

I

SSC Mystic (Mystic) operates Pendleton Health & 

Rehabilitation, a nursing home in Mystic, Connecticut. On 

February 25, 2013, the Service Employees International 

Union, Local 1199 (Union), filed a petition with the National 

Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking to represent nurses at 

the facility. In response, the NLRB Regional Director issued a 

Notice of Election. The Union and the company entered a 

Stipulated Election Agreement that, among other things,

provided that either party could ask the Board to review any 

decision the Regional Directors made. See 29 C.F.R. 

§ 102.69(c). 

Mystic vigorously opposed the Union. Its campaign 

included posting anti-union material in the workplace and 

sending the material by mail to employees’ homes. Mystic 

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also held meetings at work to make the case against the Union 

to its employees, who were required to attend. It also 

distributed anti-union bracelets for employees to wear. 

Separately, a supervisor named Diane Mackin engaged in 

a campaign of urging employees to sign Union authorization 

cards and to vote for the Union in the election. She frequently 

discussed the virtues of organizing. To those who opposed the 

Union, Mackin would speak coldly or refuse to speak at all.

Mackin also claimed that the Union would help her get her 

job back if Mystic fired her for her advocacy.

After an employee reported Mackin’s pro-union conduct 

to management, the company reprimanded her on March 12, 

2013. Mystic explained to Mackin that her conduct violated 

her professional responsibilities as a supervisor and, more 

seriously, might be illegal pressure on employees in violation 

of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Mystic warned 

Mackin that she would be fired if she did not end her support 

for the Union. Mystic then posted a notice in the workplace 

acknowledging, without identifying Mackin by name, that a 

supervisor had been involved in electioneering advocacy on 

behalf of the Union. In an effort to limit any effect Mackin’s 

conduct may have had on employees’ plans to vote, the notice 

explained that neither the company nor its supervisors 

intended to place pressure on employees. Despite all this,

Mackin continued to openly advocate for the Union in the 

election and Mystic fired her on March 19, 2013.

The election continued for the next sixteen days. On April 

4, 2013, the Union won the election. Of the 112 employees in 

the bargaining unit, 104 voted in the election: 64 supported 

the Union while 40 opposed.

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Mystic filed objections to the election with the NLRB

arguing principally that Mackin’s conduct had tainted the 

election so thoroughly that its result should be set aside. 

Mystic also alleged that Mackin was acting as an agent of the 

Union when she “polled” employees, or interrogated them 

regarding their support for the Union in a way that could 

coerce them and infringe on their free choice. Because 

Mackin was allegedly acting as a Union agent, the company 

argued that the Union should be held responsible for that 

misconduct.1 Finally, Mystic insisted, relying on our decision 

in Noel Canning v. NLRB, 705 F.3d 490 (D.C. Cir. 2013),2

that the NLRB lacked a quorum because three of its members 

had been placed in their posts through unconstitutional recess 

appointments and so had no authority to conduct the election 

at all.

On May 8 and 9, 2013, an NLRB Hearing Officer held a 

hearing to consider Mystic’s objections. A party to a

representation proceeding may apply for and receive a 

subpoena for the production of any evidence. 29 C.F.R. 

§ 102.31. Exercising that power, Mystic subpoenaed any 

records of telephone calls between Mackin and the Union 

organizer assigned to the election. The Union opposed this 

subpoena. Mystic argued that it needed these records to prove 

that Mackin was a Union agent when she coercively 

interrogated employees regarding their support for the Union. 

 1 Mystic also originally claimed that Mackin had threatened the 

job security of employees who did not support the Union and had

accused the company of criminal behavior. Mystic has abandoned 

these arguments on appeal. 

2 After Mystic filed its objections with the NLRB and after both 

the Hearing Officer and the Board made their decisions, the 

Supreme Court affirmed our judgment in Noel Canning but on 

different grounds. See NLRB v. Noel Canning, 134 S. Ct. 2550 

(2014).

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The Hearing Officer refused to enforce the subpoena, 

concluding that records could not prove that Mackin was 

acting as the Union’s agent. Instead, the Hearing Officer 

directed the Union to produce the organizer himself to testify 

about his relationship with Mackin. The Union did not do so. 

Neither the parties nor the Hearing Officer mentioned the 

subpoena or the organizer again on the record.

At the close of the hearing, the Hearing Officer upheld the 

election result, concluding that even though Mackin had 

exerted impermissible pressure on employees, her misconduct 

had not materially affected the outcome of the election. The 

Hearing Officer also rejected Mystic’s argument that Mackin

was acting as a Union agent, reasoning that the company had 

failed to present any evidence supporting its claim. Finally, 

the Hearing Officer concluded that the Board should continue 

conducting elections and adjudicating disputes until the 

Supreme Court decided the legality of the Board’s 

composition in Noel Canning.

Mystic filed objections to the Hearing Officer’s ruling 

with the Board, arguing that the Hearing Officer’s findings 

and conclusion were in error. Nonetheless the Board ratified 

the Hearing Officer’s legal and factual determinations and 

certified the election result. SSC Mystic Operating Co., No. 

01-RC-098982, 2013 WL 6252453 (Dec. 3, 2013) 

(unreported). The Board agreed with the Hearing Officer that 

Mackin’s impermissible conduct had not affected the outcome 

of the election, especially on the ground that Mackin’s 

activities were offset when Mystic “engaged in an extensive 

[anti-union] campaign that included a string of mandatory 

meetings during the critical period, the dissemination of [antiunion] literature via mailings, handouts, and postings, and the 

distribution of [anti-union] bracelets.” Id. at *1 n.2.

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Once the Board had certified the election result, the Union 

asked Mystic to bargain, but the company refused. 

Accordingly, the Union filed an unfair labor practice charge 

against Mystic, alleging that its refusal to bargain violated the 

NLRA. See 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1), (5) (prohibiting an 

employer from refusing to bargain with representatives of its

employees or interfering with employees’ rights to organize). 

The Board’s General Counsel issued a complaint and moved 

for summary judgment. In response, Mystic argued that the 

Hearing Officer erred in refusing to enforce Mystic’s 

subpoena and should have held that Mackin’s conduct 

impermissibly contaminated the election. For the first time, 

Mystic also raised the argument that the Regional Director, as 

opposed to the Board itself, had no power to conduct the 

representation election because he could not exercise the 

Board’s delegated authority when the Board had no quorum 

and could not act itself.

