Court Opinion

ID: 9392036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-03 20:00:49.087108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:29.652010
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 19-12745   Document: 68-1    Date Filed: 05/03/2023   Page: 1 of 49

                                                           [PUBLISH]
                                 In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                         ____________________

                               No. 19-12745
                         ____________________

        INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS LOCAL
        947,
                                                            Petitioner,
        MATTHEW C. BROWN,
                                                           Intervenor,
        versus
        NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

                                                          Respondent,

        ANHEUSER-BUSCH BREWING PROPERTIES, LLC,
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                19-12745

                                                                 Intervenor.

                             ____________________

                     Petition for Review of a Decision of the
                         National Labor Relations Board
                            Agency No. 12-CA-094114
                            ____________________

        Before GRANT, MARCUS, and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.
        JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judge:
                After being ﬁred by his employer, Anheuser-Busch Compa-
        nies, LLC, Matthew Brown ﬁled suit in federal district court alleg-
        ing that his termination reﬂected racial discrimination and retalia-
        tion, in violation of Title VII. In response, Anheuser-Busch ﬁled a
        motion seeking to compel arbitration of Brown’s district court
        claims, asserting that at the time when he was hired, Brown had
        agreed to be bound by the company’s Dispute Resolution Policy,
        which policy required Brown to arbitrate any such claims against
        the company. Brown disagreed that he was required to arbitrate
        his claims, insisting that he was entitled to have his claims adjudi-
        cated via district court proceedings, including a jury trial.

               There is nothing unusual about an employer seeking to en-
        force an arbitration agreement to which the employer argues the
        suing employee is subject. Nor is it unheard of for the suing em-
        ployee to contest the enforceability of the particular arbitration
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        19-12745               Opinion of the Court                        3

        agreement. And when such disputes arise, the method of resolving
        them is fairly routine: the district court interprets the agreement
        to determine whether the employee can be required to pursue his
        claims via arbitration instead of through a judicial proceeding. Fur-
        ther, if the court concludes that the employer’s motion to compel
        arbitration was not only unmeritorious, but also frivolous, the
        court can levy sanctions against the employer.

               That is the standard protocol by which such disputes are re-
        solved. What one might not expect to happen is for a federal ad-
        ministrative agency to intrude itself into the proceedings and, prior
        to resolution by the district court, order the defendant employer to
        cease and desist any eﬀorts to require arbitration. But that is what
        happened here. And indeed there is precedent permitting the Na-
        tional Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) to direct per-
        sons under its jurisdiction—either management or a union—to
        cease their particular litigation eﬀorts. Moreover, during his em-
        ployment with Anheuser-Busch, Brown had been a member of a
        bargaining unit represented by a union—the International Broth-
        erhood of Teamsters. After Anheuser-Busch asked the district
        court to compel arbitration, Brown ﬁled an unfair labor practice
        charge with the NLRB, arguing that the defendant-employer’s ef-
        forts to enforce its arbitration agreement contravened the collec-
        tive bargaining agreement and constituted a unilateral change to
        the terms of Brown’s employment, in violation of the National La-
        bor Relations Act (“NLRA”). The district court action was stayed
        as a result of the ﬁling of this unfair labor practice charge.
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        4                       Opinion of the Court                  19-12745

                The Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) assigned to rule on
        the charge agreed and ordered Anheuser-Busch to withdraw por-
        tions of its motion to compel arbitration in the district court litiga-
        tion. The matter then moved to a review panel of the NLRB. In a
        split two-one decision, the NLRB dismissed the charge. The Board
        declined to determine whether Anheuser-Busch’s motion to com-
        pel arbitration contravened relevant portions of the NLRA, and
        thereby constituted an unfair labor practice. Instead, the Board
        held that even if Anheuser-Busch’s eﬀorts to compel arbitration
        were unlawful under the NLRA, the Petition Clause of the First
        Amendment generally protected its right to give it a try in the dis-
        trict court litigation. Further, the Board concluded that Anheuser-
        Busch’s motion to compel arbitration did not meet the exception
        to a litigant’s First Amendment right to petition that the Supreme
        Court had carved out in Bill Johnson’s Restaurants, Inc. v. NLRB, 461
        U.S. 731 (1983) [hereinafter “Bill Johnson’s”], which exception per-
        mits the Board to enjoin even reasonably-based lawsuits when the
        latter have “an objective that is illegal under federal law.” Bill John-
        son’s, 461 U.S. at 737 n.5.

               After careful review, and with the beneﬁt of oral argument,
        we hold that the Board applied an erroneously narrow standard for
        determining whether Anheuser-Busch’s motion had an illegal ob-
        jective. We therefore grant the petition for review of the Board’s
        order dismissing the complaint, vacate the decision of the Board,
        and remand for consideration of whether enforcement of the Dis-
        pute Resolution Policy against Brown would violate the NLRA.
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        19-12745              Opinion of the Court                      5

        I.    BACKGROUND

              A.     The Terms of Brown’s Employment with An-
                     heuser-Busch

               Anheuser-Busch employed Brown as a “can line depal oper-
        ator.” Following disciplinary actions, Anheuser-Busch terminated
        Brown’s employment. Brown contends that these actions by An-
        heuser-Busch constituted racial discrimination. Any claims Brown
        has against his former employer are potentially governed by two
        agreements: (1) a Dispute Resolution Policy he agreed to as an ap-
        plicant and (2) a Collective Bargaining Agreement that governs his
        employment conditions as a union employee.

                     1.    Anheuser-Busch’s Dispute Resolution Policy

                Brown signed an employment application when he applied
        for a job with Anheuser-Busch. The employment application
        states:

              I AGREE THAT IF I BECOME EMPLOYED BY THE
              COMPANY, AND UNLESS A WRITTEN
              CONTRACT PROVIDES TO THE CONTRARY,
              ANY CLAIM I MAY HAVE AGAINST THE
              COMPANY WILL BE SUBJECT TO FINAL AND
              BINDING ARBITRATION IN ACCORDANCE
              WITH THE COMPANY’S DISPUTE RESOLUTION
              PROGRAM, AND THAT ARBITRATION WILL BE
              THE EXCLUSIVE METHOD I WILL HAVE FOR
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                 19-12745

               FINAL AND BINDING RESOLUTION OF ANY
               SUCH CLAIM.

               As to which employees are covered, the Dispute Resolution
        Policy (sometimes referred to as the “DRP”) states it applies “to all
        salaried and non-union hourly employees of Anheuser-Busch
        Companies Inc.” Anheuser-Busch hired Brown. Notably, Brown
        was a union employee subject at all times during his employment
        to the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiated between An-
        heuser-Busch and the Union.

                An employee subject to the Dispute Resolution Policy—that
        is, salaried and non-union employees—“must submit his or her dis-
        pute to the [Dispute Resolution Program]” when informal eﬀorts
        to resolve their dispute are unsuccessful. The dispute resolution
        process has three levels for “Covered Claims”: Level 1 – Local Man-
        agement Review; Level 2 – Mediation; and Level 3 – Binding Arbi-
        tration. Relevant to this appeal, “Covered Claims” include
        “[e]mployment discrimination and harassment claims based on . . .
        race.” If a covered claim proceeds to Level 3, “[t]he arbitrator’s de-
        cision is the ﬁnal, binding and exclusive remedy for the Employee’s
        covered claim(s) and is equally ﬁnal and binding upon the Com-
        pany.” Thus, the Dispute Resolution Policy precludes employees
        from bringing employment discrimination claims in federal court,
        meaning that, were he subject to the policy, Brown would have
        been required to submit his employment discrimination and retal-
        iation claims to binding arbitration.
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        19-12745               Opinion of the Court                         7

                     2.     The Collective Bargaining Agreement

               The Collective Bargaining Agreement (sometimes referred
        to as the “CBA”) negotiated by the Union on behalf of union em-
        ployees like Brown has its own procedures for resolving employee
        disputes arising under this contract. Article 8 of the Collective Bar-
        gaining Agreement establishes a “Grievance Procedure” to resolve
        diﬀerences between Anheuser-Busch and the Union or employees
        covered by the Agreement regarding: “(a) Any matter relating to
        wages, hours of work, or working conditions covered by this
        Agreement; or (b) Any matter involving the meaning, interpreta-
        tion, application or alleged violation of this Agreement by the
        Company.”

              The Collective Bargaining Agreement provides that “[t]he
        Company and the Union must resort to the use of the grievance
        and arbitration procedure established [in Article 8].” The grievance
        procedure of Article 8 provides for informal resolution of disputes
        followed by a three-step process. The third and ﬁnal step in the
        process is submission of the dispute to a Multi-Plant Grievance
        Committee. If a dispute makes it to Step 3, “[d]ecisions of the
        M.P.G.C. shall be ﬁnal and binding on all parties with no further
        appeal.”

              B.     Brown’s EEOC Charge, Termination, and Griev-
                     ance

             Brown was the subject of disciplinary action during his em-
        ployment at Anheuser-Busch. He initially received a Notice of
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        8                     Opinion of the Court                19-12745

        Violation of Plant Rules and Regulations grounded on “Refusal to
        Perform.” It stated Brown “refused to comply with [his] manager’s
        instruction and direct order to go to [his] job assignment on Line 1
        Filler.” The Union ﬁled a grievance contesting the notice of viola-
        tion and the grievance proceeded to Step 3 before the Multi-Plant
        Grievance Committee. The Multi-Plant Grievance Committee de-
        nied the grievance, stating “[r]efusal of a work order is one of the
        most serious industrial oﬀenses.”

