Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/560-U-S-674-2010-08-1457-New-Process-Steel-L-P-v-National-Labor-Relations-Board-606089130
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 22:09:17+00:00

Document:
Party Name: NEW PROCESS STEEL, L.P., Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD.
The Taft-Hartley Act increased the size of the National Labor Relations Board (Board) from three members to five, see 29 U.S.C. §153(a), and amended §3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act to increase the Board's quorum requirement from two members to three and to allow the Board to delegate its authority to groups of at least three members, see §153(b). In December 2007, the Board-finding itself with only four members and expecting two more vacancies- delegated, inter alia, its powers to a group of three members. On De­cember 31, one group member's appointment expired, but the others proceeded to issue Board decisions for the next 27 months as a two-member quorum of a three-member group. Two of those decisions sustained unfair labor practice complaints against petitioner, which sought review, challenging the two-member Board's authority to is­sue orders. The Seventh Circuit ruled for the Government, conclud­ing that the two members constituted a valid quorum of a three-member group to which the Board had legitimately delegated its powers.
Section 3(b) requires that a delegee group maintain a member­ship of three in order to exercise the delegated authority of the Board. Pp. 2639-2645, 177 L.Ed.2d, at 169-175.
clause to operate to provide that vacancies do not impair the Board's ability to take action, so long as the quorum is satisfied. And it does not render inoperative the group quorum pro­vision, which continues to authorize a properly constituted three-member delegee group to issue a decision with only two members participating when one is disqualified from a case. The Govern­ment's contrary reading allows two members to act as the Board ad infinitum, dramatically undercutting the Board quorum require­ment's significance by allowing its permanent circumvention. It also diminishes the delegation clause's three-member requirement by permitting a de facto two-member delegation. By allowing the Board to include a third member in the group for only one minute before her term expires, this approach also gives no meaningful effect to the command implicit in both the delegation clause and the Board quo­rum requirement that the Board's full power be vested in no fewer than three members. Second, had Congress intended to authorize two members to act on an ongoing basis, it could have used straight­forward language. The Court's interpretation is consistent with the Board's longstanding practice of reconstituting a delegee group when one group member's term expired. Pp. 2639–2642, 177 L.Ed.2d, at 169-172.
(b) The Government's several arguments against the Court's inter-pretation-that the group quorum requirement and vacancy clause together permit two members of a three-member group to constitute a quorum even when there is no third member; that the vacancy clause establishes that a vacancy in the group has no effect; and that reading the statute to authorize the Board to act with only two mem­bers advances the congressional objective of Board efficiency-are unconvincing. Pp. 2642–2645, 177 L.Ed.2d, at 172-175.
564 F.3d 840, reversed and remanded.
Sheldon E. Richie, Austin, TX, for Petitioner.
Neal K. Katyal, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
Mark E. Solomons, Laura Metcoff Klaus, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Washington, DC, Sheldon E. Richie, Richie & Gueringer, P.C., Austin, Joseph W. Ambash, Justin F. Keith, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Boston, MA, for Petitioner.
Ronald Meisburg, General Counsel, John E. Higgins, Jr., Deputy General Counsel, John H. Ferguson, Associate General Counsel, Linda Dreeben, Deputy Associate General Counsel, David Habenstreit, Assistant General Counsel, Ruth E. Burdick, Attorney, National Labor Relations Board, Washington, DC, Elena Kagan, Solicitor General, Neal Kumar Katyal, Deputy Solicitor General, Sarah E. Harrington, Assistant to the Solicitor General[130 S.Ct. 2638] Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor, JJ., joined.
[130 S.Ct. 2638] Stevens, Justice.
The Taft-Hartley Act, enacted in 1947, increased the size of the National [162 L.Ed.2d 168] Labor Relations Board (Board) from three members to five. See 29 U.S.C. §153(a). Concur­rent with that change, the Taft-Hartley Act amended §3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to increase the quorum requirement for the Board from two members to three, and to allow the Board to delegate its authority to groups of at least three members. See §153(b). The ques­tion in this case is whether, following a delegation of the Board's powers to a three-member group, two members may continue to exercise that delegated authority once the group's (and the Board's) membership falls to two. We hold that two remaining Board members cannot exercise such authority.
as of midnight December 28, 2007. First, the Board delegated to the general counsel continuing author­ity to initiate and conduct litigation that would normally require case-by-case approval of the Board. See Minute of Board Action (Dec. 20, 2007), App. to Brief for Petitioner 4a–5a (hereinafter Board Minutes). Second, the Board delegated "to Members Liebman, Schaumber and Kir-sanow, as a three-member group, all of the Board's pow­ers, in anticipation of the adjournment of the 1st Session of the 110th Congress." Id., at 5a. The Board expressed the opinion that its action would permit the remaining two members to exercise the powers of the Board "after [the] departure of Members Kirsanow and Walsh, because the remaining Members will constitute a quorum of the three-member group." Ibid.
The Board's minutes explain that it relied on "the statu­tory language" of §3(b), as well as an opinion issued by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), for the proposition that the Board may use this delegation procedure to "issue deci­sions during periods when three or more of the five seats on the Board are vacant." Id., at 5a, 6a. The OLC had con­cluded in 2003 that "if the Board delegated all of its pow­ers to a group of three members, that group could continue to issue decisions and orders as long as a quorum of two members remained." Dept. of Justice, OLC, Quorum Requirements, App. to Brief for Respondent 3a. In seek­ing the OLC's advice, the Board agreed to accept the OLC's answer regarding its ability to operate with only two members, id., at 1a, n. 1, and the Board in its minutes therefore "acknowledged that it is bound" by the OLC opinion. Board Minutes 6a.The Board noted, however, that it was not bound to make this delegation; rather, it had "decided to exercise its discretion" to do so. Ibid.
January 1, 2008, Members Liebman and Schaumber became the only members of the Board. They proceeded to issue decisions [162 L.Ed.2d 169] for the Board as a two-member quorum of a three-member group. The delegation automatically terminated on March 27, 2010, when the President made two recess appointments to the Board, because the terms of the delegation specified that it would be revoked when the Board's membership returned to at least three members, id., at 7a.

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