The Board granted summary judgment against Mystic on 

March 31, 2014. SSC Mystic Operating Co. LLC d/b/a 

Pendleton Health & Rehab. Ctr., 360 N.L.R.B. No. 68 (2014). 

The Board rejected Mystic’s arguments that the Hearing 

Officer had made substantive and procedural errors, finding 

that Mystic had not produced any arguments or evidence not 

already made and rejected when the Board certified the 

election result. The Board also rejected Mystic’s new 

argument that the Regional Director lacked authority to 

administer this representation election because the Board 

lacked a quorum. The Board interpreted the statute to mean 

that the Regional Directors “remain vested with the authority 

to conduct elections,” pursuant to the Board’s original 

delegation of that authority in 1961, “regardless of the 

Board’s composition at any given moment.” Id. at *1 n.1. 

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Mystic filed a timely petition for review of the Board’s 

order, and the Board cross-applied for enforcement. We have 

jurisdiction under 29 U.S.C. § 160(e), (f). 

On appeal, Mystic raises three challenges, each with its 

own standard of review. First, Mystic argues that the Board 

could not interpret the NLRA to permit Regional Directors to 

continue conducting elections when the Board lacked 

authority to act due to lack of a quorum. Absent plain 

meaning to the contrary, a court is obliged to defer to an 

agency’s reasonable interpretation of its statutory jurisdiction 

pursuant to the familiar Chevron doctrine. City of Arlington v. 

FCC, 133 S. Ct. 1863, 1870-71 (2013).

Second, Mystic argues that substantial evidence did not 

support the Hearing Officer’s decision to certify the election 

results. We review the substance of NLRB decisions under a 

“highly deferential standard” and will set them aside only “if 

the Board ‘acted arbitrarily or otherwise erred in applying 

established law to the facts at issue, or if its findings are not 

supported by substantial evidence.’” Waterbury Hotel Mgmt., 

LLC v. NLRB, 314 F.3d 645, 650 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (quoting 

Plumbers & Pipe Fitters Local Union No. 32 v. NLRB, 50 

F.3d 29, 32 (D.C. Cir. 1995)). 

Finally, Mystic challenges the Hearing Officer’s refusal to 

enforce its subpoena. We review refusals to enforce 

subpoenas for abuse of discretion. Joseph T. Ryerson & Son, 

Inc. v. NLRB, 216 F.3d 1146, 1153 (D.C. Cir. 2000).

II

A

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Mystic insists that the Regional Director did not have 

authority to conduct this election because the Board had no 

quorum at the time the representation election took place. We 

disagree; as we recently explained in UC Health v. NLRB, No. 

14-1049, slip op. at 8-19 (D.C. Cir. 2015), we must defer to 

the Board’s reasonable interpretation that the lack of a

quorum at the Board does not prevent Regional Directors 

from continuing to exercise delegated authority that is not 

final because it is subject to eventual review by the Board. 

As an initial matter, the Board argues that Mystic waived 

this argument by failing to raise it during the representation 

proceeding. The Board made the same argument in UC 

Health, and we rejected it there. We do so here for the same 

reasons: Our precedents make clear that a challenge to agency 

action based on the agency’s lack of authority to take any 

action at all need not be raised below and may be made for 

the first time on appeal. See UC Health, No. 14-1049, slip op. 

at 6-7.3 Nor do we agree with the Board that Mystic 

abandoned this argument when it executed the Stipulated 

Election Agreement. Id. at 7-8. Nonetheless, just as in UC 

Health, we disagree with Mystic on the merits of its claim. 

The Regional Director had authority to conduct this election 

even though the Board had no quorum. See id. at 8-19.

 3 We note that the employer in UC Health and in this case 

raised their objections to the authority of the Regional Director at 

different points in the administrative process. But these slight 

factual differences between the cases are immaterial because, as we 

explained in UC Health, our precedents make clear that an 

employer can raise for the first time on appeal a challenge to the 

authority of the Board to take any action at all, irrespective of 

whether the employer ever made that objection below. See UC 

Health, No. 14-1049, slip op. at 6-7. 

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Mystic makes one additional argument on this score that 

we did not confront in UC Health. Mystic insists that 

Regional Director Jonathan Kreisberg did not have authority 

to conduct this election even if the Regional Directors as a 

class could do so. In 2010, Kreisberg was appointed as the 

Regional Director for Connecticut, which was at that time 

Region 34 of the NLRB’s regions. In 2012, while the Board 

lacked a quorum, the NLRB reorganized the regions and 

Kreisberg’s jurisdiction expanded to cover both Connecticut 

and Massachusetts, now identified as new Region 1. Mystic 

insists that because the Board had no quorum in 2012, it could 

not validly appoint Kreisberg to his new post as the Regional 

Director of new Region 1 at that time.

The Board again argues that Mystic waived this argument 

because it was never made until the opening brief in this 

appeal. We disagree. Because this challenge and the argument 

that Regional Directors may not conduct elections while the 

Board lacks a quorum are both premised on the Board’s lack 

of authority to act, we believe both are properly before us no 

matter when they were first raised. Nonetheless we reject 

Mystic’s argument on the merits here as well. Mystic’s 

nursing home is located in Mystic, Connecticut, inside the 

boundaries of old Region 34, which covered Connecticut 

alone. Mystic does not and could not contest that Kreisberg 

was validly appointed to administer old Region 34. There may 

be some question whether the Board had authority in 2012 to 

expand Kreisberg’s jurisdiction to include Massachusetts, but

that seems irrelevant to the question of whether he continued 

to have authority to conduct elections in Connecticut as he 

had since 2010. Surely adding Massachusetts to his 

jurisdiction or renaming the region he administered did not 

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impair his preexisting authority. Therefore we believe that his 

ability to conduct this election remains beyond dispute.4

B

Mystic argues that Diane Mackin’s supervisory 

misconduct tainted the outcome of the election. We find that 

substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclusion to the 

contrary.

1

Section 7 of the NLRA secures the rights of employees 

“to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain 

collectively through representatives of their own choosing, 

and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of

collective bargaining,” as well as to refrain from all such 

activities. 29 U.S.C. § 157. To ensure that employees are fully 

able to exercise their section 7 rights, the Board requires that 

elections take place under “laboratory conditions” free from 

coercion by the union or the employer. Harborside 

Healthcare, Inc., 343 N.L.R.B. 906, 909 (2004). Neither 

employers nor unions may “interfere with, restrain, or coerce 

employees in the exercise” of their section 7 rights. 29 U.S.C. 

