Source: https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/08/judge-kavanaugh-on-work-law/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 08:08:50+00:00

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Charlotte Garden is an associate professor at Seattle University School of Law.
This post analyzes Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s most significant work-law opinions. Although several are already receiving attention and analysis – especially his dissent in a case that arose after a killer whale killed a trainer – Kavanaugh has drafted dozens of other opinions in labor and employment-discrimination cases. Overall, these opinions reflect that Kavanaugh tends to interpret narrowly the limits that work law places on employers, resulting in judicial and agency deference to employers’ decisions. For example, Kavanaugh has interpreted statutes or controlling Supreme Court cases in ways that exclude certain workers from coverage or bar certain types of claims. When he writes in cases in which he parts ways with his colleagues, it is often because he has a more employer-friendly view of the law than they do.
SeaWorld of Florida v. Perez is already receiving significant attention. The case involved a penalty imposed on SeaWorld following a tragic incident in which a killer whale named Tilikum “grabbed [a trainer] and pulled her … into the pool, refusing to release her.” The trainer drowned; worse, this was the second time Tilikum had killed a trainer. The Department of Labor found, and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed, that SeaWorld had violated OSHA’s general duty-clause. The majority held that the commission was not unreasonable in concluding that SeaWorld was aware of the danger posed by working with killer whales in general, and Tilikum in particular, and the company could have taken safety measures that would have lessened the risk to the trainer – including measures that SeaWorld had already implemented by the time the case reached the court.
Kavanaugh dissented, writing that the Department of Labor could not apply the Occupational Safety and Health Act to killer-whale performances (or sports events or entertainment shows). Kavanaugh’s argument was threefold: first, that the DOL had not previously taken jurisdiction over certain inherently dangerous jobs; second, that DOL “irrationally and arbitrarily distinguishe[d]” SeaWorld’s killer-whale show from the NFL or NASCAR; and third, that Congress did not intend OSHA to reach sports and entertainment.
Kavanaugh has written a number of opinions reviewing National Labor Relations Board decisions; in many of these cases, he voted to reverse the board.
The case turned on whether undocumented workers qualify as “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act, an issue that the Supreme Court answered affirmatively in 1984, in Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB. The Agri Processor majority held that Sure-Tan controlled, even though Congress had since amended immigration law (but not the NLRA) to prohibit employers from hiring unauthorized workers; Henderson wrote separately to criticize the outcome, but nonetheless agreed that “we must follow Sure-Tan.” Kavanaugh dissented, characterizing the issue in the case as follows: “Their immigration status apparently unbeknownst to their employer, illegal immigrant workers voted in a union election and affected the election’s outcome. The employer later discovered that the workers were illegal … and sought to overturn the tainted union election.” In Kavanaugh’s view, Sure-Tan tied “the NLRA’s definition of ‘employee’ to the immigration laws’ prohibition or non-prohibition on employment of illegal immigrant workers.” In other words, he thought Sure-Tan required the court to reconcile the NLRA and immigration law by excluding from NLRA coverage anyone who could not legally be hired in the United States.
Kavanaugh also dissented in Island Architectural Woodwork v. NLRB, in which the court was charged with reviewing the NLRB’s conclusion that an employer, Island, had set up an alter ego in order to evade its obligation to bargain collectively. The new company, Verde, was managed by former employees of Island – including its owner’s two daughters, who also owned a majority stake in the new company. Verde also operated out of a building owned by Island (rent-free for a time), employed former Island employees, and worked with Island to produce a product for Island’s main customer. Further, none of these arrangements were memorialized in contracts until the NLRB began to investigate. That investigation was prompted when Island, whose employees were unionized, asked the union during collective bargaining to “waive any claim to represent workers at Verde.” The union refused, and then Island refused to agree to a CBA.
The union appealed that decision to the NLRB, which at the time upheld arbitral awards that were not “clearly repugnant” to the NLRA. Despite that deferential standard, the board overturned the award, reasoning that the CBA’s purported waiver was not “clear and unmistakable,” as it was required to be, because displaying a sign in a car lacked the “confrontational” aspect that characterizes picketing. Kavanaugh and Henderson voted to reverse the NLRB, with Kavanaugh writing that the “arbitration decision was far from egregiously wrong,” and that the NLRB had previously included stationary signs within the definition of “picket.” (Kavanaugh also interpreted the controlling legal standard in a way that was somewhat more deferential to the Board than did Henderson.) Srinivasan would have affirmed the NLRB’s decision, emphasizing the court’s obligation to defer to reasonable board decisions.
Kavanaugh sometimes wrote in affirmance of the board as well. In New York-New York, LLC v. NLRB, a unanimous panel upheld an NLRB decision that employers cannot “bar employees of an onsite contractor from distributing union-related handbills on the property.” (Henderson concurred to emphasize aspects of the decision, but also joined the majority opinion.) And United Food and Commercial Workers v. NLRB, another unanimous panel affirmed a board decision that employees working in a Wal-Mart meat department were no longer an appropriate bargaining unit once Wal-Mart made the decision to change the department’s responsibilities from cutting meat onsite to selling pre-cut packaged meat.