                Five days before the Multi-Plant Grievance Committee de-
        nied his grievance, Brown ﬁled a Charge of Discrimination with
        the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He alleged ra-
        cial discrimination in violation of Title VII, complaining that he
        had received a four-week suspension for insubordination whereas a
        white male had received only a one-week suspension for insubordi-
        nation from a diﬀerent manager.

               A few weeks after returning to work following his suspen-
        sion, an incident occurred on Brown’s canning line. Speciﬁcally,
        Brown failed to notify the Line 3 ﬁller operator of a can/beer
        change, causing 1,281 cases of Busch Light to be packaged in Nat-
        ural Light cans and resulting in the beer having to be dumped. An-
        heuser-Busch charged Brown with “Inattention to Duty” and sub-
        sequently terminated his employment.

                The Union ﬁled a grievance seeking to “Remove Discipline
        and make Matt Brown whole as per the CBA.” The grievance
        stated:
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        19-12745               Opinion of the Court                        9

              The grievant did not receive or sign for the split load
              in question. The grievant’s previous 4 week suspen-
              sion jumped progressive discipline. This incident,
              while serious, should not have resulted in termina-
              tion. Similar holds this year in Jacksonville have not
              resulted in discipline being issued. Therefore Mr.
              Brown has not received discipline in a fair and impar-
              tial manner for just and suﬃcient cause. Mr. Brown
              has had to endure disparate treatment.

              Following the Union’s ﬁling of a grievance, Brown ﬁled a
        second Charge of Discrimination with the EEOC, alleging that An-
        heuser-Busch discharged him in retaliation for having ﬁled his orig-
        inal EEOC charge. He alleged that two of his co-workers were
        merely put on notice and not discharged for their actions.

               The Union’s grievance on behalf of Brown proceeded
        through Step 3 binding arbitration before the Multi-Plant Griev-
        ance Committee. Ultimately, a majority of the panel denied the
        grievance: “The Panel ﬁnds that the Grievant was well aware of
        the split load, and that he had the primary responsibility for it. In
        this case the Company did not abuse its authority by following its
        pattern of progressive discipline.” Thus, the Multi-Plant Grievance
        Committee rejected the Union’s grievance and concluded that An-
        heuser-Busch’s decision to ﬁre Brown was justiﬁed.

              C.     Brown’s Federal District Court Action
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                 19-12745

               Operating on a separate track, the EEOC subsequently is-
        sued Brown a “Notice of Right to Sue” regarding each of his
        charges of race discrimination and retaliation. Brown thereafter
        ﬁled a three-count Complaint in the Middle District of Florida al-
        leging racial discrimination and retaliation based on his four-week
        suspension and subsequent termination. Count I alleges “Racially
        Discriminatory Suspension In Violation of Title VII, § 1981, and
        FCRA,” (i.e. the Florida Civil Rights Act). Count II alleges “Racially
        Discriminatory Termination In Violation of Title VII, § 1981, and
        FCRA.” Count III alleges “Retaliatory Termination In Violation of
        Title VII, § 1981, and FCRA.” Brown’s racial discrimination claims
        assert that Brown received greater discipline than comparably situ-
        ated white employees who had committed similar violations.
        Brown’s retaliation claim asserts that he engaged in protected ac-
        tivity when he ﬁled his original EEOC charge regarding the four-
        week suspension, that Anheuser-Busch managers were aware of
        the charge, and that Anheuser-Busch terminated him in retaliation
        for ﬁling the charge.

               In response, Anheuser-Busch ﬁled a motion to compel arbi-
        tration arguing that the Collective Bargaining Agreement and the
        Dispute Resolution Policy required Brown to arbitrate his discrim-
        ination claims. As to the speciﬁc issue now before us, Anheuser-
        Busch argued that “Brown agreed to arbitrate his race discrimina-
        tion and retaliation claims under the DRP” by virtue of signing his
        employment application. Anheuser-Busch acknowledged that the
        employment application stated that disputes would be resolved
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        19-12745               Opinion of the Court                       11

        pursuant to the DRP “unless a written contract provides to the con-
        trary,” but it maintained that “[t]he CBA does not provide ‘to the
        contrary’—like the DRP, it requires mandatory arbitration.” An-
        heuser-Busch further acknowledged in a footnote that the Dispute
        Resolution Policy states that it applies to “all salaried and non-un-
        ion hourly employees,” but argued that the Dispute Resolution Pol-
        icy does not prohibit union-represented employees from agreeing
        to arbitrate statutory claims pursuant to the DRP.

               Brown opposed the motion, arguing that he was not re-
        quired to arbitrate his Title VII claims pursuant to the Dispute Res-
        olution Policy. He noted that although the Collective Bargaining
        Agreement required him to arbitrate any alleged violations of the
        contractual obligations set out in the agreement, it did not require
        arbitration of Brown’s statutory Title VII discrimination claims. In
        support of this position, Brown cited to Supreme Court caselaw
        holding that an individual does not forfeit a private statutory cause
        of action by pursuing his contractual grievance to ﬁnal arbitration
        under a nondiscrimination clause of a collective-bargaining agree-
        ment. See 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, 556 U.S. 247, 260–64 (2009)
        (distinguishing between contractual and statutory rights).

               With respect to the Dispute Resolution Policy, Brown ar-
        gued that basic contract principles precluded its enforcement, that
        it did not compel arbitration because it expressly states it applies
        only to salaried and non-union employees, and that Anheuser-
        Busch’s “attempt to impose a non-negotiated grievance procedure
        diﬀering from the [Collective Bargaining Agreement] constitutes a
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        12                          Opinion of the Court                         19-12745

        grievous breach of its obligations under the National Labor Rela-
        tions Act.” Brown asserted “[a]s the DRP diﬀers from the griev-
        ance procedures of the [Collective Bargaining Agreement] and was
        not the product of negotiation with the Union, Defendant’s at-
        tempt to now force bargaining-unit members like Plaintiﬀ to resort
        to it constitutes a unilateral change by it concerning a mandatory
        subject of bargaining.” Brown emphasized that the grievance pro-
        cedures of the collective bargaining agreement “do not cover stat-
        utory employment claims nor do they provide that in the event em-
        ployees pursue such claims they will be obligated to do so under
        the terms of [Anheuser-Busch’s] DRP.”

                D.      Brown’s Unfair Labor Practice Charge

                        1.       The Parties’ Positions

               Several months after brieﬁng on the motion to compel arbi-
        tration had concluded, Brown ﬁled an unfair labor practice charge
        with the National Labor Relations Board. He alleged that An-
        heuser-Busch violated Sections 8(a)(5) and 8(a)(1) of the National
        Labor Relations Act 1 by applying the Dispute Resolution Policy to
        him without having aﬀorded his union an opportunity to bargain

        1 Section 8(a) defines unfair labor practices by an employer. 29 U.S.C. § 158(a).
        Section 8(a)(5) specifies that it is an unfair labor practice for an employer “to
        refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees.” Id.
        § 158(a)(5). Section 8(a)(1) specifies that it is an unfair labor practice “to inter-
        fere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights” to organ-
        ize and collectively bargain pursuant to Section 157 (29 U.S.C. § 157) of the
        Act. Id. § 158(a)(1).
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        19-12745               Opinion of the Court                        13

        over the question whether such a policy should apply to its mem-
        bers.

                A Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board
        thereafter issued a complaint and notice of hearing against An-
        heuser-Busch. The Director contended that when Anheuser-Busch
        ﬁled its motion to compel arbitration of Brown’s federal race dis-
        crimination claims pursuant to the Dispute Resolution Policy, it
        changed the terms and conditions of employment for union em-
        ployees without giving prior notice to the Union and without af-
        fording the Union an opportunity to bargain and, as such, violated
        Sections 8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act. As relief for this violation, the
        Director sought to have Anheuser-Busch withdraw that portion of
        its district court motion that requested Brown’s claims be arbi-
        trated pursuant to the Dispute Resolution Policy.

               In response, Anheuser-Busch argued that “[r]eading Sections
        8(a)(5), 8(d), and 9(a) of the Act together, an employer is only re-
        quired to bargain with a union over ‘terms and conditions of em-
        ployment’ for ‘employees’ in a ‘unit appropriate for such pur-
        poses.’” Anheuser-Busch asserted that it did not have an obligation
        to bargain with the Union because Brown, who was merely an ap-
        plicant for employment, was not a member of the Union when he
        agreed to arbitrate claims pursuant to the Dispute Resolution Pol-
        icy, and, having been ﬁred, he was “no longer an ‘employee’ as de-
        ﬁned by Section 2(3) of the Act” when he ﬁled his Title VII claims.
        Anheuser-Busch reasoned that there was “no basis for concluding
        that a Section 8(a)(5) violation of the Act occurred when the
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        14                    Opinion of the Court                19-12745

        Respondent’s dispute resolution policy was applied to a non-bar-
        gaining unit member” in a way that did not vitally aﬀect current
        bargaining members.