 4 Mystic made two other arguments attacking other potential 

bases for Kreisberg’s authority: The Acting General Counsel, 

despite an authorization to manage the Board’s internal 

administrative affairs while it lacked a quorum, did not have 

authority to appoint Kreisberg as Regional Director over new 

Region 1 in 2012; and a nunc pro tunc order the Board issued in 

2014 to approve retroactively the acts it took while it lacked a 

quorum could not legitimately ratify Kreisberg’s control of new 

Region 1. The Board has clarified that it does not rely on either of 

these rationales to justify Kreisberg’s power to conduct this election 

and so we need not consider Mystic’s arguments against them.

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§ 158(a)(1), (b)(1)(A). Supervisors, defined as individuals 

with authority to direct, reward, or punish employees, id. 

§ 152(11), do not hold section 7 rights. To the contrary, 

supervisors may not participate in or try to influence the 

outcome of an election any more than an employer itself is 

permitted to do so: “Election campaign statements by 

supervisors which reasonably cause [pro-union] employees to 

fear reprisal or to expect reward if they exercise their section 

7 rights will ordinarily be attributed to the employer and 

found objectionable.” Harborside, 343 N.L.R.B. at 906. 

Of course, as a general matter, supervisors may be more 

likely to urge employees to oppose union organization than to 

support it because their interests are more aligned with those 

of the employer than those of the employees who seek to 

organize. However, pro-union supervisory conduct is just as 

impermissible because it poses the same risk of interfering 

with the free choice of employees. Harborside, 343 N.L.R.B. 

at 906. In other words, the law always forbids a supervisor 

from trying to influence the free choice of employees in 

exercising their section 7 rights, regardless of what outcome 

the supervisor is seeking to achieve. “This is true whether or 

not the statements or actions of the supervisor are consistent

with the views of the employer.” Id. at 907. After all, the 

average “employee is more concerned about the attitude of his 

immediate supervisor[s] than he is with the feelings of the 

company president,” as his immediate supervisors “control his 

day to day life.” Id. at 907 n.3 (quoting Turner’s Express, Inc. 

v. NLRB, 456 F.2d 289, 292-93 (4th Cir. 1972)). 

In Harborside, the Board established a two-step inquiry to 

determine “whether supervisory [pro-union] conduct upsets 

the requisite laboratory conditions for a fair election” such 

that the election result is invalid. 343 N.L.R.B. at 909. At the 

first step, the Board asks “[w]hether the 

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supervisor’s . . . conduct reasonably tended to coerce or 

interfere with the employees’ exercise of free choice in the 

election.” Id. If so, the Board moves to the second step and 

asks “[w]hether the conduct interfered with freedom of choice 

to the extent that it materially affected the outcome of the 

election.” Id. The effect of an individual episode of 

supervisory misconduct depends on “factors such as (a) the 

margin of victory in the election; (b) whether the conduct at 

issue was widespread or isolated; (c) the timing of the 

conduct; (d) the extent to which the conduct became known; 

and (e) the lingering effect of the conduct.” Id. In other words, 

even conduct that actually interferes with employee choice

will not invalidate the election result unless it actually 

influenced the outcome. But if a supervisor’s pressure on 

employees played a meaningful role in the union’s victory or 

the union’s defeat, the Board will throw out the result and 

order a new election.

The Board measures the effect of a supervisor’s 

impermissible conduct by also taking into account any 

“mitigating circumstances” that may have “sufficiently 

negated” the coercive activities such that the election result 

was not materially affected. Veritas Health Servs., Inc. v. 

NLRB, 671 F.3d 1267, 1272 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting SNE 

Enters., Inc., 348 N.L.R.B. 1041, 1042 (2006)). For example, 

the employer can mitigate a supervisor’s conduct if it “‘takes 

timely and effective steps to disavow’ the conduct.” SNE 

Enters., 348 N.L.R.B. at 1043 (quoting Harborside, 343 

N.L.R.B. at 914). That is, if the employer publicly announces

that a supervisor lobbying on the union’s behalf is acting 

against the employer’s wishes, the employer limits the risk 

that employees will feel coerced. Employees will understand 

that the supervisor is simply a rogue agent and does not have 

the employer’s support. 

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Separately, the Board also determines whether any antiunion effort by the employer itself had the effect of 

counteracting a supervisor’s pro-union conduct. Harborside, 

343 N.L.R.B. at 914. Of course, the NLRA forbids employer 

anti-union campaigns just as surely as it forbids pro-union

lobbying by supervisors. However, the Board’s inquiry 

focuses on the validity of the election as a whole, not simply 

on whether inappropriate conduct took place during the 

election period. An employer’s effort to defeat a union does 

not violate the law if the union wins. More to the point, if the 

employer works at cross-purposes to a supervisor’s pro-union 

activity during an election, the employer may end up 

neutralizing the supervisor’s wrongdoing and inadvertently 

preserve the conditions necessary to reach a valid election 

result.

The record is clear and both parties acknowledge that 

Mackin’s pro-union conduct satisfies the first step of the 

Harborside analysis. Nonetheless, at the second step of 

Harborside, the Board reasonably determined that Mackin’s 

efforts did not materially affect the election’s outcome

because Mystic adequately made up for them by disavowing 

Mackin’s conduct and by running its own anti-union

campaign. 

Substantial evidence supported this determination. Mystic 

required employees to attend anti-union meetings, sent 

materials to their homes, posted materials in the workplace, 

and even distributed anti-union bracelets for employees to 

wear at work as a way of showing their opposition to the 

Union. Mystic’s campaign was much like another employer’s 

efforts to defeat a union that the Board found neutralized prounion conduct by supervisors. In Terry Machine Co., 356 

N.L.R.B. No. 120 (2011), supervisors who oversaw the 

bargaining unit were “actively involved” in a union 

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organizing drive. Id. at *2. At the same time, the employer 

“engaged in an extensive [anti-union] campaign,” including 

mandatory company-wide meetings, individual meetings with 

employees, anti-union videos, anti-union postings, home 

mailings, and distribution of anti-union buttons to wear at 

work. Id. at *3. The Board upheld the election result despite 

the supervisors’ substantial pro-union conduct, concluding 

that the employer’s own anti-union campaign had adequately 

offset the supervisors’ efforts. Id. at *5. The Board here 

reasonably concluded, just as it did in Terry Machine, that the 

combination of tactics Mystic deployed in its extensive effort 

to defeat the Union cancelled out Mackin’s own attempt to 

help the Union prevail. 

