Opinion ID: 427313
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the board's conduct

Text: 105 Petitioner alleges that the Board wilfully disregards or disagrees with judicial decisions on taxicab lessees in a manner so pervasive as to be intolerable if the rule of law is to prevail. 37 Brief for Petitioner at 44 (quoting Ithaca College v. NLRB, 623 F.2d 224, 228 (2d Cir.1980)). Petitioner suggests that we rein in the agency by asserting power under the Contempt Statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 401, add. 3a; the All Writs Act, id. Sec. 1651, add. 4; or by requiring the Board to promulgate prospective rules under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 706, add. 3. 106 The panel's conduct in the present case (Panello dissenting) does exhibit thinly veiled defiance of the precedent established by our decision in Seafarers on the application of common law to the facts. Having initially agreed with the ALJ that the facts of Seafarers and Suburban are not materially distinguishable, the majority of the panel nonetheless held the drivers to be employees. Only when Orlando seemed to suggest a way to circumvent Seafarers, through a specious application of the Orlando distinctions, did a plurality of the Board reassess its agreement with the ALJ's factual finding. Having now jettisoned the Board plurality's newly discovered factual distinctions, we are left to face the Board's effective refusal to apply the controlling precedent of this court to the facts at hand. 107 Such conduct by some members of the Board, as petitioner points out, is hardly new. Some members of the Board have historically arrogated to themselves the authority to disagree with judicial precedent. In this regard, we express agreement with the following statement by Judge Aldisert: 108 This petition for review of an order of the National Labor Relations Board requires us to review the actions of an agency that declines to follow our precedent while conceding applicability of that precedent. We hold that the NLRB must respect the applicable decisions of this court, and therefore we grant the petition for review and deny the Board's cross-petition for enforcement. 109