                     2.     The Administrative Law Judge Finds That An-
                            heuser-Busch Committed an Unfair Labor
                            Practice by Moving to Enforce the Dispute
                            Resolution Policy Against Brown

               Following an evidentiary hearing, the ALJ assigned to the
        case issued a decision ﬁnding that Anheuser-Busch violated both
        Sections 8(a)(5) and 8(a)(1) of the Act by applying the Dispute Res-
        olution Policy to Brown while he was an employee without prior
        notice to the Union and without aﬀording the Union an oppor-
        tunity to bargain over the policy. The ALJ concluded that “[t]he
        establishment of a dispute resolution program, or, the unilateral
        application, or attempted application, of such a program for unit
        employees is a mandatory subject of bargaining because it requires
        employees to arbitrate terms and conditions of their employment,
        including suspension and discharge.” The ALJ noted that “[t]he
        Company does not dispute it took the unilateral action.”

               The ALJ rejected Anheuser-Busch’s argument that it had no
        duty to bargain because Brown was not a union “employee” during
        his pre-employment application process and that Brown did not
        meet the requirements to qualify as an employee under section 2(3)
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        19-12745                     Opinion of the Court                            15

        after he was terminated. 2 The ALJ noted that the Act’s deﬁnition
        of “employee” was broad and included applicants and former em-
        ployees. Accordingly, the ALJ concluded that Brown was an “em-
        ployee” within the meaning of the Act when he was an applicant
        and that he was still an “employee” when Anheuser-Busch ﬁled its
        motion to compel arbitration two years after Brown’s termination
        for cause. Among other remedies, the ALJ ordered Anheuser-
        Busch to withdraw that portion of its defense to Brown’s lawsuit
        requesting the district court to compel arbitration of Brown’s
        claims.

                          3.      The Board Holds That Anheuser-Busch’s Mo-
                                  tion Is Protected by the First Amendment’s Pe-
                                  tition Clause

               Objecting to enforcement of the ALJ’s order, Anheuser-
        Busch ﬁled exceptions to that decision with the Board. Among
        other arguments, Anheuser-Busch asserted that the ALJ misapplied
        labor law principles in two respects. First, Anheuser-Busch argued

        2   Section 2(3) provides in part:
                  The term “employee” shall include any employee, and shall
                  not be limited to the employees of a particular employer, un-
                  less this subchapter explicitly states otherwise, and shall in-
                  clude any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence
                  of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because
                  of any unfair labor practice, and who has not obtained any
                  other regular and substantially equivalent employment . . . .

        29 U.S.C. § 152(3).
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        16                      Opinion of the Court                  19-12745

        that the ALJ had misinterpreted the relevant NLRA provisions
        when it concluded that Brown was at all relevant times an “em-
        ployee” within the meaning of the Act and, as a result, had deter-
        mined that Anheuser-Busch violated Section 8 when it sought to
        arbitrate Brown’s district court claims without negotiating with the
        Union. Anheuser-Busch also argued that the ALJ had erred when
        it failed to determine whether applying the Dispute Resolution Pol-
        icy to Brown signiﬁcantly aﬀected current bargaining unit employ-
        ees.

               The above issues are not before this Court on appeal. What
        is before the Court arises from Anheuser-Busch’s remaining claim
        of error: speciﬁcally, that the ALJ’s order requiring Anheuser-
        Busch to withdraw its motion to compel arbitration pursuant to
        the Dispute Resolution Policy violated Anheuser-Busch’s First
        Amendment Right to Petition.

               Defending the ALJ’s decision, the NLRB’s General Counsel
        contended that the ALJ’s order did not violate the First Amend-
        ment because Anheuser-Busch’s motion to compel arbitration fell
        within Bill Johnson’s footnote 5 provision, which permits the NLRB
        to enjoin lawsuits that have “an objective that is illegal under fed-
        eral law.” Bill Johnson’s, 461 U.S. at 737 n.5. Speciﬁcally, the General
        Counsel maintained that Anheuser-Busch’s motion to compel arbi-
        tration had an illegal objective because it sought to enforce a Dis-
        pute Resolution Policy that it had sprung on an employee applicant
        without having ever given the Union an opportunity to bargain
        concerning whether its members would be required to arbitrate all
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        19-12745                  Opinion of the Court                              17

        statutory causes of action. That being so, Anheuser-Busch’s posi-
        tion “aﬀected the rights of bargaining unit employees in violation
        of Section 8(a)(5) of the Act.”

                Upon review, the Board disagreed with the General Counsel,
        issuing a two-to-one decision reversing the ALJ’s determination
        that Anheuser-Busch had engaged in an unfair labor practice. No-
        tably, the Board declined to address the merits of Brown’s charge—
        that is, whether Anheuser-Busch had engaged in an unfair labor
        practice by seeking to enforce an arbitration agreement that the
        Union had never okayed via a collective bargaining agreement.3
        Rather than address the merits, the Board determined that An-
        heuser-Busch’s motion to compel was protected by the Petition
        Clause of the First Amendment in accordance with Bill Johnson’s
        reasoning. In essence, the Board concluded that the ﬁling before a
        judicial forum of a motion to compel arbitration could not, by it-
        self, trigger the illegal objective exception that would permit the
        Board to enjoin the motion’s prosecution.

                After reviewing prior Board decisions—albeit none of the
        cases cited in Bill Johnson’s footnote 5 as examples of suits having an
        illegal objective—the Board concluded that “the enforcement of a

        3  The Board stated in footnote 9 that “[i]n light of our conclusion that the
        Petition Clause resolves this case, a finding that does not turn on Brown’s em-
        ployment status or membership in the bargaining unit at the time the Motion
        to Compel was filed, we need not address those issues. Further, our dismissal
        of the complaint moots the General Counsel’s and Charging Party’s cross-ex-
        ceptions seeking additional remedies.”
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        18                     Opinion of the Court                  19-12745

        policy or contractual provision is not an illegal objective if the pol-
        icy or provision is not itself illegal.” The majority concluded:

               Here, the DRP is not alleged to be facially unlawful.
               The sole violation alleged is the manner in which the
               Respondent sought to apply it to Brown, i.e., by ﬁling
               a motion in court without giving the Union notice
               and an opportunity to bargain. The General Counsel
               cites no case in which the Board has found that a court
               ﬁling had an “illegal objective” solely because the ﬁl-
               ing itself amounted to a unilateral change. Compare
               Regional Construction Corp., 333 NLRB [313,] 320
               [(2001)] (referring to “an[] underlying act by the Re-
               spondent which would be a violation of some federal
               law”) (emphasis added). Here, there is no “underly-
               ing act,” only the Motion to Compel itself.

        Thus, the majority found an injunction appropriate only if there is
        an illegal “underlying act.” And the majority “position is that the
        ﬁling of the motion did not have an illegal objective within the
        meaning of the Supreme Court’s Petition Clause jurisprudence be-
        cause the DRP is lawful, and therefore [Anheuser-Busch], by ﬁling
        its motion, did not ask the court ‘to countenance an[] underlying
        act by the Respondent which would be a violation of some federal
        law.’” To hold otherwise, the majority declared, “would swallow
        the rule of Bill Johnson’s and turn the Petition Clause of the First
        Amendment into an empty promise.”
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        19-12745               Opinion of the Court                        19

               A dissenting Board member strongly disagreed, arguing that
        Anheuser-Busch’s motion clearly had an illegal objective because
        Anheuser-Busch “sought to impose its Dispute Resolution Policy
        (DRP) on a discharged bargaining unit employee . . . after he ﬁled
        a racial-discrimination lawsuit challenging his termination,” appli-
        cation of which policy “was directly contrary to the applicable col-
        lective-bargaining agreement that governed Brown’s employment,
        and it unilaterally changed his terms and conditions of employ-
        ment in violation of the National Labor Relations Act.” In short,
        the dissent concluded that the Board could and should enjoin pros-
        ecution of Anheuser-Busch’s motion as a violation of Sections
        8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act because Anheuser-Busch “sought to im-
        plement—with the aid of the federal court’s authority—a unilat-
        eral change that it could not lawfully implement otherwise.” The
        dissent further noted that “advocating for a result that would violate
        the law does, in fact, constitute an illegal objective.”

        II.   DISCUSSION

               The Petitioner Union, joined by Intervenor Brown, petitions
        for review of the Board’s decision that the First Amendment’s Pe-
        tition Clause protects Anheuser-Busch’s motion to compel arbitra-
        tion pursuant to the Dispute Resolution Policy. Petitioner contends
        that the NLRB’s decision to the contrary is not the product of rea-
        soned decision-making, noting that Anheuser-Busch’s motion to
        compel clearly had an illegal objective: that is, to change the terms
        of Brown’s employment in contravention of the Collective Bar-
        gaining Agreement without ﬁrst bargaining with the Union.
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        20                     Opinion of the Court                  19-12745

               We review the Board’s legal conclusions de novo and its ﬁnd-
        ings of fact for substantial evidence. Ridgewood Health Care Ctr., Inc.
        v. NLRB, 8 F.4th 1263, 1274 (11th Cir. 2021). We will not enforce a
        Board decision that fails to engage in reasoned decisionmaking. Id.
        at 1275; see also Allentown Mack Sales & Serv., Inc. v. NLRB, 522 U.S.
        359, 374–75 (1998).

