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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 28', '§ 2283', '§ 2283', '§ 2283', '§ 1337', '§ 10', '§ 160', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 64', '§ 2283', '§ 2283', '§ 2283', '§ 2283', '§ 2283', '§ 2283', '§ 2283', '§ 8', '§ 10', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 8', '§ 2283']

NLRB V. NASH-FINCH CO., 404 U. S. 138 - Volume 404 - 1971 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 404 > NLRB V. NASH-FINCH CO., 404 U. S. 138 (1971) > Full Text
2. For the purpose of preventing frustration of the National Labor Relations Act, the NLRB has an implied authority to obtain a federal injunction against state court action preempted by the
DOUGLAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and STEWART, MARSHALL, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined. WHITE, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 404 U. S. 148, in Part I of which BRENNAN, J., joined, post, p. 404 U. S. 156.
The question is whether the National Labor Relations Board may, through proceedings in a federal court, enjoin
When a union began organizing employees of certain stores in Grand Island, Nebraska, the union filed unfair labor practice charges against the company. The General Counsel issued a complaint. A hearing was held, and a Trial Examiner sustained the complaint and recommended that the company cease and desist. Shortly thereafter and before the Board had acted, the union picketed the stores. The company thereupon petitioned the Nebraska state court for an injunction. The state court issued a restraining order, limiting the pickets to two at each store, enjoining them from blocking or picketing entrances or exits and from distributing literature pertaining to the dispute which would halt or slow traffic, from instigating conversations with customers in any manner relating to the dispute, from mass picketing, from acts of physical coercion against persons driving to work, and from doing any act in violation of Neb.Rev.Stat. § 28-812, which makes unlawful "loitering about, picketing or patrolling the place of work . . . against the will of such person." The injunction also bans anyone other than a bona fide union member from picketing unless he becomes a defendant in the state proceedings. Finally, the injunction bars anyone, other than pickets and named defendants, from picketing, distributing handbills, or otherwise "caus[ing] to be published
The Board then filed this suit in the Federal District Court seeking to restrain the enforcement of the state court injunction on the ground that it regulated conduct which was governed exclusively by the National Labor Relations Act. As noted, both the District Court and the Court of Appeals denied the Board relief. The Court of Appeals held that, for the purposes of § 2283, the Board is "an administrative agency of the United States, and is not the United States." 434 F.2d at 975. Congress, from the beginning, has restricted the authority of the federal judiciary to interfere with state court actions. See Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 401 U. S. 434. The present § 2283 is a revision of earlier provisions of federal statutes which were construed to allow within limits such federal injunctions in favor of federal agencies. Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U. S. 503, 321 U. S. 510. Any exception in favor of federal agencies must, however, be "implied," ibid., unless it comes within the exceptions stated in § 2283.
It is suggested that this federal injunction was "in aid" of the jurisdiction of the federal court, since the suit is in the District Court by reason of 28 U.S.C. § 1337, which grants jurisdiction over "any civil action or proceeding arising under any Act of Congress regulating commerce." In Capital Service, Inc. v. NLRB, 347 U. S. 501, an employer invoked the aid both of a state court and of the federal Board against picketing. The Board sought a federal court injunction under § 10(l) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 160(l), which specifically allows it wherever an unfair labor practice respecting a secondary boycott or picketing violative of § 8(b)(4) or § 8(b)(7)
It has long been held that the Board, though not granted express statutory remedies, may obtain appropriate and traditional ones to prevent frustration of the purposes of the Act. We held in In re National Labor Relations Board, 304 U. S. 486, 304 U. S. 496, that, even in the absence of an express statutory remedy, the Board might petition for writ of prohibition against premature invocation
of the review jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals. In Amalgamated Workers v. Edison Co., 309 U. S. 261, we held that the Board had implied authority to institute contempt proceedings for violation of court decrees enforcing orders of the Board. In Nathanson v. NLRB, 344 U. S. 25, we found an implied authority of the Board to file claims in bankruptcy covering the sums included in its back-pay awards. The claims were not given priority under § 64(a)(5) of the Bankruptcy Act, but this was because "the United States [was] collecting for the benefit of a private party," id. at 344 U. S. 28, not as suggested, post at 404 U. S. 149, because the Board's juridical status was something less than that of the United States. [Footnote 2]
