Source: http://ak.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20100617_0000100.SCT.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2016-12-04 01:57:13
Document Index: 764620574

Matched Legal Cases: ['§153', '§3', '§153', '§3', '§3', '§153', '§3', '§153', '§3', '§153', '§3', '§153', '§3', '§3', '§153', '§3', '§46', '§46', '§46', '§153', '§153', '§153', '§153', '§46', '§46', '§153', '§3', '§153', '§153', '§153', '§46']

| New Process Steel, L. P. v. Nat'l Labor Relations Board
New Process Steel, L. P. v. Nat'l Labor Relations Board
NEW PROCESS STEEL, L. P., PETITIONERv.NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT Court Below: 564 F.3d 840
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.
Held: Section 3(b) requires that a delegee group maintain a membership of three in order to exercise the delegated authority of the Board. Pp. 4--14.
(a) The first sentence of §3(b), the so-called delegation clause, authorizes the Board to delegate its powers only to a "group of three or more members." This clause is best read to require that the delegee group maintain a membership of three in order for the delegation to remain valid. First, that is the only way to harmonize and give meaningful effect to all of §3(b)'s provisions: (1) the delegation clause; (2) the vacancy clause, which provides that "[a] vacancy in the Board shall not impair the right of the remaining members to exercise all of the powers of the Board"; (3) the Board quorum requirement, which mandates that "three members of the Board shall, at all times, constitute a quorum of the Board"; and (4) the group quorum provision, which provides that "two members shall constitute a quorum" of any delegee group. This reading is consonant with the Board quorum requirement of three participating members "at all times," and it gives material effect to the delegation clause's three-member rule. It also permits the vacancy 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 Govern-ment's contrary reading allows two members to act as the Board ad infinitum, dramatically undercutting the Board quorum require-ment'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. 4--9.
(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. 9--14.
As 2007 came to a close, the Board found itself with four members and one vacancy. It anticipated two more vacancies at the end of the year, when the recess appointments of Members Kirsanow and Walsh were set to expire, which would leave the Board with only two members-too few to meet the Board's quorum requirement, §153(b). The four sitting members decided to take action in an effort to preserve the Board's authority to function. On December 20, 2007, the Board made two delegations of its authority, effective 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 Kirsanow, 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 court ruled in favor of the Government. After a review of the text and legislative history of §3(b) and the sequence of events surrounding the delegation of authority in December 2007, the court concluded that the then-sitting two members constituted a valid quorum of a three-member group to which the Board had legitimately delegated all its powers. 564 F. 3d 840, 845--847 (CA7 2009). On the same day that the Seventh Circuit issued its decision in this case, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia announced a decision coming to the opposite conclusion. Laurel Baye Healthcare of Lake Lanier, Inc. v. NLRB, 564 F. 3d 469 (2009). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict.*fn1 558 U. S. ___ (2009).
"The Board is authorized to delegate to any group of three or more members any or all of the powers which it may itself exercise. . . . A vacancy in the Board shall not impair the right of the remaining members to exercise all of the powers of the Board, and three members of the Board shall, at all times, constitute a quorum of the Board, except that two members shall constitute a quorum of any group designated pursuant to the first sentence hereof." 29 U. S. C. §153(b).
First, and most fundamentally, reading the delegation clause to require that the Board's delegated power be vested continuously in a group of three members is the only way to harmonize and give meaningful effect to all of the provisions in §3(b). See Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 174 (2001) (declining to adopt a "construction of the statute, [that] would render [a term] insignificant"); Market Co. v. Hoffman, 101 U. S. 112, 115--116 (1879) ("[A] statute ought, upon the whole, to be so construed that, if it can be prevented, no clause, sentence, or word shall be . . . insignificant" (internal quotation marks omitted)). Those provisions are: (1) the delegation clause; (2) the vacancy clause, which provides that "[a] vacancy in the Board shall not impair the right of the remaining members to exercise all of the powers of the Board"; (3) the Board quorum requirement, which mandates that "three members of the Board shall, at all times, constitute a quorum of the Board"; and (4) the group quorum provision, which provides that "two members shall constitute a quorum" of any delegee group. See §153(b).