Finally, Kavanaugh reviewed labor arbitration decisions in a handful of cases. In National Postal Mail Handlers Union v. American Postal Workers Union, Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, enforcing an arbitrator’s “probably erroneous” decision that a jurisdictional dispute between two unions was arbitrable, in light of the deference due to labor arbitrators’ decisions. Then-Chief Judge David Sentelle dissented because, in his view, the award relied on the arbitrator’s “external legal theories” instead of drawing its essence from the contract, as required. And Kavanaugh vacated an arbitrator’s decision in United States Department of the Navy v. Federal Labor Relations Authority – a unanimous decision that turned on the court’s view that the arbitrator’s decision, which required the Navy to bargain with its employees’ union before discontinuing its practice of supplying bottled water, was inconsistent with statutory limits on unnecessary federal spending.
Employment-discrimination plaintiffs often have a difficult time winning in federal court, as perhaps reflected in a number of Kavanaugh’s unanimous opinions affirming grants of summary judgment or motions to dismiss to employers in such cases. These cases include Adeyemi v. DC, Baloch v. Kempthorne, Brady v. Office of the Sergeant at Arms, Foote v. Moniz and Johnson v. Interstate Management Corp. Each of these cases was unanimous, although Judge Patricia Millett concurred in Johnson, which involved both discrimination and OSHA claims, indicating that she disagreed with how Kavanaugh characterized the record. In one other case, Jackson v. Gonzales, Kavanaugh wrote for the majority to affirm a grant of summary judgment for the defendant-employer, the federal Bureau of Prisons. Kavanaugh saw the case as a straightforward example of a more qualified candidate being chosen. But Judge Judith Rogers, dissenting, would have allowed the plaintiff-employee to argue to a jury that the employer’s late-stage identification of a hiring criterion that was not included in the original job listing reflected an attempt to conceal a hiring decision that was infected by racial bias.
Kavanaugh has also written opinions in a number of cases in which he diverged from his colleagues. These fall generally into two categories: first, cases in which Kavanaugh construed the applicable law more narrowly than his colleagues; and second, cases in which Kavanaugh concurred with his colleagues in reversing a grant of summary judgment for an employer, but would have adopted a more bright-line rule about what kinds of incidents can give rise to discrimination suits.
employ individuals or organizations, by contract, for services abroad … and such contracts are authorized to be negotiated, the terms of the contracts to be prescribed, and the work to be performed, where necessary, without regard to such statutory provisions as relate to the negotiation, making, and performance of contracts and performance of work in the United States.
In Howard v. Office of the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives, the court considered whether the Constitution’s speech or debate clause barred an employment discrimination and retaliation suit against the Office of the Chief Administrator. The majority allowed the suit to proceed, reasoning that the plaintiff’s theory of the case did not require the factfinder to probe the content of speech covered by the clause – that is, “legislative acts or the motivation for legislative acts.” That was because the plaintiff did not dispute the underlying sequence of events that the OCAO stated led to her firing; instead, she simply argued that OCAO used those events as a pretext for firing her because of her race.
And in Ortiz-Diaz v. US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Kavanaugh concurred with an opinion by Rogers reversing a grant of summary judgment for the employer. The case turned in part on whether an employer’s refusal to grant a requested job transfer qualified as an adverse employment action that could form the basis of a Title VII lawsuit. Rogers answered that question “yes” under the circumstances of the case, but Kavanaugh wrote separately to suggest that the court should hold in an appropriate case that discriminatory transfers or transfer denials could always qualify as adverse employment actions.
Finally, Kavanaugh wrote opinions in a handful of important cases that are not easily grouped.
Second, Kavanaugh has cautioned against finding implicit statutory private rights of action in two cases. In International Union, Security, Police & Fire Professionals of America v. Faye, Kavanaugh dissented from a decision holding that the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act implicitly creates a private right of action allowing unions to sue officers who breach their fiduciary duties to the union. And he likewise refused to find an implied cause of action in Section 11(c) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in Johnson v. Interstate Management Co., in an opinion that was unanimous on that point.
Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy was relatively inclined to defer to employers and to interpret work law narrowly. The safe prediction is that, if confirmed, Kavanaugh will do the same, or perhaps take the law in an even more employer-oriented direction. Of course, the usual caveats apply – it is impossible to say with certainty what a justice will ultimately do on the Supreme Court. But Kavanaugh’s opinions to date reflect a general skepticism about agencies or courts second-guessing employers’ decisions, and a lack of skepticism about the employers’ decisions themselves – giving employees and unions cause for concern.

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