               A.     Caselaw Concerning Arbitration of Legal Causes
                      of Action by Union Members Against an Employer

               Collective bargaining agreements between a union and an
        employer govern the conditions of employment for the employee
        members of that union. Typically, such agreements call for arbi-
        tration of any grievance that arises from a dispute between the un-
        ion and the employer as to the parties’ compliance with the terms
        of the agreement. Thus, when Anheuser-Busch ﬁred Brown, his
        union ﬁled a grievance contesting the fairness of that decision and
        seeking Brown’s reinstatement. An arbitration board then resolved
        that grievance, concluding that Anheuser-Busch had just cause to
        ﬁre Brown.

                But that was not the end of the story. Brown then chose to
        ﬁle a race discrimination and retaliation claim under Title VII in
        federal court based on the same termination that was the subject
        of the grievance arbitration proceeding. The initial question a nov-
        ice to this process might ask is whether an employee whose griev-
        ance has been rejected can even ﬁle a subsequent legal action given
        that the arbitrator has already ruled that the termination was based
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        19-12745                  Opinion of the Court                             21

        on just cause. The answer to that question is “yes,” an employee
        can still pursue such a legal action.

               In Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Company, 415 U.S. 36, 49
        (1974), the Supreme Court rejected an employer’s election-of-rem-
        edies argument that an employee has forfeited his right to a judicial
        forum for claimed discriminatory discharge when that employee
        has ﬁrst pursued a grievance to ﬁnal arbitration under the nondis-
        crimination clause of a collective bargaining agreement. The Su-
        preme Court explained that a grievance is designed to vindicate a
        “contractual right” under a CBA, while a lawsuit under Title VII
        asserts independent statutory rights accorded by Congress.4 Id. at
        49–59. Thus, a union’s acceptance of a collective bargaining agree-
        ment provision calling for arbitration of grievances arising from an
        alleged contractual breach does not constitute a waiver of the em-
        ployee’s right to subsequently ﬁle a judicial action asserting a stat-
        utory Title VII violation based on the same adverse action that the
        grievance arbitrator had deemed to be justiﬁed, as “there can be no
        prospective waiver of an employee’s rights under Title VII.” Id. at
        51.

              The next question is whether, as a condition of employ-
        ment, the employer can require the union employee to arbitrate

        4  “In submitting his grievance to arbitration, an employee seeks to vindicate
        his contractual right under a collective-bargaining agreement. By contrast, in
        filing a lawsuit under Title VII, an employee asserts independent statutory
        rights accorded by Congress.” Alexander, 415 U.S. at 49–50.
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        22                     Opinion of the Court                19-12745

        any such statutory employment claims. Certainly, when a non-un-
        ion employee has agreed to arbitrate a statutory discrimination
        claim, that waiver of the employee’s right to a judicial forum for
        the claim can be enforced unless the statute itself forbids arbitra-
        tion. See Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U.S. 20, 26–27
        (1991) (holding that because Congress has not precluded the waiver
        of a judicial forum for ADEA claims, a plaintiﬀ employee’s agree-
        ment to arbitrate any controversy arising out of his employment
        or termination thereof was enforceable as to the employee’s age
        discrimination lawsuit).

                When, however, an employee pursuing a statutory employ-
        ment discrimination claim was a member of a union at the time of
        the alleged discrimination, the question whether that employee can
        be required to arbitrate the claim depends on what the collective
        bargaining agreement provides. As part of a collective bargaining
        agreement, a union can agree that its members be required to ar-
        bitrate statutory claims that would otherwise be litigated in a judi-
        cial forum. For such a waiver to be enforced, however, the agree-
        ment to arbitrate statutory antidiscrimination claims must be “ex-
        plicitly stated” in the collective bargaining agreement and the
        agreement must “clearly and unmistakably” require the union
        member to arbitrate such claims. See 14 Penn Plaza LLC, 556 U.S. at
        274.

               As noted, Brown was a member of the Union’s bargaining
        unit and there was nothing in its collective bargaining agreement
        with Anheuser-Busch calling for arbitration of an employee’s Title
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        19-12745                   Opinion of the Court                               23

        VII claims ﬁled as a cause of action in federal court. Given the lim-
        ited ruling by the Board relying solely on constitutional grounds, it
        is not our task to review the contractual merits of Anheuser-
        Busch’s motion to compel arbitration. That said, the above Su-
        preme Court authority, coupled with the absence of any express
        language in the Collective Bargaining Agreement calling for arbi-
        tration of statutory claims, would seemingly provide strong sup-
        port for Brown’s position that the Dispute Resolution Policy could
        not be enforced against him. 5

               But rather than advance these particular objections to arbi-
        tration in the district court, Brown and the Union chose to pursue
        the more indirect route of asking the NLRB to enjoin any eﬀorts
        by Anheuser-Busch to enforce the purported arbitration agree-
        ment between it and Brown. As noted, the Board declined to re-
        solve the unfair labor practice charge against Anheuser-Busch on

        5  Indeed, in a somewhat recent Title VII case ﬁled against Anheuser-Busch, a
        district court refused to compel arbitration of the Dispute Resolution Policy
        as a matter of both contractual interpretation and in reliance on 14 Penn Plaza’s
        requirement that a collective bargaining agreement must clearly and unmis-
        takably require union members to arbitrate their statutory discrimination
        claims in order for a court to require arbitration of those claims. The district
        court concluded that Anheuser-Busch met neither test. See Ode v. Anheuser-
        Busch, LLC, No. 19-cv-00233, 2020 WL 5405666 (N.D. Ga. Aug. 19, 2020) (Ray,
        J.), aﬀ’g Ode v. Anheuser-Busch, LLC, No. 19-cv-00233, 2020 WL 10692080 (N.D.
        Ga. Apr. 9, 2020) ( Johnson, Mag. J). The union in that case apparently did not
        pursue an unfair labor practice complaint based on Anheuser-Busch’s eﬀort to
        enforce its arbitration agreement. And Anheuser-Busch declined to pursue an
        appeal of the district court’s refusal to compel arbitration following the jury
        trial that resulted in a defense verdict.
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        24                         Opinion of the Court                         19-12745

        the merits, instead determining that the First Amendment pre-
        cluded it from enjoining Anheuser-Busch’s eﬀorts to compel arbi-
        tration even if the arbitration of Brown’s Title VII claims would
        violate the NLRA. That being so, the above caselaw regarding the
        impact of collective bargaining agreements on arbitration agree-
        ments provides context to this dispute, but it cannot resolve the
        constitutional question that is before us. We therefore proceed to
        analyze judicial and Board precedent addressing the impact of the
        First Amendment on the Board’s power to enjoin litigation pursued
        by either a union or management.

                B.      The Bill Johnson’s Standard and Its Exceptions

                The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make
        no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or . . . the right . . . to
        petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” U.S. Const.
        amend. I. “The First Amendment right to petition the government
        for a redress of grievances includes a right of access to the courts.” 6

        6  Brown argues that the Petition Clause does not apply to Anheuser-Busch’s
        motion to arbitrate because it is a defensive motion and “arbitration as be-
        tween non-governmental parties is a matter of contract, not a procedure pro-
        tected by the Petition Clause.” However, none of the parties raised this argu-
        ment before the Board. In any event, we see no reason why the Petition
        Clause should not apply to Anheuser-Busch’s defensive motion. See Freeman
        v. Lasky, Haas & Cohler, 410 F.3d 1180, 1184 (9th Cir. 2005) (“[A]sking a court
        to deny one’s opponent’s petition is also a form of petition.”); In re Burlington
        N., Inc., 822 F.2d 518, 532 (5th Cir. 1987) (finding with respect to Noerr-Penning-
        ton protection of litigation activities, “no reason to apply any different standard
        to defending lawsuits than to initiating them”).
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        19-12745                Opinion of the Court                         25

        DeMartini v. Town of Gulf Stream, 942 F.3d 1277, 1288 (11th Cir.
        2019) (quoting Bank of Jackson Cnty. v. Cherry, 980 F.2d 1362, 1370
        (11th Cir. 1993)). The right to petition the government for a redress
        of grievances is “one of the most precious of the liberties safe-
        guarded by the Bill of Rights,” BE & K Constr. Co. v. NLRB, 536 U.S.
        516, 524 (2002) and is “high in the hierarchy of First Amendment
        values.” DeMartini, 942 F.3d at 1288.

               One can reasonably assume that the ﬁling of a motion to
        compel arbitration will typically be protected as an exercise of the
        First Amendment right to petition. But in the context of labor re-
        lations law, that right is not absolute. Speciﬁcally, this case turns on
        whether Anheuser-Busch’s ﬁling of its motion to compel arbitra-
        tion constituted “an objective that is illegal under federal law.” Bill
        Johnson’s, 461 U.S. at 737 n.5. If so, the NLRB possessed the author-
        ity to direct Anheuser-Busch to cease pursuing that motion, not-
        withstanding what would otherwise be its right under the First
        Amendment’s Petition Clause to utilize that defense in the federal
        action brought against it by Brown.

               The basis for the Board’s authority to enjoin litigation, and
        limitations on that authority, arise from the Supreme Court’s deci-
        sion in Bill Johnson’s. In that case, a restaurant owner had ﬁled a
        state court tort lawsuit alleging that individuals protesting the ﬁr-
        ing of a waitress were engaged in harassing and dangerous picket-
        ing outside his establishment, as well as the distribution of a libel-
        ous leaﬂet. Id. at 733–34. In response, the waitress ﬁled an unfair
        labor practice charge with the Board claiming that her termination
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        26                     Opinion of the Court                  19-12745

        and the lawsuit were done in retaliation for her participation in pro-
        tected activities: that is, her eﬀorts to organize a union. Id. at 734–
        35. After considering the evidence, the ALJ issued a decision con-
        cluding that the owner’s suit lacked a reasonable basis and that it
        was ﬁled with the intent to penalize protected activity. Id. at 736,
        744. The Board upheld the ALJ decision and ordered the owner to
        withdraw his suit. Id. at 737. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
        enforced that order. Id.