Mystic argues otherwise by attempting to minimize the 

significance of each element of its own anti-union program. It 

insists that few employees saw the anti-union materials, 

attended the anti-union meetings, or understood the intent 

behind the anti-union bracelets. None of these challenges to 

the Board’s determination succeed. A number of employees 

testified that they received Mystic’s anti-union materials 

through the mail or saw them posted in the workplace, and 

one even testified that she knew of other employees who had 

discussed the materials during the election. Although some 

employees testified that the anti-union meetings were sparsely 

attended, there was also testimony that “a lot” of the staff 

attended a meeting at one point or another. And while one 

employee testified that she did not recognize Mystic’s antiunion bracelet, a number of other employees testified that 

they knew what the bracelets were for, wore bracelets

themselves, and saw others wearing them. We cannot say that 

“no reasonable factfinder” could decide, as the Board did 

here, that Mystic’s campaign was effective at neutralizing

Mackin’s pro-union advocacy. Kiewit Power Constructors 

Co. v. NLRB, 652 F.3d 22, 25 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (quoting 

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United Steelworkers of Am., AFL-CIO-CLC, Local Union 

14534 v. NLRB, 983 F.2d 240, 244 (D.C. Cir. 1993)). 

Substantial evidence also supported the conclusion that 

Mystic limited the effect of Mackin’s conduct when it posted 

a public notice that disavowed her pro-union behavior, 

discussed the notice at mandatory employee meetings, and 

ultimately fired her. See, e.g., Terry Machine, 356 N.L.R.B. 

No. 120, at *3 (finding that an employer’s “explicit 

disavowals” and “widely disseminated termination 

threat . . . relieved any potential continuing pressure 

employees might have felt” from pro-union supervisory 

conduct). Mystic argues otherwise by suggesting that few 

employees ever saw the notice, that most employees did not 

attend the mandatory meetings and so would never have heard 

it discussed, and that any employees who were aware that the 

notice existed would not have realized it referred to Mackin

because it did not identify her by name. We think the Board 

could reasonably reach the opposite conclusion on each count. 

Five employees testified that they saw the notice, and we have 

already noted that there was testimony indicating that “a lot” 

of employees attended the mandatory anti-union meetings at 

which the notice was discussed. One employee who saw the 

notice indicated that she knew the notice applied to Mackin in 

particular. Another testified that she understood the notice to 

refer to all supervisors who may have been inappropriately 

discussing the election—obviously including Mackin. Most 

significantly, Mackin told a number of employees around the 

time the notice was posted that Mystic had reprimanded her 

for advocating on behalf of the Union. In one case, she told an 

employee that the notice addressed her own behavior in 

particular. The Board could reasonably rely on all this 

evidence to conclude that employees knew of the notice and 

understood that Mystic was disavowing Mackin’s conduct.

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Even if employees somehow missed the existence or 

significance of the notice, they could not have misunderstood 

that Mystic was disavowing Mackin’s pro-union behavior 

when it took the much more dramatic step of firing her.

Though some employees testified that they did not know why 

Mackin was terminated, the Hearing Officer specifically 

found, and the Board subsequently agreed, that this testimony 

was not credible. See SSC Mystic, 2013 WL 6252453, at *1 

n.2. Mystic has not challenged that credibility determination

on appeal. Thus the only credible testimony before us comes 

from employees who said that they knew Mackin had been 

fired because of her pro-Union efforts. Joint Appendix 152.

The Board was entitled to rely on this undisputed testimony to 

reach the commonsense conclusion that employees knew 

Mystic was conclusively disavowing Mackin’s conduct by 

firing her. See SNE Enters., 348 N.L.R.B. at 1043 (noting that

an election result can be valid despite inappropriate pro-union 

supervisory conduct where an employer “‘takes timely and 

effective steps to disavow’ the conduct” (quoting Harborside, 

343 N.L.R.B. at 913)).

We also agree with the Board that Mackin’s firing limited 

the effect of her conduct despite the fact that she assured 

employees that the Union would help her get her job back. 

Mystic insists to the contrary that these assurances “blunted 

the impact” of Mackin’s discharge by leading employees to 

believe that she would return to the workplace and regain the 

power to retaliate against the Union’s opponents. But the 

opposite seems to be true. The record shows that several

different employees who were subject to Mackin’s pro-union

pressure ended up opposing the Union by the time of the 

election, two weeks after Mackin was fired. Whatever the 

immediate effect of Mackin’s campaign, employees who were 

among its targets were unafraid to oppose the Union after her

discharge. And Mystic produced no evidence indicating that 

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employees she pressured to support the Union actually did so. 

The Board was entitled to conclude from this that Mackin’s 

firing had broken whatever hold she might have exercised 

over employees. 

In short, substantial evidence supports the Board’s 

conclusion that Mystic’s efforts to limit Mackin’s 

effectiveness and its own anti-union campaign cancelled out 

Mackin’s efforts on the Union’s behalf and preserved the 

environment necessary for a valid representation election. 

The Hearing Officer also noted that a number of other 

factors diminished the likelihood that Mackin influenced the 

election result. For example, Mackin was the sole pro-union

organizer, naturally limiting the total amount of pressure that 

could be brought to bear on the Union’s side of the ledger. 

And the election was not a close one. The Union won by 

sixty-four votes to forty, or almost one quarter of the entire 

voting population, indicating that any influence Mackin might 

have wielded over a few employees could not possibly have 

altered the result. Nor did Mackin’s conduct “linger[],”

Harborside, 343 N.L.R.B. at 909, as any influence she might 

have wielded at one time apparently dissipated before the end 

of the election period. The Board was entitled to rely on all 

these factors as part of its conclusion that Mackin’s campaign 

did not materially alter the election outcome. 

The Board was also entitled to conclude that the length of 

the time between Mackin’s discharge and the election further 

limited the impact Mackin’s efforts could have had on the 

outcome. Mystic insists that this decision was forbidden in 

light of Board decisions in which, it argues, the Board 

invalidated an election despite even longer intervals between 

the end of inappropriate supervisory conduct and an election. 

