Court Opinion

ID: 9816119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 02:37:47.605368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:55.093130
License: Public Domain

GREENBERG, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I join in the majority opinion but point out the following. The Board seeks an injunction to prevent Dorsey from selling or alienating the plant before the Board rules on the merits of the unfair labor charges. If the district court had entered the injunction on August 26, 1997, when it instead denied it, the injunction already would have expired under the six-month limitation rule we adopted in Eisenberg v. Hartz Mountain Corp., 519 F.2d 138, 144 (3d Cir.1975). Of course, in that circumstance the Board would have been required to hear the unfair labor practices complaint before it expeditiously on a priority basis.
In fact, it is undisputed that Dorsey shut down the plant on December 29, 1995; and while it has attempted to sell the facility, it has been unable to do so. Moreover, its inability to sell the plant has been attributable at least in part to the Board’s intervention, as the Board notified a potential purchaser that if it acquired the plant it might incur successor liability for Dorsey’s alleged unfair labor practices. The notification understandably led to the potential sale collapsing. In reality, therefore, the mere fact that the Board brought the unfair labor practices charge has acted as a lis pendens on the property. Thus, even without an injunction having been entered, the status quo with respect to the alienation of the plant has been maintained for a period almost five-fold that which in Hartz ■Mountain we held could be required.
The majority indicates that its opinion does “not preclude Dorsey from raising on remand the appropriate starting date of the § 10(j) injunction.” Slip op. at 249 n. 1. I, of course, agree. I write separately merely to emphasize that as I understand the majority’s opinion it does not preclude Dorsey from arguing that the starting date should be August 26, 1997, so that the injunction already has expired. After all, the Board in a sense already has obtained the relief it is seeking in these proceedings. I, however, do not explore the point further as the parties have not briefed the starting date issue on this appeal.