In Leiter Minerals, Inc. v. United States, 352 U. S. 220, a state suit over mineral rights in public lands was pending, the parties being private persons. The United States brought suit in the federal court to quiet title to the mineral rights and sought and obtained a federal injunction
Id. at 352 U. S. 225-226. In Leiter, the United States brought suit under the authority of the Attorney General. Here it is the Board that moved to prevent "irreparable injury to a national interest." The Board is the sole protector of the "national interest" [Footnote 3] defined with particularity in the Act. Leiter, of course, was initiated by the Attorney General, but underlying the controversy were federal agencies in the Department of the Interior responsible for administration of the public lands. The fact that the moving party was a federal agency, not the Attorney General, was
considered irrelevant in Bowles v. Willingham, supra, where the Administrator of the Emergency Price Control Act sued to enjoin a state court from interfering with orders of the federal agency. An exception from the general ban on federal injunctions against state court action was implied by reason of the fact that the method of review of the orders of the federal agency was in the Emergency Court of Appeals. But there was no suggestion that suit by or against the Administrator was not a suit of the United States. [Footnote 4] The purpose of § 2283 was to avoid unseemly conflict between the state and the federal courts where the litigants were private persons, not to hamstring the Federal Government and its agencies in the use of federal courts to protect federal rights. We can no more conclude here than in Leiter that a general statute, limiting the power of federal courts to issue injunctions, had as its purpose the frustration of federal systems of regulation. See Brown v. Wright, 137 F.2d 484, 488. The frustration of superior federal interests by the general language of § 2283 cannot reasonably be imputed. See NLRB v. Sunshine Mining Co., 125 F.2d 757, 762; NLRB v. New York State Board, 106 F.Supp.
Whether there are parts of the state court injunction
The National Labor Relations Board here sues in federal court to enjoin the enforcement of a state court injunction against picketing. [Footnote 2/1] Title 28 U.S.C. § 2283 bars such injunctions except in specified situations. One exception permits injunctions by a federal court which are "necessary in aid of its jurisdiction." The majority rightfully concedes that this exception is inapplicable
Leiter Minerals, Inc. v. United States, 352 U. S. 220 (1957), held that the restrictions of § 2283 do not apply to the Federal Government. The Board identifies itself with the United States, and therefore asserts that § 2283 is inapplicable to it. I cannot agree. The juridical status of the Board is not perfectly congruent with that of the United States. For example, although it may file claims for back pay in bankruptcy proceedings, it does not enjoy the priority accorded to debts owing to the United States. Nathanson v. NLRB, 344 U. S. 25 (1952). [Footnote 2/2] Leiter Minerals had nothing to do with the circumstances
in which an agency such as the NLRB should be treated as the United States; nor does that case purport to modify the rule of Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. J. G. Menihan Corp., 312 U. S. 81, 312 U. S. 85 (1941), that the intention of Congress to bestow the privileges and immunities of the United States on a federal agency must be clearly manifest. [Footnote 2/3] The authority of the Federal Government to secure an injunction in Leiter Minerals was implied under the judicial rule that a statute that divests preexisting rights or privileges will not be applied to the sovereign in the absence of explicit language. 352 U.S. at 352 U. S. 224. In the instant case, however, we deal with a statutorily defined agency created after the passage of § 2283 and possessing certain specified injunctive powers. The Board can claim no residual sovereignty such as that which was held in United States
Page 404 U. S. 151
v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 330 U. S. 272-273 (1947), to exempt the United States Government from the restrictions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, and, by a familiar rule of statutory construction, the enumeration of its injunctive powers should be held to preclude the existence of other powers. [Footnote 2/4] In light of the congressional disinclination to authorize anything more than extremely limited interferences with state court proceedings by federal courts, and in view of this Court's reluctance to approve such interference by way of the equitable powers of federal courts, Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 401 U. S. 445 (1971); Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 398 U. S. 281, 398 U. S. 286 (1970), implicit exceptions from § 2283 are, at best, suspect.
