Opinion ID: 2806515
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Board’s Present Assertion of Jurisdiction

Text: These are the relevant judicial precursors to the Board’s present assertion of jurisdiction under the NLRA. Relying on the “Tuscarora doctrine” and the new “discretionary jurisdictional standard” it adopted in its San Manuel decision, the Board exercised its discretion to hold the Little River Band’s Fair Employment Practices Code preempted by the NLRA. Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Tribal Gov’t, 359 NLRB No. 84 at  (2013). The Board concluded, in the discharge of its newly created interest-balancing duties, that the FEP Code need not be respected as an exercise of tribal sovereign authority because the Code governs, among other things, employment relations at a commercial enterprise operated by the Band, the Little River Casino Resort. Although the Resort is located and operated entirely within the reservation, nonIndians are employed there and non-Indians are customers there, and the Resort’s operation affects interstate commerce. Id. at –6. These factors were deemed sufficient to justify preemption by the NLRA and assertion of jurisdiction by the NLRB. The Board rejected the Band’s reliance on Pueblo of San Juan in challenging its assertion of jurisdiction. The Board characterized the Tenth Circuit’s decision as narrow and inapposite because it did not involve a federal law of general applicability—even though it involved application of the NLRB’s assertion of the very same NLRA to preempt a closely analogous tribal employment relations law. Id. at . In further explanation, the Board also noted its prerogative, pursuant to its “nonacquiescence policy,” to respectfully disagree with the Tenth Circuit. Id. at  n.8. In my opinion, the analysis employed by the Tenth Circuit in Pueblo of San Juan is true to the governing law and should be adopted in the Sixth Circuit as well. It is not necessary to recapitulate that reasoning here. Neither the Board nor the majority has identified error in the Tenth Circuit’s analysis. Tellingly, the Board has not asked us to apply the D.C. Circuit’s San Manuel hybrid approach in this case. Rather, it continues to pursue judicial approval of its new Tuscarora-Coeur d’Alene approach. The Tenth Circuit considered it and definitively rejected it. The D.C. Circuit considered it and demurred. Today, in the Sixth Circuit, the Board finds a sympathetic ear . . . notwithstanding Congress’s silence, notwithstanding the suspect origins of No. 14-2239 NLRB v. Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Tribal Govʼt Page 32 the Tuscarora-Coeur d’Alene “doctrine,” and notwithstanding the lack of any persuasive reason to depart from the traditional Indian law principles that the Supreme Court has consistently applied. This sympathy seems particularly ill-timed in view of the Supreme Court’s recent reaffirmation of the traditional principles in Bay Mills.