                The question before the Supreme Court on certiorari was
        whether the NLRB could enjoin as an unfair labor practice “an [on-
        going] employer’s lawsuit that the federal law would not bar except
        for its allegedly retaliatory motivation.” Id. at 737 n.5. The Court
        concluded that the existence of a retaliatory motive, by itself, was
        insuﬃcient to permit the NLRB to enjoin the litigation: “The ﬁling
        and prosecution of a well-founded lawsuit may not be enjoined . .
        . even if it would not have been commenced but for the plaintiﬀ’s
        desire to retaliate against the defendant for exercising rights pro-
        tected by the [NLRA].” Id. at 743. Instead, Bill Johnson’s established
        a general rule that the NLRB can enjoin such a lawsuit only if the
        latter both lacked a reasonable basis and was ﬁled with a retaliatory
        motive. Id. at 748–49 (“[r]etaliatory motive and lack of reasonable
        basis are both essential prerequisites” for enjoining litigation).

                Nevertheless, the Court carved out two exceptions to Bill
        Johnson’s restriction of the Board’s power to enjoin litigation—or to
        state the matter aﬃrmatively, two situations in which the Board can
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        19-12745                   Opinion of the Court                               27

        enjoin litigation even if the litigation was not both retaliatory and
        baseless. The Court outlined the exceptions in footnote 5:

                It should be kept in mind that what is involved here is
                an employer’s lawsuit that the federal law would not
                bar except for its allegedly retaliatory motivation. We
                are not dealing with a suit that is claimed to be beyond
                the jurisdiction of the state courts because of federal-
                law preemption, or a suit that has an objective that is
                illegal under federal law. Petitioner concedes that the
                Board may enjoin these latter types of suits. Nor
                could it be successfully argued otherwise . . . .

        Id. at 737 n.5 (emphasis added and internal citations omitted).
        Translating the above, even if a lawsuit is not both baseless and ﬁled
        with a retaliatory motive—which would typically mean that it
        could not be enjoined—it may still be enjoined (1) if it is a state suit
        that is preempted by federal law or (2) if it is a suit that has an ob-
        jective that is illegal under federal law.

               In the present case, there seems to be no serious contention
        that Anheuser-Busch ﬁled its district court motion to compel out
        of any retaliatory motive. Like many employers, it simply prefers
        arbitration of Title VII claims over litigation in a judicial forum.7

        7 Whether the motion to compel arbitration is baseless is another question.
        Cf. DeMartini, 942 F.3d at 1300–01, 1304 (probable cause to initiate a civil law-
        suit requires “no more than a reasonable belief that there is a chance that a
        claim may be held valid upon adjudication,” and the presence of such probable
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        28                         Opinion of the Court                       19-12745

        Instead, the issue on appeal is whether Anheuser-Busch’s motion
        to compel arbitration was ﬁled with “an objective that is illegal un-
        der federal law,” and, if it was, the Board should have then directed
        Anheuser-Busch to cease its litigation of that motion. Id. As to this
        question, the Board concluded that the mere ﬁling by an employer
        of a motion to arbitrate an employee’s statutory discrimination
        claim does not meet the above standard. That is, the Board major-
        ity reasoned, there is nothing inherently illegal about arbitration
        agreements, as a general matter, and certainly nothing facially ille-
        gal about the particular arbitration agreement Anheuser-Busch
        was attempting to enforce in response to Brown’s federal Title VII
        suit. Thus, the Board concluded, absent some other illegal under-
        lying act, an employer’s eﬀorts to enforce such an agreement in the
        court where it has been sued by a purported party to that agree-
        ment does not constitute an objective that is illegal under federal
        law, and it therefore cannot give rise to an unfair labor practice.

               As explained below, the Board’s reasoning is at odds with its
        own precedent, as well as that of federal courts that have been
        called on to apply the Bill Johnson’s illegal-objective exception.

        cause will generally defeat, as a matter of law, a § 1983 First Amendment re-
        taliation claim based on the civil suit). But even assuming that Anheuser-
        Busch’s motion was baseless, this would not necessarily defeat application of
        the general Bill Johnson’s rule disallowing an injunction of the litigation be-
        cause the latter must be both baseless and filed with a retaliatory motive; and,
        as noted in text, there appears to be no basis for inferring a retaliatory motive
        on Anheuser-Busch’s part.
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        19-12745                Opinion of the Court                          29

               C.     Application of Bill Johnson’s “Illegal Objective”
                      Standard by Federal Courts and the NLRB

                On occasion, federal courts have been called upon to deter-
        mine whether litigation-type activity by unions or management—
        that is, the ﬁling of grievances, a request for arbitration before the
        NLRB, or the ﬁling of lawsuits or motions in a judicial forum—
        constitutes litigation that has an objective that is illegal under fed-
        eral law, meaning the litigation would lose protection under the
        Petition Clause and consequently the NLRB would be empowered
        to direct the ﬁling party to cease that litigation.

               In Truck Drivers, Oil Drivers, Filling Station & Platform Workers’
        Union Local 705 v. NLRB (Emery Air Freight), 820 F.2d 448 (D.C. Cir.
        1987), the union had ﬁled a grievance with the NLRB asking it to
        enforce a provision of the collective bargaining agreement that it
        argued required the employer to cease doing business with a sub-
        contractor that the union had tangled with in an unrelated labor
        matter. See id. at 451. Concluding that the union ﬁled the grievance
        with the motivation to improperly exert pressure on the employer
        to boycott a subcontractor who was not represented by the union,
        in violation of section 8(b)(4)(ii)(B), the Board ruled that the griev-
        ance was ﬁled with an objective that was illegal under federal law.
        Id. Accordingly, per Bill Johnson’s, the Board concluded that the un-
        ion had thereby committed an unfair labor practice. Id.

              The D.C. Circuit opinion, authored by Judge Silberman,
        agreed that the grievance may well have run afoul of Bill Johnson’s
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        30                     Opinion of the Court                 19-12745

        unlawful objective provision, but it clariﬁed the analysis that should
        be used in deciding this question. See id. at 452. Speciﬁcally, the
        court noted that it was irrelevant whether or not the union’s moti-
        vation was benign. Id. Instead, the focus had to be on whether the
        relief it was seeking was a lawful one. Id. And for the grievance to
        have had an illegal objective, the collective bargaining agreement
        provision that it sought to enforce must itself have been illegal. Id.
        Thus, the proper inquiry was whether the union’s interpretation of
        the provision in question would run afoul of the NLRA should that
        interpretation be adopted by the body deciding the merits of the
        grievance. Id. Moreover, an interpretation that would give rise to
        an illegal, “hot cargo” agreement would certainly violate Section
        8(e) of the Act and would therefore constitute litigation with an
        unlawful objective. Id. The court therefore remanded for the
        Board to “explicitly deal with [the union’s] primary argument that
        by ﬁling a grievance it was merely seeking enforcement of a lawful
        provision of its collective bargaining agreement.” Id. at 453.

                The D.C. Circuit conﬁrmed this approach again a few years
        later in Local 32B-32J, Service Employees International Union (Service
        Employees) v. NLRB, 68 F.3d 490 (D.C. Cir. 1995). There, in another
        secondary boycott situation, the union had sought arbitration over
        its claim that the employer had breached the collective bargaining
        agreement by failing to require a subcontractor to take certain ac-
        tions with regard to its own labor force. See id. at 493. With Judge
        Silberman again authoring the court’s opinion, the D.C. Circuit
        agreed that, like other forms of litigation, a request for arbitration
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        19-12745                Opinion of the Court                          31

        can constitute an unfair labor practice if it has an illegal objective
        under federal law. Id. at 495. And to rule that a particular arbitra-
        tion request has an illegal objective, the Board must determine that
        the particular interpretation being advanced by the party seeking
        arbitration would lead to an unlawful result should that interpreta-
        tion be accepted. Id. Therefore, in the context of the case before
        it, the precise question was whether the interpretation of the con-
        tract proposed by the union would violate § 8(e), as a “hot cargo”
        agreement—that is, an agreement that the employer would cease
        doing business with another person. Id. And the D.C. Circuit
        agreed with the Board’s conclusion that, if acceded to, the interpre-
        tation posed by the union would violate that provision of the Act.
        Id. at 495–96. Accordingly, the court concluded that the Board had
        correctly found that the union’s request for arbitration constituted
        an unfair labor practice. Id; see also Road Sprinkler Fitters Local Union
        No. 669 v. NLRB, No. 17-1159, 2018 WL 3040513, at *4 (D.C. Cir.
        June 1, 2018) (court aﬃrmed NLRB’s ﬁnding of an unfair labor
        practice under section 8(b)(4)(ii) based on the union’s ﬁling of a
        lawsuit and grievance against a neutral employee, noting that it did
        not matter that the merits of the claim had not previously been
        determined as “the interpretation the Union seeks is ‘itself ’ ille-
        gal—such as by interjecting contract obligations into employment
        relations where they do not apply;” and, accordingly, Bill Johnson’s
        footnote 5 applies); Small v. Operative Plasterers’ & Cement Masons’
        Int’l Ass’n Local 200, 611 F.3d 483, 492–93 (9th Cir. 2010) (union en-
        gaged in unfair labor practice by seeking, in state court, an order
        that employer had to assign certain work to its union employees
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        32                     Opinion of the Court                  19-12745

        even though the Board had determined that a diﬀerent union
        should be assigned the work under section 10(k); accordingly, a law-
        suit seeking to countermand that determination had an unlawful
        objective); Chauﬀeurs, Teamsters and Helpers Local 776 v. NLRB, 973
        F.2d 230, 236 (3rd Cir. 1992) (union that sued in district court to
        enforce an arbitration award that required employer to recognize it
        as the bargaining agent for employees committed an unfair labor
        practice in persisting in litigation eﬀorts, as union was pursuing an
        action it could not win, given the Board’s earlier rulings, and its
        continuing litigation sought an objective that was not lawful).

