Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1449_d9eh.pdf
Page Number: 34

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

13 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

whether  the  drivers  left  the  concrete-delivery  trucks’  re-
volving  drums  turning  when  they  walked  off  the  job.    So, 
too,  might  it  depend  on  fine  legal  gradations  concerning 
how imminent or how aggravated the risk of harm must be
to trigger the duty to take reasonable precautions.  These 
kinds  of  determinations  cry  out  for  evidentiary  hearings, 
and in this highly fact-sensitive area of the law, which gen-
erally develops on a case-by-case basis, the scope of NLRA 
protection in a given set of circumstances is typically deter-
mined once the facts have been established—through dis-
covery, debate, and sometimes the tedious work of making 
contentious credibility determinations.

Fortunately, in this regard, Congress has gifted our legal
system with an expert agency that thoroughly investigates 
what  happened—i.e.,  the  facts  of  strike-related  labor  dis-
putes—and  then  engages  in  the  initial  task  of  answering 
fact-bound  question
the  sometimes  complex,  always 
whether  the  NLRA  protects  the  strike  conduct  at  issue. 
Meanwhile, a court that is undertaking Garmon’s arguably-
protected analysis is engaged in a fundamentally different 
inquiry.  As explained in Part II–A, supra, while the court 
is most certainly considering strike conduct arising from a
labor dispute, it is not meant to address the merits of these 
complex questions.  Under the NLRA and Garmon, courts 
must take as a given that the Board is the entity to which
Congress has assigned responsibility for initially determin-
ing  what  happened  and  taking  the  first  crack  at  deciding
whether the NLRA protects the union’s conduct.  And far 
from usurping that Board function, Garmon tasks the court 
with  merely  conducting  a  threshold,  gatekeeping  assess-
ment  of  whether  the  lawsuit  before  it  must  be  paused,  or
whether the suit can proceed because it is not even arguable
that the conduct at issue in the lawsuit is protected by the 
NLRA. 

To avoid veering into the Board’s assigned territory, it is
crucial  that  the  courts  have  a  clear  understanding  of  the