Interpreting the statute to require the Board's powers to be vested at all times in a group of at least three members is consonant with the Board quorum requirement, which requires three participating members "at all times" for the Board to act. The interpretation likewise gives material effect to the three-member requirement in the delegation clause. The vacancy clause still operates to provide that vacancies do not impair the ability of the Board to take action, so long as the quorum is satisfied. And the interpretation does not render inoperative the group quorum provision, which still operates to authorize a three-member delegee group to issue a decision with only two members participating, so long as the delegee group was properly constituted. Reading §3(b) in this manner, the statute's various pieces hang together-a critical clue that this reading is a sound one.
Second, and relatedly, if Congress had intended to authorize two members alone to act for the Board on an ongoing basis, it could have said so in straightforward language. Congress instead imposed the requirement that the Board delegate authority to no fewer than three members, and that it have three participating members to constitute a quorum. Those provisions are at best an unlikely way of conveying congressional approval of a two-member Board. Indeed, had Congress wanted to provide for two members alone to act as the Board, it could have maintained the NLRA's original two-member Board quorum provision, see 29 U. S. C. §153(b) (1946 ed.), or provided for a delegation of the Board's authority to groups of two. The Rube Goldberg-style delegation mechanism employed by the Board in 2007-delegating to a group of three, allowing a term to expire, and then continuing with a two-member quorum of a phantom delegee group-is surely a bizarre way for the Board to achieve the authority to decide cases with only two members. To conclude that Congress intended to authorize such a procedure to contravene the three-member Board quorum, we would need some evidence of that intent.
The Government has not adduced any convincing evidence on this front, and to the contrary, our interpretation is consistent with the longstanding practice of the Board. This is the third factor driving our decision. Although the Board has throughout its history allowed two members of a three-member group to issue decisions when one member of a group was disqualified from a case, see Brief for Respondent 20; Board Minutes 6a, the Board has not (until recently) allowed two members to act as a quorum of a defunct three-member group.*fn2 Instead, the Board concedes that its practice was to reconstitute a delegee group when one group member's term expired. Brief for Respondent 39, n. 27.*fn3 That our interpretation of the delegation provision is consistent with the Board's longstanding practice is persuasive evidence that it is the correct one, notwithstanding the Board's more recent view. See Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 214 (1988). In sum, a straightforward understanding of the text, which requires that no fewer than three members be vested with the Board's full authority, coupled with the Board's longstanding practice, points us toward an interpretation of the delegation clause that requires a delegee group to maintain a membership of three.
Against these points, the Government makes several arguments that we find unconvincing. It first argues that §3(b) authorizes the Board's action by its plain terms, notwithstanding the somewhat fictional nature of the delegation to a three-member group with the expectation that within days it would become a two-member group. In particular, the Government contends the group quorum requirement and the vacancy clause together make clear that when the Board has delegated its power to a three-member group, "any two members of that group constitute a quorum that may continue to exercise the delegated powers, regardless whether the third group member . . . continues to sit on the Board" and regardless "whether a quorum remains in the full Board." Brief for Respondent 17; see also id., at 20--23.
Although the group quorum provision clearly authorizes two members to act as a quorum of a "group designated pursuant to the first sentence"-i.e., a group of at least three members-it does not, by its plain terms, authorize two members to constitute a valid delegee group. A quorum is the number of members of a larger body that must participate for the valid transaction of business. See Black's Law Dictionary 1370 (9th ed. 2009) (defining "quorum" as the "minimum number of members . . . who must be present for a deliberative assembly to legally transact business"); 13 Oxford English Dictionary 51 (2d ed. 1989) ("A fixed number of members of any body . . . whose presence is necessary for the proper or valid transaction of business"); Webster's New International Dictionary 2046 (2d ed. 1954) ("Such a number of the officers or members of any body as is, when duly assembled, legally competent to transact business"). But the fact that there are sufficient members participating to constitute a quorum does not necessarily establish that the larger body is properly constituted or can validly exercise authority.*fn4 In other words, that only two members must participate to transact business in the name of the group, does not establish that the group itself can exercise the Board's authority when the group's membership falls below three.
