Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1449_d9eh.pdf
Page Number: 36

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

15 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

that might ultimately favor the union, such that the lawsuit 
should pause to allow the Board to gather the facts and ap-
ply its expertise to determine whether the strike was law-
ful. 

B 
The majority seems to misunderstand all this in the con-
text of this case. It correctly concludes that the Union has 
carried  its  burden  of  “advancing  an  interpretation  of  the
[NLRA] that is not plainly contrary to its language and that 
has  not  been  authoritatively  rejected  by  the  courts  or  the
Board.”  Ante, at 6 (internal quotation marks omitted).  But 
it finds that the Union has failed to satisfy the second Gar-
mon step, and it does so after undertaking its own assess-
ment of the facts alleged in Glacier’s complaint and endeav-
oring  to  apply  the  Board’s 
fact-bound  reasonable-
precautions precedents.  See, e.g., ante, at 7 (determining, 
based on alleged facts, that “[t]he drivers engaged in a sud-
den cessation of work that put Glacier’s property in foresee-
able and imminent danger” and that the risk of harm to the 
concrete-delivery  trucks  was  “both  foreseeable  and  seri-
ous”); ibid. (concluding that “[t]he Union failed to ‘take rea-
sonable  precautions,’ ”  after  hypothesizing  various  steps 
that,  according  to  the  majority,  the  Union  should  have 
taken but did not).

Given what I have already said about Garmon’s purpose
and what it calls for, the majority’s error in proceeding in 
this fashion is obvious.  To my mind, if a court that is eval-
uating what to do per Garmon finds itself weighing in on
such fact-bound matters as whether the strike posed a risk
of harm that was aggravated enough or imminent enough 
to  remove  NLRA  protection,  or  starts  contemplating 
whether the precautions that the striking employees took 
to address any such risk were reasonable enough to allow 
them to retain the right to strike, it has unwittingly wan-
dered into  a domain that Congress intentionally assigned