Section 8 of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, specifies unfair labor practices by employers and union. Section 9 provides for Board determination of bargaining units and employee representatives. Section 10 specifies the procedures to be employed in preventing unfair labor practice prohibited by § 8. Two aspects of § 10 are critical here. First, the Board is not granted unqualified powers to enforce the Act. The statute conditions Board
action against unfair labor practices upon the filing of a charge; it may not act on its own motion. The requirement is jurisdictional. Montgomery Ward & Co. v. NLRB, 385 F.2d 760, 763 (CA8 1967); Tea Industries, Inc. v. NLRB, 336 F.2d 128, 132 (CA5 1964); Int'l Union of Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers v. NLRB, 110 U.S.App.D.C. 91, 94, 289 F.2d 757, 760 (1960); Consumers Power Co. v. NLRB, 113 F.2d 38, 41-43 (CA6 1940); NLRB v. Hopwood Retinning Co., 98 F.2d 97, 101 (CA2 1938); NLRB v. National Licorice Co., 104 F.2d 655, 658 (CA2 1939), modified on other grounds, 309 U. S. 309 U.S. 350 (1940); Douds v. Int'l Longshoremen's Assn., 147 F.Supp. 103, 108 (SDNY 1956), aff'd, 241 F.2d 278 (CA2 1957). See also National Licorice Co. v. NLRB, 309 U. S. 350, 309 U. S. 369 (1940). The Board has no roving, unqualified power to prevent unfair labor practices or to enforce the provisions of § 7 declaring that employees shall have the right to organize, bargain collectively, and otherwise engage in concerted activities. In the case before us, no unfair labor practice charge arising out of the union's picketing has been filed, either by the union or by the employer. Yet the Board appeared in a federal court seeking an injunction seemingly aimed at protecting employee rights guaranteed by § 7. Second, after a charge has been filed and an unfair labor practice complaint has been issued, the Act grants the Board the power to seek "appropriate temporary relief or restraining order" from the courts. § 10(j). Further, § 10(l) specifies in even greater detail the circumstances under which temporary injunctions may be secured when charges under §§ 8(b)(4)(A), 8(b)(4)(B), 8(b)(4)(C), 8(e), or 8(b)(7) have been filed with the Board. Sections 10(e) and 10(f) define the powers of the Board and the courts to issue injunctions in connection with enforcement of Board orders after unfair labor practice have been adjudicated
In such a context, today's decision is improvident. As a statutory matter under the Labor Management Relations Act, the Board has no power to seek the injunction it now demands even absent the barriers established by § 2283. And under that section, it is error to clothe the
The employer in this case was subjected to picketing that it thought illegal and unprotected. It sought and was granted a state court injunction over protests that state judicial power was preempted by federal law and the exclusive jurisdiction of the NLRB. Rather than allowing the union to appeal the injunction through the state court system, and to this Court, if necessary, as the union would ordinarily have to do, Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, supra, the Court today permits the Board to short-circuit that process by securing a federal injunction solely upon allegations that the conduct of the union was arguably protected under federal law and was within the
Taggart v. Weinacker's, Inc., 397 U. S. 223, 397 U. S. 228 (1970) (BURGER, C.J., concurring) (emphasis in original).
The Board should not, therefore, be able to obtain an injunction by merely alleging that conduct is "arguably
protected" by the LMRA. This rationale for preempting the applicability of state law and the authority of state courts developed to protect the exclusive jurisdiction of the Board. Int'l Longshoremen' Assn., Local 116 v. Ariadne Shipping Co., 397 U. S. 195, 397 U. S. 201 (1970) (WHITE, J., concurring); Taggart v. Weinacker's, Inc., supra, at 397 U. S. 227-228 (BURGER, C.J., concurring). Where the Board is itself not only unwilling, but apparently powerless, to move against the challenged conduct, this rationale is a species of federal overkill, preempting the field to protect nothing. Of course, federal law remains paramount in it own arena, but if the Board has power to enforce it in this situation, it should be required to prove its case before obtaining an injunction, and should demonstrate that federal law has been violated and that equitable relief is necessary to prevent its frustration. An unwarranted and illogical lacuna in the legal regulation of labor-management relations should not be extended. The Board should not be entitled to an injunction against state court proceedings unless it persuades a federal court that the state decree is actually interfering with rights protected by federal law.
This rule has been frequently recognized by the Court, United States v. De la Maza Arredondo, 6 Pet. 691, 31 U. S. 724 (1832); Kendall v. United States, 107 U. S. 123, 107 U. S. 125 (1883); Newberger v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 311 U. S. 83, 311 U. S. 88 (1940).
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