The Government nonetheless contends that quorum rules "ordinarily" define the number of members that is both necessary and sufficient for an entity to take an action. Brief for Respondent 20. Therefore, because of the quorum provision, if "at least two members of a delegee group actually participate in a decision . . . that should be the end of the matter," regardless of vacancies in the group or on the Board. Ibid. But even if quorum provisions ordinarily provide the rule for dealing with vacancies-i.e., even if they ordinarily make irrelevant any vacancies in the remainder of the larger body-the quorum provisions in §3(b) do no such thing. Rather, there is a separate clause addressing vacancies. The vacancy clause, recall, provides that "[a] vacancy in the Board shall not impair the right of the remaining members to exercise all of the powers of the Board." §153(b) (2006 ed.). We thus understand the quorum provisions merely to define the number of members who must participate in a decision, and look to the vacancy clause to determine whether vacancies in excess of that number have any effect on an entity's authority to act.
Some courts have nonetheless interpreted the quorum and vacancy provisions of §3(b) by analogizing to an appellate panel, which may decide a case even though only two of the three initially assigned judges remain on the panel. See Photo-Sonics, Inc. v. NLRB, 678 F. 2d 121, 122--123 (CA9 1982). The governing statute provides that a case may be decided "by separate panels, each consisting of three judges," 28 U. S. C. §46(b), but that a "majority of the number of judges authorized to constitute a court or panel thereof . . . shall constitute a quorum," §46(d). We have interpreted that statute to "requir[e] the inclusion of at least three judges in the first instance," but to allow a two-judge "quorum to proceed to judgment when one member of the panel dies or is disqualified." Nguyen v. United States, 539 U. S. 69, 82 (2003). But §46, which addresses the assignment of particular cases to panels, is a world apart from this statute, which authorizes the standing delegation of all the Board's powers to a small group.*fn5 Given the difference between a panel constituted to decide particular cases and the creation of a standing panel plenipotentiary, which will decide many cases arising long after the third member departs, there is no basis for reading the statutes similarly. Moreover, our reading of the court of appeals quorum provision was informed by the longstanding practice of allowing two judges from the initial panel to proceed to judgment in the case of a vacancy, see ibid., and as we have already explained, the Board's practice has been precisely the opposite.
Finally, we are not persuaded by the Government's argument that we should read the statute to authorize the Board to act with only two members in order to advance the congressional objective of Board efficiency. Brief for Respondent 26. In the Government's view, Congress' establishment of the two-member quorum for a delegee group reflected its comfort with pre-Taft-Hartley practice, when the then-three-member Board regularly issued decisions with only two members. Id., at 24. But it is unsurprising that two members regularly issued Board decisions prior to Taft-Hartley, because the statute then provided for a Board quorum of two. See 29 U. S. C. §153(b) (1946 ed.). Congress changed that requirement to a three-member quorum for the Board. As we noted above, if Congress had wanted to allow the Board to continue to operate with only two members, it could have kept the Board quorum requirement at two.*fn6
We are not insensitive to the Board's understandable desire to keep its doors open despite vacancies.*fn7 Nor are we unaware of the costs that delay imposes on the litigants. If Congress wishes to allow the Board to decide cases with only two members, it can easily do so. But until it does, Congress' decision to require that the Board's full power be delegated to no fewer than three members, and to provide for a Board quorum of three, must be given practical effect rather than swept aside in the face of admittedly difficult circumstances. Section 3(b), as it currently exists, does not authorize the Board to create a tail that would not only wag the dog, but would continue to wag after the dog died.
"A vacancy in the Board shall not impair the right of the remaining members to exercise all of the powers of the Board . . . ."