                Finally, in Bill Johnson’s footnote 5 itself, the Supreme Court
        oﬀered an example of the type of legal action that could be en-
        joined by the NLRB as seeking an illegal objective, stating, “we
        have upheld Board orders enjoining unions from prosecuting court
        suits for enforcement of ﬁnes that could not lawfully be imposed
        under the [National Labor Relations] Act.” 461 U.S. at 737 n.5. In
        support of that statement, the Court cited two cases: Granite State
        Joint Board, Textile Workers Union of America, 187 N.L.R.B. 636, 637
        (1970) (Textile Workers I), enforcement denied, 446 F.2d 369 (1st Cir.
        1971) (Textile Workers II), rev’d, 409 U.S. 213 (1972) (Textile Workers
        III) and Booster Lodge No. 405, Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace
        Workers v. NLRB, 412 U.S. 84, 85 (1973).

                In Textile Workers, the union had ﬁned its former members
        for strikebreaking conduct engaged in by them after the latter’s res-
        ignations as union members. Thereafter, the union sought judicial
        enforcement of these ﬁnes in New Hampshire state court, which
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        19-12745               Opinion of the Court                         33

        prompted the ﬁling of an unfair labor practice as a result of this
        action. See Textile Workers II, 446 F.2d at 371. The Board ruled that
        the union’s ﬁling of this litigation violated Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the
        Act. Textile Workers III, 409 U.S. at 215. Section 8(b)(1)(A) makes it
        unlawful for a labor organization “to restrain or coerce . . . employ-
        ees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed [them] in [Section 7 of
        the Act].” 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(1)(A). One right guaranteed in Sec-
        tion 7 of the Act is the right to refuse to undertake union activities.
        Id. § 157. Accordingly, the Board found that the union had com-
        mitted an unfair labor practice and, to remedy this violation, the
        Board ordered that the union cease and desist from seeking judicial
        enforcement of ﬁnes against these former union members. Textile
        Workers I, 187 N.L.R.B. at 637. The Court of Appeals denied en-
        forcement of the Board’s decision concluding that “no federal labor
        policy would be overridden by judicial enforcement of union ﬁnes
        in the context of this case” because it interpreted the Act to permit
        employees to waive their right to refuse to undertake union activi-
        ties and the employees had done so by previously voting to levy
        ﬁnes against anyone aiding or abetting the company during the
        strike. Textile Workers II, 446 F.2d at 374.

               The Supreme Court reversed, agreeing with the Board that
        the union’s imposition of a ﬁne against former members violated
        those members’ rights, as protected by the NLRA, and that the un-
        ion had, by seeking enforcement of those ﬁnes in court, committed
        an unfair labor practice. Textile Workers III, 409 U.S. at 217–18. In
        short, the Court concluded that the Board could properly enjoin a
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        34                     Opinion of the Court                19-12745

        lawsuit ﬁled to enforce a remedy that was unlawful under the
        NLRA. In the parlance of Bill Johnson’s, the union’s suit to enforce
        the strikebreaking ﬁne against former union members had the ille-
        gal objective of restraining those former members from exercising
        their statutory right to refuse to undertake union activities. That
        being so, the Board could enjoin the suit seeking to achieve a result
        that contravened the NLRA.

                As noted, the Supreme Court also cited Booster Lodge as an
        example of a suit that could be enjoined as seeking an illegal objec-
        tive. As in Textile Workers, the Board had held that a union violated
        Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the Act by ﬁning employees who had resigned
        from the union before returning to work during a strike, and ac-
        cordingly the Board ordered the union to cease its litigation seeking
        court enforcement of these ﬁnes. See Booster Lodge, 412 U.S. at 87.
        The Court of Appeals aﬃrmed the Board decision. See id. As with
        Textile Workers, the Supreme Court agreed that the Board decision
        correctly concluded that the union had engaged in an unfair labor
        practice by initiating law suits to collect ﬁnes against former union
        members because success on such claims would violate the NLRA.
        Id. at 89–90.

                In short, in the context of litigation implicating labor law,
        federal courts have followed the directive of the Supreme Court in
        concluding that the ﬁling of litigation—be it a lawsuit before a ju-
        dicial forum or a grievance or request for arbitration before the
        NLRB—can be enjoined by the NLRB when the object of that liti-
        gation is unlawful. And to determine whether the standard has
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        19-12745                   Opinion of the Court                               35

        been satisﬁed, these courts have looked to see whether the ruling
        that the litigant seeks before a court or the Board is one that, if
        granted by the decisionmaker, would violate the NLRA. We adopt
        and follow that same principle in deciding this case.

               Yet, the Board here made no inquiry whether compelled ar-
        bitration in this case would violate the NLRA. Instead, as noted,
        the Board concluded that to trigger the illegal-objective ground for
        enjoining litigation, there must be some additional “underlying
        act” beyond the ﬁling of the particular litigation in question. Un-
        fortunately, the Board oﬀered no hint as to what such an act might
        possibly be. Further, leaving aside the absence of any federal judi-
        cial authority in support of this “underlying act” gloss that the
        Board has placed on the Bill Johnson’s footnote 5 provision, it is
        seemingly a novel approach within the Board’s own precedent. In-
        deed, we are aware of no Board decision prior to this case that has
        shown any reluctance to enjoin 8 litigation to enforce a contract if
        enforcement in the manner advocated would violate the Act.

               For example, in Long Elevator, the Board found the union to
        have engaged in an unfair labor practice when it ﬁled a grievance
        seeking the Board’s endorsement of the union’s particular interpre-
        tation of the collective bargaining agreement. Int’l Union of

        8  We recognize that the Board lacks power to enjoin conduct in the same
        sense that a court does, but we use the term “enjoin” as shorthand for the
        Board’s directive that a party cease and desist from particular litigation activ-
        ity.
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        36                      Opinion of the Court                  19-12745

        Elevator Constructors (Long Elevator), 289 N.L.R.B. 1095, 1095–96
        (1988), enforced, NLRB v. Int’l Union of Elevator Constructors, 902 F.2d
        1297, 1308 (8th Cir. 1990). Although acknowledging the general
        rule articulated in Bill Johnson’s that would prohibit the Board from
        enjoining, as an unfair labor practice, a lawsuit that was not both
        baseless and retaliatory, the Board also noted the exception to this
        general rule when the litigation in question has an objective that is
        illegal under federal law. Id. And because the union’s interpreta-
        tion of the agreement, if accepted, would violate federal labor law,
        the Board directed the union to cease and desist from the particular
        litigation at issue. Id.

                The Board later recognized Long Elevator as illustrating a
        “category of cases which do ﬁt within the footnote 5 exception” of
        Bill Johnson’s when the Board adopted the ALJ’s decision in Regional
        Construction Corporation, 333 N.L.R.B. 313, 319 (2001). That deci-
        sion stated that when “the underlying contract is either facially il-
        legal or would be illegal as enforced, a lawsuit or grievance seeking
        to enforce such an illegal contract provision would itself be illegal
        under the footnote 5 exception of Bill Johnson’s.” Id. (emphasis
        added).

               Likewise, in Road Sprinkler, which is the D.C. Circuit case
        cited above, the NLRB had adopted an ALJ’s order enjoining a un-
        ion’s grievance and lawsuit to enforce its interpretation of a collec-
        tive bargaining agreement. Road Sprinkler Fitters Loc. Union 669, 365
        N.L.R.B. No. 83, 2017 WL 2274720, at *1 (May 23, 2017). Respond-
        ing to the union’s argument that its grievance and lawsuit should
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        19-12745              Opinion of the Court                       37

        not be enjoined because they were arguably meritorious, the order
        noted that even if the union’s reading of the agreement was cor-
        rect, a lawsuit or grievance with an illegal object is not protected
        by the Petition Clause, per the Supreme Court’s Bill Johnson’s and
        the Board’s Long decision. Id. at *3. And the order further found
        that the interpretation of the agreement advocated by the union
        would render that agreement violative of a provision of the NLRA
        (Section 8(e)), and hence unlawful: “Use of the grievance proce-
        dure and the court system in this manner constitute unlawful
        means [in violation of a provision of the NLRA].” Id. Notably,
        there is no language in the order adopted by the Road Sprinkler
        Board indicating that some additional illegal underlying act—be-
        yond the litigation itself that seeks to secure an interpretation of
        the agreement that would violate the NLRA—would be necessary
        before one could describe the litigation as having an illegal objec-
        tive.