But in each of the cases Mackin cites, supervisors either 

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18

continued to lobby for the union throughout the election 

period, or the interval was immaterial because other factors 

helped the supervisors’ influence linger. For example, in 

several of the cases, supervisors continued to campaign for 

the union “right up until the . . . election” took place. Madison 

Square Garden CT, LLC, 350 N.L.R.B. 117, 122 (2007); see 

also Millard Refrigerated Servs., Inc., 345 N.L.R.B. 1143, 

1144 (2005); Harborside, 343 N.L.R.B. at 913-14. And in the 

others, though the supervisors stopped campaigning before 

the election, the employer never publicly disavowed the 

supervisors’ conduct and the supervisors remained in the 

workplace, allowing their pro-union pressure to linger. See 

SNE Enters., 348 N.L.R.B. at 1044; Chinese Daily News, 344 

N.L.R.B. 1071, 1072 (2005). This case is quite different. 

Mystic forcefully disavowed Mackin’s conduct and fired her, 

dispelling the influence she might otherwise have exercised. 

No case forbids the Board’s conclusion on this score. Absent 

such precedent, we cannot say the Board was wrong to decide 

that the effects of Mackin’s conduct had at least in part 

evaporated by the time the election took place, especially 

when considered in conjunction with the other factors we 

have already discussed that limited Mackin’s possible 

influence on the election.

Mystic points to Veritas Health Services, arguing that 

much more is required to neutralize the impact of a 

supervisor’s pro-union activity than was present here. In 

Veritas, supervisors who pressured employees on behalf of 

the union ultimately switched sides and became fervent antiunion advocates, speaking directly to employees in the 

workplace and sending letters to most of the staff explaining 

that they no longer supported unionization. Veritas, 671 F.3d 

at 1273. This about-face, the Board found, neutralized the 

supervisors’ previous pro-union conduct. Id. Mystic relies on 

Veritas to argue that Mackin’s pro-union conduct was not 

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19

mitigated here because Mackin herself never disavowed her 

past support for the Union. But Veritas does not suggest that 

the only permissible form of mitigation is personal disavowal 

by the supervisor. And the Board has elsewhere found that an 

employer’s own anti-union campaign can cancel out 

supervisory conduct like Mackin’s. See, e.g., Terry Machine, 

356 N.L.R.B. No. 120, at *3, *5. The Board was entitled to do 

the same here.

Finally, Mystic insists that the Board unfairly showed

more lenience toward Mackin’s pro-union conduct than it 

would have shown had Mackin successfully urged employees 

to vote against the Union instead. See Harborside, 343 

N.L.R.B. at 906-07 (holding that both pro- and anti-union 

coercion are equally impermissible). We need not engage 

with the hypothetical circumstance Mystic would have us 

imagine. Mystic has offered no support for its assertion that 

the Board displayed bias. The Board ruled that Mystic’s antiunion campaign made up for Mackin’s impermissible prounion conduct, just as it has found in the past. There is no 

basis to criticize the Board’s conclusion regarding what 

actually transpired here.

Mackin’s campaign to help the Union succeed was 

inappropriate. However, a number of factors showed its 

limited effectiveness: Mackin acted alone; she was dismissed 

from the workplace well before the election took place; her 

conduct apparently had little lingering effect; and the Union

prevailed by a substantial margin. By disavowing Mackin’s 

pro-union advocacy and ultimately firing her, Mystic further 

minimized her impact on the result of the election. And 

Mystic’s own efforts to defeat the union provided a powerful 

counterbalance to Mackin’s lobbying. Based on this record, 

the Board was entitled to conclude that the election result 

challenged here was valid. 

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C

Finally, Mystic argues that the Hearing Officer erred by 

refusing to enforce Mystic’s subpoena of Mackin’s telephone 

records, which the company claims would show that Mackin 

was acting as the Union’s agent. Refusing to enforce this 

subpoena did not prejudice Mystic. See Ryerson, 216 F.3d at 

1154 (noting that we will only reverse the Board’s decision 

not to enforce a subpoena “if prejudicial”). Even proving that 

Mackin was a Union agent would not have altered the Board’s 

determination that the election was valid. It is true that 

coercively interrogating an employee is yet another way in 

which employers and unions can violate the section 7 rights of 

employees. See Millard Refrigerated Servs., 345 N.L.R.B. at 

1146. But we have already found that substantial evidence 

supports the Board’s determination that all of Mackin’s 

inappropriate conduct was adequately offset by Mystic’s own 

conduct with respect to Mackin in particular and the overall 

election in general. The Board’s ultimate conclusion as to the 

propriety of the election remains valid regardless of whether 

Mackin was acting as an agent of the Union.

Mystic insists otherwise and points to our recent decision 

in Ozark Automotive Distributors, Inc. v. NLRB, 779 F.3d 576 

(D.C. Cir. 2015). There, an NLRB hearing officer had refused 

an employer’s effort to subpoena documents it believed might 

show that employees who had advocated on behalf of the 

union during a representation election were union agents who 

had played a large role in influencing the election. We found 

that refusing to enforce the subpoena in that case was 

prejudicial because obtaining the records would have given 

the employer critical advantages that it otherwise lacked in 

putting on its case. But those considerations are not present 

here. The records would not have revealed any information 

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21

other than the existence of conversations between Mackin and 

the Union organizer, two individuals already well known to 

Mystic. The records could not have served as new evidence or 

helped to identify new leads or witnesses. And because 

Mystic failed to call either Mackin or the Union organizer to 

testify, the records could not have helped impeach or examine 

them. Id. at 585. Admittedly, the Hearing Officer directed the 

Union to produce the organizer and the Union failed to do so. 

But Mystic also failed to remind the Hearing Officer of her 

instruction or to mention the organizer or the subpoena again 

in any way. Mystic cannot complain that it was prejudiced 

when it failed to call the only witness whose testimony might 

have made the records relevant.

Mystic also argues that the Board’s decision in this case is 

undermined by its decision in Voith Industrial Services, Inc., 

No. 09-CA-075496, 2012 WL 4169024 (Sept. 19, 2012). In 

Voith, the Board found an abuse of discretion where a 

Hearing Officer refused to enforce a subpoena for records 

regarding the relationship between an employer and the union 

that represented its employees because the records were at 

least “potentially relevant.” Id. at *1. But here, regardless of 

whether the records were relevant to the question of Mackin’s 

status as a Union agent, they could not have altered the 

Board’s decision that Mackin’s lobbying did not contaminate 

the election result because it was offset by Mystic’s public 

discipline of Mackin and Mystic’s own anti-union conduct. 