As the Court acknowledges, ante, at 4, the three-member group of Members Liebman, Schaumber, and Kirsanow were a "group designated pursuant to the first sentence" of §153(b). As such, a two-member quorum of that group had statutory authorization to issue orders; and that is precisely what Members Liebman and Schaumber did. Because the group was properly designated under §153(b) and a two-member quorum of the group was authorized to act under the statute's plain terms, its actions were lawful. See Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U. S. 249, 253--254 (1992) ("[I]n interpreting a statute a court should always turn first to one, cardinal canon before all others. . . . [C]courts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says").
By its holding, the Court rejects a straightforward reading that it acknowledges is "textually permissible." Ante, at 6. It does so because, in its view, it is "structurally implausible." Ante, at 6-7. But the only textually permissible reading of §153(b) authorizes a two-member quorum of a delegee group to issue orders, as was done here; and in any event there is no structural implausibility in reading the statute according to its plain terms.
The Court in effect would rewrite the group quorum provision to say, "two members shall constitute a quorum of any group [unless the third member's absence is due to a vacancy]." Even if the statute said nothing about vacancies, this would be a misreading of the quorum provision. A "quorum" is the "minimum number of members . . . who must be present for a deliberative assembly to legally transact business." See Black's Law Dictionary 1370 (9th ed. 2009) (hereinafter Black's). As the Court has made clear in the past, quorum requirements are generally indifferent to the reasons underlying any particular member's absence. See Nguyen, 539 U. S., at 82.
For instance, the Court has previously discussed a statute governing the delegation of power to three-member panels of the federal courts of appeals. Ibid. That statute provides: "A majority of the number of judges authorized to constitute a court or panel thereof . . . shall constitute a quorum." 28 U. S. C. §46(d). While the statute makes no mention of vacancies, the Court had little trouble concluding that the statute "permits a quorum to proceed to judgment when one member of the panel dies or is disqualified." Nguyen, supra, at 82. The Court today offers to distinguish Nguyen as being "informed by the longstanding practice of allowing two judges from the initial panel to proceed to judgment in the case of a vacancy." Ante, at 12. But there was little if any reliance on any such practice in Nguyen. In noting that its conclusion was a matter of "settled law," the Court relied on the text of the statute and a single case that itself looked directly to the statutory text of §46(d). Nguyen, supra, at 82 (citing United States v. Allied Stevedoring Corp., 241 F. 2d 925, 927 (CA2 1957) (L. Hand, J.)).
Congress could have required a delegee group to maintain three members, but it did not do so; instead, it included a vacancy clause that is an explicit rejection of such a requirement. That is no doubt why the Court's reading has not been adopted by the five Courts of Appeals to have rejected its result. See Teamsters Local Union No. 523 v. NLRB, 590 F. 3d 849 (CA10 2009); Narricot Indus., L. P. v. NLRB, 587 F. 3d 654 (CA4 2009); Snell Island SNF LLC v. NLRB, 568 F. 3d 410 (CA2 2009); 564 F. 3d 840 (CA7 2009); Northeastern Land Servs., Ltd. v. NLRB, 560 F. 3d 36 (CA1 2009). While one court of appeals reached the same result as the Court, it too did not adopt the Court's reasoning that a delegee group must maintain three members. Laurel Baye Healthcare of Lake Lanier, Inc. v. NLRB, 564 F. 3d 469, 472-473 (CADC 2009) ("[T]his delegee group may act with two members so long as the Board quorum requirement is, 'at all times,' satisfied").
One likely reason Congress did not permit the Board to delegate its authority to two-member groups in the first instance is that Congress wanted to avoid two-member groups in the mine run of cases. Congress' statutory scheme achieved that goal, as the Court's review of the Board's historical practices aptly demonstrates. Ante, at 7-8. Congress nonetheless provided for two-member quorums to operate in extraordinary circumstances, where the Board has exercised its discretion to delegate its authority to a particular three-member group, and one member of such a group is unavailable for whatever reason. The Board's delegation to a three-member group that ultimately dwindled to two was a thoughtful and considerate exercise of its reasonable discretion when it was confronted with two imperfect alternatives.