                In short, the above caselaw establishes that a lawsuit’s at-
        tempt to enforce a contract in a manner that would violate the
        NLRA if the lawsuit were successful constitutes litigation that has
        an illegal objective and that may therefore be enjoined, even if the
        litigation is not both retaliatory and baseless. As noted, we are
        aware of no Board decision prior to the present case that has devi-
        ated from this principle.

              D.     We Reject The Board’s Narrowing of the Standard
                     Governing Bill Jackson’s Footnote 5 Provision
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        38                     Opinion of the Court                  19-12745

               As discussed above, in the context of litigation implicating
        labor law, the Supreme Court, other federal courts, and the NLRB,
        have concluded that the ﬁling of litigation—be it a lawsuit before a
        judicial forum or a grievance or request for arbitration before the
        NLRB—can be enjoined by the NLRB when the object of that liti-
        gation is unlawful. And to determine whether this standard has
        been satisﬁed, these bodies have looked to see whether the ruling
        that the litigant seeks before a court or the Board is one that, if
        granted by the decisionmaker, would violate the NLRA. Yet, the
        Board here made no inquiry whether compelled arbitration of
        Brown’s Title VII claims would violate the NLRA. Instead of uti-
        lizing its labor law expertise to answer that question, the Board
        took it upon itself to add a gloss that greatly narrowed—if not evis-
        cerated—what had been understood to be Bill Johnson’s illegal-ob-
        jective principle.

                 On that score, the Board concluded that because a litigant’s
        ﬁling of a motion to compel arbitration is not inherently unlawful,
        the mere ﬁling of such a motion by Anheuser-Busch could not by
        itself constitute an illegal objective under Bill Johnson’s. That the
        ultimate object of that motion to compel arbitration may well have
        violated the NLRA did not alter the Board’s thinking. According
        to the Board, neither a motion to compel arbitration nor the par-
        ticular arbitration agreement at issue here was facially invalid; after
        all litigants regularly ﬁle such motions and the Dispute Resolution
        Policy looked ﬁne on its face. That being so, the Board concluded,
        the ﬁling of a motion to compel enforcement of an arbitration
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        19-12745               Opinion of the Court                         39

        agreement would not, by itself, be suﬃcient to trigger the Bill John-
        son’s illegal-objective ground and thereby permit the Board to en-
        join the particular litigation. See Anheuser-Busch, LLC, 367 N.L.R.B.
        No. 132, 2019 WL 2232899, at *4–5 (May 22, 2019).

                Accordingly, the Board reasoned, there must be some addi-
        tional illegal “underlying act” beyond the ﬁling of the particular lit-
        igation in question, albeit it oﬀered no hint what such an act might
        be. See id. And a hint would have been helpful as we cannot envi-
        sion a realistic example where the ﬁling of a motion to enforce a
        contractual agreement will be accompanied by an additional illegal
        underlying act. For sure, we can safely assume that a motion to
        enforce a murder-for-hire contract or any agreement whose en-
        forcement would itself constitute a crime would be a motion that
        would not get very far in any jurisdiction. But absent such far-out
        hypotheticals that would likely never arise in NLRB disputes, the
        logical import of the Board’s reasoning is to conclude that all types
        of litigation must be allowed to go forward, even if the relief
        sought would violate the NLRA. After all, there is no meaningful
        distinction between the motion to compel arbitration here based
        on a purported contractual agreement between Brown and An-
        heuser-Busch and the eﬀorts to enforce a union or management’s
        interpretation of a particular contract in the cases discussed above.
        Brown says that if Anheuser-Busch succeeds in his litigation to en-
        force the Dispute Resolution Policy, this outcome would violate the
        NLRA; likewise, the litigants in the above-cited cases made the
        same argument when seeking to enjoin their adversaries’ litigation
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        40                     Opinion of the Court                  19-12745

        to enforce a particular contractual agreement. Yet, in contrast with
        the Board’s approach here, those litigants obtained from the NLRB
        an injunction of the particular litigation based solely on their show-
        ing that victory by the litigation’s proponent would result in a vio-
        lation of the NLRA.

                That is, in the two cases the Supreme Court cited in Bill John-
        son’s footnote 5 as examples of litigation with an unlawful objec-
        tive—Textile Workers and Booster Lodge—the union had ﬁled suit in
        court to enforce ﬁnes that it had levied on former members. There,
        the Supreme Court had upheld the Board’s determination that, be-
        cause the ﬁnes were illegal under the NLRA, the eﬀort to enforce
        them in court constituted an unfair labor practice that could
        properly be enjoined. And it was these two cases that the Supreme
        Court cited in Bill Johnson’s as an example of litigation with an ille-
        gal objective that could be enjoined by the NLRB, notwithstanding
        the Petition Clause of the First Amendment. Bill Johnson’s said
        nothing about the need for any additional underlying illegal act; the
        litigation itself was suﬃcient to meet the illegal objective because
        success in the litigation would give rise to a remedy that violated
        the NLRA. For these purposes, we ﬁnd no meaningful distinction
        between the Board’s ability to enjoin the prosecution of a lawsuit
        in Textile Workers and Booster Lodge and its power to require An-
        heuser-Busch to cease its prosecution of a motion to compel arbi-
        tration of Brown’s statutory claims upon a ﬁnding by the Board
        that the granting of Anheuser-Busch’s requested relief would vio-
        late the NLRA.
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        19-12745                Opinion of the Court                         41

                Similarly, when reviewing the Board’s ﬁnding that a union
        had committed an unfair labor practice in requesting arbitration
        seeking endorsement of the union’s interpretation of a provision
        of its collective bargaining agreement with the employer, the D.C.
        Circuit in Emery Air Freight and Service Employees held that to deter-
        mine whether Bill Johnson’s illegal-objective exception applied to
        bar litigation that would otherwise be protected by the Petition
        Clause, one had to determine whether the litigant’s interpretation
        of the contract—if acceded to by the Board—would lead to a result
        that was unlawful under the NLRA. There was no indication by
        the D.C. Circuit that the litigant had to engage in some additional
        “underlying” unlawful act beyond the ﬁling of litigation that
        sought a result at odds with the NLRA.

               Finally, in Long Elevator, the Board took the same approach
        as the above- cited cases, looking only to the question whether the
        contract interpretation advanced by the litigant union would vio-
        late federal labor law should the litigant be successful in the litiga-
        tion. Again, the Board oﬀered no suggestion that some additional
        underlying unlawful act would be required before Bill Johnson’s
        footnote 5 provision could be applied.

               Thus, there is no indication in prior judicial or Board deci-
        sions that to run afoul of the illegal objective prohibition, a litigant
        would have to engage in some independent, unlawful “underlying
        act” in addition to the ﬁling of litigation whose end goal would
        constitute a violation of the NLRA. Notably, Bill Johnson’s never
        indicated such a prerequisite or used the phrase “underlying act.”
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        42                        Opinion of the Court                      19-12745

        The absence of any such requirement prompts the question how
        the Board here arrived at its new standard. The Board’s majority
        opinion indicates that the requirement derives from a sentence in
        Regional Construction, an NLRB decision which the Board charac-
        terized as establishing that “in order to have [an] illegal objective,
        respondent’s motion ‘has to have involved a matter . . . which if
        granted would commit the court to countenance an[] underlying
        act by the Respondent which would be a violation of some federal
        law.’” Anheuser-Busch, 367 N.L.R.B. No. 132, 2019 WL 2232899, at
        *4 (quoting Regional Construction Corp., 333 N.L.R.B. at 313, 320
        (2001)) (emphasis added).

                It is true that the Regional Construction opinion used the
        phrase “underlying act” in summarizing its understanding of the
        Supreme Court’s directive in footnote 5 of Bill Johnson’s.9 Our own
        reading of Regional Construction, however, does not support the in-
        terpretation that the Board gives to this phrase. In Regional Con-
        struction, an employer had ﬁled suit in state court alleging tortious
        conduct by the union in blocking ingress and egress to construction
        site entrances. The state court agreed and issued an order directing
        the union to cease those activities and abide by speciﬁed picketing
        sites. No one argued that the employer had acted wrongly in

        9  The full quotation is as follows: “In order to fit within the exception of
        footnote 5 of Bill Johnson’s, the motion to amend the previous court orders has
        to have involved a matter which is either preempted or which if granted would
        commit the court to countenance [an] underlying act by the [employer] which
        would be a violation of some federal law.” Regional Construction Corp., 333
        N.L.R.B. at 320.
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        19-12745               Opinion of the Court                        43

        violation of the NLRA in pursuing this litigation. Later, the em-
        ployer sought an amendment of the order to address changed cir-
        cumstances with the entryways. At this point, the union and the
        NLRB General Counsel cried foul, alleging that the union was en-
        titled to engage in lawful picketing at some of the entrances iden-
        tiﬁed in the employer’s amended motion; accordingly, the General
        Counsel ﬁled an unfair labor practice complaint against the em-
        ployer. The state court judge determined that the employer’s
        claims were preempted by federal law, and two days after the Gen-
        eral Counsel had ﬁled the unfair labor practice charge against the
        employer, the judge therefore dismissed the amended motion. See
        Regional Construction Corp., 333 N.L.R.B. at 313–16.