Mystic was not prejudiced because these records simply could 

not have changed the outcome. And absent any prejudice we 

have no basis to reverse the Board with respect to the 

subpoena. Ryerson, 216 F.3d at 1154.

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III

For the foregoing reasons, we deny Mystic’s petition for 

review and grant the NLRB’s cross-application for 

enforcement of its order. 

USCA Case #14-1045 Document #1573718 Filed: 09/18/2015 Page 22 of 34
SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge, concurring: I join the court’s 

opinion, including its rejection of Mystic’s argument that the 

Regional Director had no authority to conduct the 

representation election given the absence of a Board quorum. 

In rejecting that argument, our opinion relies on the 

explanation set forth in UC Health v. NLRB, F.3d (D.C. 

Cir. 2015), which rejected the same argument in an opinion 

issued contemporaneously with ours in this case. I fully agree 

with the conclusion of UC Health as described in our opinion 

here: that we “must defer to the Board’s reasonable 

interpretation that the lack of a quorum at the Board does not 

prevent Regional Directors from continuing to exercise 

delegated authority.” Ante at 8.

I write separately to note that, with regard to one aspect 

of the explanation in UC Health for rejecting the Boardquorum argument, I see things a bit differently. In both cases, 

the employer argues that our prior decision in Laurel Baye

Healthcare of Lake Lanier, Inc. v. NLRB, 564 F.3d 469 (D.C. 

Cir. 2009), precludes the Board from adopting the 

interpretation of the quorum statute we now review. I agree

with the UC Health majority that Laurel Baye poses no bar to 

the Board’s reaching that interpretation. My reasons for 

reaching that conclusion, though, vary in some measure from 

those of the UC Health majority.

I would rely on the approach set out in National Cable & 

Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Services, 545 

U.S. 967 (2005). In Brand X, the Supreme Court established 

a rule for determining when a prior judicial interpretation of a 

statute forecloses an agency from adopting a contrary reading.

The rule set forth in Brand X governs an agency’s freedom to 

depart from a prior judicial interpretation regardless of 

whether that interpretation was set out in a “pre-Chevron

judicial decision,” UC Health, slip op. at 7-8 (Silberman, J., 

dissenting), or instead in a post-Chevron judicial decision, as 

was the case in Brand X itself. See 545 U.S. at 979-80. In 

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2

either situation, Brand X establishes that an agency remains 

free to construe a statute it administers in a manner at odds

with the prior judicial interpretation unless the court’s 

decision purported to define the “only permissible reading” of 

the statute, id. at 984—“the same demanding Chevron step 

one standard that applies if the court is reviewing the agency’s 

construction on a blank slate,” id. at 982. If the court instead 

articulated only the “best reading” of the statute, the agency 

retains discretion to implement a contrary interpretation. Id. I 

believe Laurel Baye is best read to have done the latter.

As a result, while the UC Health majority and dissent 

disagree over whether Laurel Baye’s statutory holding 

governs delegations of the Board’s authority to Regional 

Directors (as the dissent contends) or instead pertains only to 

delegations to Board sub-groups (as the majority holds), see 

29 U.S.C. §153(b), I view that question to be beside the point. 

Laurel Baye’s holding, regardless of whether it reaches

delegations to Regional Directors, does not purport to adopt 

the only permissible reading (as opposed to merely the best

reading) of the statute. Brand X therefore left the Board room

to adopt a contrary reading, which the Board has now done.

Of course, there would be no dispute about how best to 

understand Laurel Baye if our court had occasion in that case 

expressly to apply Chevron’s two-step framework. Had we 

had occasion to do so, and had we resolved the interpretive 

question at Chevron step one, we would have confirmed that 

our interpretation was the “only permissible” one. See Brand 

X, 545 U.S. at 982-83. But Laurel Baye contains no mention 

of Chevron, much less any express application of its two-step 

test. That is presumably because the Board did not seek 

Chevron deference in Laurel Baye. And insofar as the 

applicability of Chevron presents no issue of jurisdiction, see 

Lubow v. Dep’t of State, 783 F.3d 877, 884 (D.C. Cir. 2015), 

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we had no obligation to walk through the Chevron framework

in our opinion in the absence of a request by the Board to do 

so. I assume the Laurel Baye court made no express reference 

to Chevron for that reason.

In saying so, I am in no way “essentially accus[ing] the 

Laurel Baye panel of disregarding governing law applying to 

judicial review of agency statutory interpretations,” i.e., 

Chevron deference. UC Health, slip. op. at 7 (Silberman, J., 

dissenting). The point here is not that the Laurel Baye court 

shirked any requirement to apply the Chevron framework. 

The point instead is that, because the Board did not claim any 

entitlement to Chevron deference, the Laurel Baye court

presumably felt it had no obligation expressly to march 

through Chevron’s two steps in its opinion. Regardless of 

whether, by failing to argue any entitlement to it, an agency 

can forfeit a claim to Chevron deference, it is fully 

understandable why the Laurel Baye opinion makes no effort

expressly to apply Chevron’s two-step test. Why walk 

through Chevron’s two-step deference framework in the 

opinion if the Board made no claim of entitlement to Chevron

deference in the first place?

This is all a fairly roundabout way of making what I see

as the ultimate point for purposes of determining whether the 

Board retained freedom under Brand X to disagree with the 

Laurel Baye court’s interpretation: because Laurel Baye did 

not explicitly invoke the Chevron framework 

(understandably, given that the court was not asked to), we 

simply do not know from the Laurel Baye decision whether 

its rejection of the Board’s interpretation fell at Chevron step 

one. Judge Silberman, in his dissent in UC Health, posits 

that, even though Laurel Baye does not say a word about 

Chevron, its rejection of the Board’s interpretation must have 

been at Chevron step one. He suggests that, in the era of 

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Chevron, a reviewing court can never adopt merely a “best

reading” of a statute when—as in Laurel Baye—the court is 

faced with a contrary agency interpretation. Id. at 7-9. 

I disagree. For instance, what if an agency’s 

interpretation is ineligible for Chevron treatment because it 

was issued without the requisite procedures? See United 

States v. Mead Corp., 533 U.S. 218, 231-32 (2001). In that 

event, a reviewing court surely can reject the agency’s 

interpretation in favor of the court’s “best reading” without 

necessarily having to decide whether the “best reading” is 

also the “only permissible” one (or without remanding to the 

agency). See Christensen v. Harris Cty., 529 U.S. 576, 586-

87 (2000); Miller v. Clinton, 687 F.3d 1332, 1342, 1352 (D.C. 