The Court's final reason for its interpretation is the Board's longstanding practice of reconstituting panels whenever they drop below three members due to a vacancy. But see Photo-Sonics, Inc. v. NLRB, 678 F. 2d 121, 122-123 (CA9 1982) (upholding decision from a two-member delegee group after third member retired). The commonsense conclusion from this practice, however, is that the Board respects the superiority of three-member groups to two-member quorums of those groups. That the Board reconstitutes its panels to include three members does not demonstrate that a two-member group lacks the authority to act when recomposition is not an option.
The Court is mistaken, then, when it suggests that, if two-member quorums were permissible, the Board would have a practice of allowing two-member quorums to persist without reconstituting panels. Persuasive authority shows the contrary to be true. In 2003, the Office of Legal Counsel advised that two members can operate as a quorum of a properly designated group, even if the other seats on the Board are vacant. The Board agreed to be bound by that opinion. See Dept. of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Quorum Requirements, App. to Brief for Respondent 1a-3a. Six months later, Board Member Acosta resigned. See NLRB Bulletin, Ronald Meisburg Receives Recess Appointment From President Bush to be NLRB Member (Dec. 29, 2003). Despite OLC's opinion and the Board's position that two-member quorums could exercise the full powers of the Board, the Board prudently reconstituted each three-member panel on which Member Acosta served before his departure because there were enough members of the Board to do so. Its own prudent actions should not be used as a reason to strip the Board of a statutory power.
And a further instructive history comes from the practices of the original Board, before the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. The Wagner Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 451, provided for a three-member Board and contained a vacancy provision similar to the one found in §153(b): "A vacancy in the Board shall not impair the right of the remaining members to exercise all the powers of the Board, and two members of the Board shall, at all times, constitute a quorum." §3(b), 49 Stat. 451. Under this statutory grant of authority, from 1935 to 1947 a two-member quorum of the Board operated during three separate periods when the third seat was vacant, issuing nearly 500 two-member decisions during such times. Those two-member Boards issued 3 published decisions in 1936 (reported at 2 N. L. R. B. 198-240); 237 published decisions in 1940 (reported at 27 N. L. R. B. 1-1395 and 28 N. L. R. B. 1-115); and 225 published decisions in 1941 (reported at 35 N. L. R. B. 24-1360 and 36 N. L. R. B. 1-45); see also Brief for Respondent 3, n. 1.
Congress intended to preserve this practice when it enacted the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. The purpose of the Taft-Hartley amendment was to increase the Board's efficiency by permitting multiple three-member groups to exercise the full powers of the Board. See S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 8 (1947) ("The expansion of the Board . . . would permit it to operate in panels of three, thereby increasing by 100 percent its ability to dispose of cases expeditiously"). In furtherance of that objective, the new statutory language in §153(b) complements the congressional intent to preserve the ability of two members of the Board to exercise the Board's full powers, in limited circumstances, by permitting the Board to delegate "any or all" of its powers "to any group of three or more members," two members of which would constitute a quorum.
The petitioner, but not the Court, advances an alternative interpretation of §153(b) adopted by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. See Brief for Petitioner 16-27; Laurel Baye, 564 F. 3d 469. In the petitioner's view, §153(b) requires the Board to have a quorum of three members "at all times," and when the Board's quorum fell to two members any powers that it had delegated automatically ceased.
This is a misreading of the statute that the Court rightly declines to adopt. Ante, at 9-10, n. 4. As explained above, that the Board must meet a three-member quorum requirement at all times when it wishes to operate as the full Board does not mean it must maintain three members in order for delegee groups to act. It just means that the quorum requirement for the full Board, operating independently of any delegee group, is fixed at three, as opposed to the various dynamic quorum requirements found elsewhere in the United States Code. See, e.g., 28 U. S. C. §46(d) (setting the quorum requirements for courts of appeals at "[a] majority of the number of judges authorized to constitute a court or panel thereof"); see also Black's 1370 (defining "proportional quorum" as: "A quorum calculated with reference to some defined or assumed set, usu. either the number of seats (including vacancies) or the number of sitting members (excluding vacancies)").