               An ALJ subsequently held a hearing on the unfair practice
        charge and issued an order that was subsequently adopted by the
        Board. See id. at 313–20. In considering whether the employer had
        committed an unfair labor practice by pursuing the amended mo-
        tion, the ALJ stated that the only relevant part of the Bill Johnson’s
        footnote 5 provision authorizing intervention by the Board in this
        state court litigation was that part recognizing preemption as a
        ground for doing so, and the ALJ found that the employer’s
        amended state court motion was preempted by federal law. Id. at
        320.

              Nevertheless, the Board in this case seized on the way in
        which the Regional Construction opinion described Bill Johnson’s foot-
        note 5 exception relating to an illegal objective. As noted above,
        the ALJ had indicated that for the illegal-objective exception in
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        44                     Opinion of the Court                  19-12745

        footnote 5 of Bill Johnson’s to have applied, the motion before the
        state court would have had to involve a matter that, if granted,
        would commit the court to countenance an underlying act that
        would violate federal law. Applying this sentence to the present
        case, it means that the motion to compel arbitration, if granted,
        would result in a violation of federal law: which is exactly what the
        Union is arguing. The arbitration motion is the matter; arbitration
        itself is the underlying act.

               But this isolated sentence is not the only statement the Re-
        gional Construction opinion made concerning the illegal-objective
        standard. Prior to this summary sentence, the Regional Construction
        decision acknowledged the existence of a line of NLRB cases that
        had held that a lawsuit or grievance seeking to enforce a contract
        provision that was “either facially illegal or would be illegal as en-
        forced” would constitute litigation that “would itself be illegal un-
        der the footnote 5 exception of Bill Johnson’s.” Id. at 319 (emphasis
        added). That is precisely the Union’s position in this case: that ar-
        bitration pursuant to the contract that Anheuser-Busch was at-
        tempting to enforce in court would violate the NLRA.

               And signiﬁcantly, when discussing in more detail the cate-
        gory of cases “where the underlying acts constitute unfair labor
        practices and the lawsuit is simply an attempt to enforce the under-
        lying act,” the Regional Construction decision actually cited Long Ele-
        vator as its example of a case illustrating this category. Id. The de-
        cision described Long Elevator as holding that litigation seeking to
        enforce a contract provision “predicated on a reading of the
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        19-12745                   Opinion of the Court                                 45

        collective-bargaining agreement that, if successful, would have
        [been illegal under the NLRA]” would be illegal under Bill Johnson’s
        footnote 5. Id. Again, Long Elevator, cited favorably in Regional Con-
        struction, disfavors the Board’s rationale in this case.

                Given all the above, we do not read Regional Construction to
        have articulated a new standard for gauging the existence of an il-
        legal objective. Indeed, it seems quite a stretch for the Board here,
        based on a strained—and we think incorrect—parsing of Regional
        Construction’s casual phrasing, to proclaim that an underlying act in
        addition to litigation seeking an objective is now an “indispensa-
        ble” 10 prerequisite to application of the Bill Johnson’s footnote 5.
        Thus, Regional Construction does not support the Board’s conclu-
        sion that an unlawful underlying act in addition to the challenged
        litigation must be present before the illegal-objective provision in
        Bill Johnson’s footnote 5 can be satisﬁed.

              Moreover, implicit in the Board’s articulation of this newly-
        discovered requirement is its own disagreement with Bill Johnson’s
        footnote 5. In the Board’s own words:

                But it cannot be the case that the “illegal objective”
                exception applies without an underlying unlawful act.
                Otherwise, the “illegal objective” exception would ap-
                ply whenever the litigation act itself—e.g., the ﬁling

        10 According to the Board’s majority opinion in the present case, “[t]he ‘un-
        derlying act’ requirement is indeed legally significant. In fact, it is indispensa-
        ble.” Anheuser-Busch, 367 N.L.R.B. No. 132, 2019 WL 2232899, at *5.
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        46                     Opinion of the Court                19-12745

              of a lawsuit or, as here, of a defense motion—could
              be condemned as an unfair labor practice, absent the
              protection aﬀorded by the Petition Clause. And if
              that were the case, it would not matter that the law-
              suit or motion was reasonably based, and it would not
              matter that the lawsuit or motion was not impermis-
              sibly motivated. It could still be condemned as an un-
              fair labor practice under the “illegal objective” excep-
              tion, which, on this view, would swallow the rule of
              Bill Johnson’s and turn the Petition Clause of the First
              Amendment into an empty promise. That is the po-
              sition the dissent embraces.

        Anheuser-Busch, 367 N.L.R.B. No. 132, 2019 WL 2232899, at *5 (em-
        phasis added).

               In short, the Board in the present case complains that the
        Union’s interpretation of Bill Johnson’s footnote 5 illegal-objective
        exception would lessen the First Amendment’s protection against
        NLRB interference in litigation that Bill Johnson’s text would other-
        wise oﬀer to the entity pursuing that litigation had there been no
        footnote 5. Well, yes, that’s obviously true. Exceptions to a rule
        tend to restrict the breadth of that rule. But that was obviously the
        Supreme Court’s purpose, else it would not have included the foot-
        note in the opinion. In Bill Johnson’s, the Supreme Court an-
        nounced the principle to be applied in a case in which the ground
        prompting the Board’s injunction of pending litigation was the re-
        taliatory motive of the proponent of the litigation. When that is
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        19-12745                Opinion of the Court                          47

        the case, the Court held, the Board can enjoin the litigation only
        when the particular litigation is both baseless and motivated by the
        desire to retaliate: “The ﬁling and prosecution of a well-founded
        lawsuit may not be enjoined as an unfair labor practice, even if it
        would not have been commenced but for the plaintiﬀ’s desire to
        retaliate against the defendant for exercising rights protected by the
        Act.” Bill Johnson’s, 461 U.S. at 743.

                 But in footnote 5, the Court made clear that this standard
        did not apply in situations where the retaliatory motivation of the
        litigant was not the basis for the Board’s injunction. Speciﬁcally,
        said the Court, “It should be kept in mind that what is involved here
        is an employer’s lawsuit that the federal law would not bar except
        for its allegedly retaliatory motivation. We are not dealing with a
        suit . . . that has an objective that is illegal under federal law. Peti-
        tioner concedes that the Board may enjoin these latter types of
        suits.” Id. at 737 n.5.

               Certainly, the right to petition under the First Amendment
        would have been more strongly protected had the Supreme Court
        made the rule it announced in text applicable to all situations in
        which the Board is asked to enjoin litigation by an employer or a
        union. Had the Court done so, the NLRB would be empowered to
        enjoin pending litigation only when that litigation was both base-
        less and prompted by a retaliatory motive; whether or not the liti-
        gation sought an unlawful objective would be irrelevant. But that
        is not what the Court did, and it is the Supreme Court itself that
        must alter footnote 5 should it someday determine that the “illegal
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        48                      Opinion of the Court                   19-12745

        objective” exception strikes the wrong balance between the First
        Amendment Right to Petition and deference to the NLRB’s power
        to enforce the NLRA.

                 Further, even though the Board majority’s real disagreement
        appears to be with the unlawful-objective exception itself, the ma-
        jority, like the parties, nonetheless acknowledges that when the ob-
        ject of the litigation at issue seeks an unlawful objective, the Board
        can enjoin it. See Anheuser-Busch, 367 N.L.R.B. No. 132, 2019 WL
        2232899, at *3, *4 n.11. This is a concession that the Board was
        compelled to make as it has consistently acknowledged the contin-
        uing applicability of the unlawful-objective standard when deter-
        mining whether to enjoin particular litigation as an unfair labor
        practice. See, e.g., Road Sprinkler Fitters Local Union 669, 365 N.L.R.B.
        No. 83, 2017 WL 2274720, at *3; Operative Plasterers & Cement Ma-
        sons’ Int’l Ass’n Local 200 (Standard Drywall), 357 N.L.R.B. 1921, 1923
        n.11, 1924 (2011), enforced, 547 F. App’x 809 (9th Cir. 2013); Dilling
        Mech. Contractors, Inc., 357 N.L.R.B. 544, 546 (2011); Mfrs. Wood-
        working Ass’n of Greater New York, Inc., 345 N.L.R.B. 538, 540 n.7
        (2005).

               That being so, there must be some type of litigation for
        which the standard would apply. Yet, the Board’s gloss on this
        standard—requiring an additional unlawful underlying act in addi-
        tion to the litigation itself—appears to create an empty set. As
        noted, we are unclear what example the Board might proﬀer as an
        example of litigation that would meet its new standard. In short,
        we conclude that the Board erred when it injected this new
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        19-12745               Opinion of the Court                       49

        “underlying act” requirement into the inquiry whether Anheuser-
        Busch’s motion to compel arbitration constituted litigation with an
        unlawful objective. On remand, the Board should instead deter-
        mine whether the outcome sought by Anheuser-Busch’s motion—
        the compelled arbitration of Brown’s Title VII claims under the
        Dispute Resolution Policy—would violate the NLRA. If the Board
        decides that the answer to that question is “yes,” it should then or-
        der all relief that is appropriate based on Anheuser-Busch’s unlaw-
        ful conduct.

        III.   CONCLUSION

               For the reasons explained above, we GRANT the Union’s
        petition for review, VACATE the Board’s decision, and REMAND
        to the Board, consistent with the directive set out above, to deter-
        mine whether Anheuser-Busch’s motion to compel arbitration pur-
        suant to the Dispute Resolution Policy may be enjoined as having
        an objective that is illegal under federal law.