Cir. 2012). As we have said in such a situation, “[w]ith 

Chevron inapplicable,” we “must decide for ourselves the best 

reading.” Miller, 687 F.3d at 1342 (internal quotation marks 

omitted); see id. at 1352. If the court then were to reach a 

“best reading” contrary to the agency’s interpretation, the 

agency, as Brand X makes clear, could later disagree and 

issue a new interpretation (which, if adopted pursuant to the 

requisite procedures, would be entitled to Chevron deference). 

See Richard J. Pierce, Jr., 1 Administrative Law Treatise §3.5, 

at 182 (5th ed. 2010). In short, there certainly can be 

situations in which a reviewing court rejects an agency’s 

interpretation in favor of the “best reading” (rather than in 

favor of the “only permissible reading”), in which case the 

agency would retain leeway under Brand X to disagree.

So where does that leave us here? The question is 

whether, notwithstanding the Laurel Baye court’s 

understandable decision to refrain from expressly invoking

Chevron’s two-step framework, we somehow know that the 

court in fact rejected the Board’s interpretation as a step one 

“only permissible reading” resolution. We do not. Even 

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5

assuming, arguendo, that the Laurel Baye court was required 

to entertain Chevron at all despite the Board’s failure to claim

any entitlement to Chevron deference (and assuming that the 

Laurel Baye court believed it was required to do so), we do 

not know why the court declined to give effect to the agency’s 

interpretation.

As Judge Silberman suggests, it might have been based 

on a conclusion that the Board, rather than arriving at an 

interpretation as a matter of discretion, simply believed its 

reading to be compelled by the statute (in which case, for the 

reasons he argues, the absence of a remand would tend to 

indicate a step one resolution). UC Health, slip op. at 6, 8

(Silberman, J., dissenting). But perhaps the court instead 

believed that the Board, as the petitioning company argued, 

lacked Chevron authority to construe this particular statute in 

the first place because it “presents a question of power or 

jurisdiction[.]” Brief for Petitioner at 10, Laurel Baye

Healthcare of Lake Lanier, Inc. v. NLRB, 564 F.3d 469 (D.C. 

Cir. Nos. 08-1162(L), 08-1214). That argument could have 

had more purchase before the Supreme Court’s decision in 

City of Arlington v. FCC, 133 S. Ct. 1863 (2013), when this 

court had held that “the existence of ambiguity is not enough 

per se to warrant deference to the agency’s interpretation” 

because the agency may lack delegated authority “to make a 

deference-worthy interpretation of the statute” at issue. Am. 

Bar Ass'n v. FTC, 430 F.3d 457, 468-69 (D.C. Cir. 2005); see

Motion Picture Ass'n of Am., Inc. v. FCC, 309 F.3d 796, 801 

(D.C. Cir. 2002); see also Nathan Alexander & Jonathan H. 

Adler, The Rest Is Silence: Chevron Deference, Agency 

Jurisdiction, and Statutory Silences, 2009 U. Ill. L. Rev. 

1497, 1499-1500 (2009) (describing Am. Bar Ass’n as a 

decision about “agency jurisdictional determinations”). After 

all, the Board in its brief raised no objection to that argument 

by the company. If the Laurel Baye court thought Chevron

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6

might be inapplicable for that reason, the court would have 

been free to reject the agency’s interpretation based on a “best 

reading.” The bottom line is that we cannot be certain from 

the Laurel Baye opinion that the court issued the equivalent of 

a Chevron step one “only permissible reading.”

While the Laurel Baye court understandably did not 

expressly work through Chevron’s two-step framework given 

the absence of any request by the Board to do so, there is 

another way in which the Laurel Baye court could have 

removed any doubt about whether it considered its rejection 

of the Board’s interpretation to rest on the “only permissible 

reading” of the statute. Brand X, 545 U.S. at 984. The court

could have said so. Laurel Baye came after Brand X. And 

post-Brand X, we issue decisions in awareness of the 

interpretive backdrop against which our opinions construe

statutes administered by an agency. Following Brand X’s 

roadmap, a court could preclude an agency’s adoption of a 

contrary interpretation by saying expressly that the court’s

holding rests on the “only permissible reading” of the statute,

id., or by explicitly “hold[ing] that the statute unambiguously 

requires the court’s construction,” id. at 985. In the absence 

of any definitive formulation of that variety, we are in the 

position of having to parse a prior opinion’s language to 

divine whether it expressed with adequate clarity the 

equivalent of a Chevron step one holding—i.e., an “only 

permissible reading” resolution.

I do not read Laurel Baye to have done so. The opinion 

stops short of concluding that the statutory terms 

accommodate only one permissible interpretation concerning

whether a Board delegee can continue to act if the Board 

ceases to maintain a three-member quorum. To be sure, the 

opinion necessarily holds that such a reading at least presents

the best interpretation of the statute. But we did not go 

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further to—and we had no necessary occasion to—decide that 

the best reading also was the only permissible one. To the 

contrary, we said that “the case before us presents a close 

question,” and that the Board’s interpretation was not

“entirely indefensible” (which is essentially to say, it was 

“defensible”). Laurel Baye, 564 F.3d at 476 (emphasis

added). Those words suggest something considerably less 

than a definitive, Chevron step one interpretation. 

Of course, we also did not go so far as to say that a 

contrary reading necessarily would be reasonable. One can

certainly locate language in the opinion that might have been 

used in service of an “only permissible reading” resolution. 

E.g., id. at 473 (noting that, because “[t]he statute confers no 

authority on” the delegee and “[t]he only authority by which 

the [delegee] can act is that of the Board,” if “the Board has 

no authority, it follows that the [delegee] has none”). But

when read in the context of an opinion that considered the 

question to be “close” and a contrary reading to be 

somewhere in the neighborhood of a “defensible” one, the

cited language is no less consistent with a “best reading” 

holding than with an “only permissible reading” holding. 

And while Laurel Baye at times invokes terms such as 

“unequivocal[]” and “clearly” in discussing the statute, it does 

so only in making the predicate point that—as the plain terms 

of the statute themselves specify—the Board must “at all 

times” satisfy a three-member quorum requirement. Id. 

(quoting 29 U.S.C. § 153(b)). In my reading, we did not use 

those sorts of definitive terms in resolving the subsequent 

question ultimately at issue: whether a delegee appointed by 

a properly constituted Board can itself continue to act in the 

event the Board later slips below three members. As to the 

latter question, I understand our opinion to have reached a 

“best reading,” not an “only permissible reading.”

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8

The cited language and other such passages, at most, 

would render it fairly debatable whether Laurel Baye intended 

to adopt the equivalent of a Chevron step one holding. I 

would not strain to find a step one resolution in an opinion 

amenable to a contrary understanding. If anything, I would 

err on the side of construing a decision to have reached a 

“best reading” (rather than an “only permissible reading”) 

resolution. 

Mistakenly understanding a prior decision to have 

adopted a step one interpretation would have significant 

consequences. In that event, we would erroneously freeze in 

place our “best reading” of a statute even though Congress, 

according to the basic assumptions underlying Chevron, 

would have intended to delegate to an agency primary 

authority to construe the statute as it sees fit within the scope 

of its delegation. The result would be one Brand X

specifically sought to avoid: “‘ossification of large portions 

of our statutory law,’ by precluding agencies from revising 

unwise judicial constructions of ambiguous statutes.” 545 

U.S. at 983 (quoting Mead, 533 U.S. at 247 (Scalia, J., 

dissenting)). 

Now suppose, conversely, that we instead err in favor of

perceiving a “best reading” resolution in a prior opinion that 

in fact intended to go further and establish the “only 

permissible reading” of a statute (and thus to preclude an 

agency from adopting a contrary interpretation). In that 

event, the error would have become salient only because the 

agency later elected to implement a reading of the statute 

contrary to our prior interpretation. And the error would be 

short-lived: Our court (or the Supreme Court), in the process 

of judicial review, would have the final word on whether the 

agency’s reading could be squared with the statute. Our 

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9

review of the Board’s interpretation in this case (and in UC 

Health) perfectly illustrates the point.

 For those reasons, I read Laurel Baye to have decided the 

best reading of the Board quorum statute, not the only 

permissible reading, leaving the Board free under Brand X to 

adopt a contrary interpretation. The Board has done so, and 

here (and in UC Health)—unlike in Laurel Baye—seeks 

Chevron deference for its interpretation. For the reasons 

explained by the UC Health majority, I believe the Board is 

entitled to that deference.

USCA Case #14-1045 Document #1573718 Filed: 09/18/2015 Page 31 of 34
SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge, dissenting: Relying on 

UC Health v. NLRB, __ F.3d __ (D.C. Cir. 2015), the majority 

concludes that a regional director has the authority to conduct 

an election even if the Board lacks a quorum. I disagree and 

would instead set aside the election because the regional 

director’s authority to act “ceased the moment the Board’s 

membership dropped below its quorum requirement of three 

members.” Laurel Baye Healthcare of Lake Lanier, Inc. v. 

NLRB, 564 F.3d 469, 473 (D.C. Cir. 2009). 

Section 153(b) contains four provisions: (1) the 

delegation clause; (2) the vacancy clause; (3) the Board 

quorum requirement; and (4) the group quorum provision. 

New Process Steel, L.P. v. NLRB, 560 U.S. 674, 680 (2010)

(summarizing 29 U.S.C. § 153(b)). In Laurel Baye, we held 

that the third provision, the quorum requirement, “clearly 

requires that a quorum of the Board is, ‘at all times,’ three 

members.” 564 F.3d at 473. The phrase “at all times,” we 

explained, is “unambiguous” and “denotes that there is no 

instance in which this Board quorum requirement may be 

disregarded.” Id.; see also id. (“Congress provided 

unequivocally that a quorum of the Board is three members, 

and that this requirement must be met at all times.”). Simply 

put, we held that “the Board cannot by delegating its authority 

circumvent the statutory Board quorum requirement, because 

this requirement must always be satisfied.” Id. 

The majority in UC Health purports to create an 

exception for regional directors. I reject UC Health’s analysis 

for the same reason the Supreme Court rejected the Board’s 

rationale in New Process Steel: it “dramatically undercuts the 

significance of the Board quorum requirement by allowing its 

permanent circumvention.” 560 U.S. at 681. Even though 

New Process Steel did not rely on our discussion of agency,

see id. at 684 n.4 (“our decision does not address” that 

“separate question”), neither did the Supreme Court overrule 

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2

our decision in Laurel Baye. We remain bound by it as circuit 

law. 

I see little point in rehashing the debate between Judge 

Silberman in the companion case and Judge Srinivasan in this 

one over the absence of a Chevron discussion in Laurel Baye. 

I do think it worth at least passing mention that in the 

Supreme Court decision which ultimately construed the same 

statute as Laurel Baye, New Process Steel, L.P. v. NLRB, 560 

U.S. 674 (2010), neither the majority nor the dissent makes 

any reference to Chevron. Neither, apparently, did the 

government, since all references to the government argument 

in New Process Steel deal with interpretation of the statute per 

se, rather than an analysis of the NLRB’s administrative 

conduct. For example, at 680, the Court states, “One 

interpretation, put forward by the Government, would read the 

clause to require only that a delegee group contain three 

members at the precise time the Board delegates its powers 

....” In analyzing the government’s position, the Court stated, 

“Hence, while the Government’s reading of the delegation 

clause is textually permissible in a narrow sense, it is 

structurally implausible, as it would render two of § 3(b)’s 

provisions functionally void.” Id. at 681. For what it’s worth, 

the Seventh Circuit in the decision reviewed by the Supreme 

Court in New Process Steel also made no reference to 

Chevron. See New Process Steel, L.P. v. NLRB, 564 F.3d 840 

(7th Cir. 2009). That said, the fact that the Laurel Baye court 

did not discuss a government position that the government did

not raise seems to me to be of little consequence.

Because Laurel Baye concluded that § 153(b)’s quorum 

requirement provision unambiguously requires the Board to 

have a quorum for a delegee to exercise its authority, National 

Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet 

Services, 545 U.S. 967 (2005), does not apply. And, for the 

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3

reasons discussed by Judge Silberman, we may not apply 

Chevron deference to the Board’s interpretation of § 153(b). 

See UC Health, Slip op. at 5–6 (Silberman, J., dissenting). 

Even if Chevron deference applied, the Board’s interpretation 

of § 153(b) is unreasonable under step two. See id. at 5. 

I respectfully dissent. 

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