Court Opinion

ID: 9430518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:54.157559+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:13.203042
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The Court today reaffirms that a pre-empted cause of action, as defined in San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 (1959), is a claim that a state court is without power to adjudicate. Ante, at 393. I fully agree, and therefore join Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion. But I believe that the standard enunciated in Part III to determine the pre-emption vel non of a particular cause of action is erroneous, as well as at odds with the principles and policies of Garmon. I therefore dissent from Part III of the Court’s opinion and from its judgment.
In Garmon, this Court held that when an activity is protected or prohibited by the Act, or arguably protected or prohibited, courts must defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board. Id., at 245. In the absence of the Board’s clear determination that an activity is neither protected nor prohibited, nor arguably so, courts must stay their hand. “[W]hether federal law does apply is to be decided” by the Board. Taggart v. Weinacker’s, Inc., 397 U. S. 223, 229 (1970) (separate memorandum of Harlan, J.) (emphasis added). The Court today purports to follow Garmon, but nonetheless requires that the party “claiming *404pre-emption must carry the burden of showing at least an arguable case before the jurisdiction of a state court will be ousted,” ante, at 396, and proceeds to require here that the Union make a showing “sufficient to permit the Board to find that Davis was an employee, not a supervisor.” Ante, at 395. In transforming the notion that some activities are arguably protected or prohibited into a requirement that a party claiming pre-emption make out an “arguable case,” ante, at 396, it seems to me that the Court misses the point of its decision in Garmon. As a result of the decision today, a court, under the guise of weighing the sufficiency of the evidence, will be making precisely the determination that Garmon makes clear is for the Board, and only the Board, to make.
To understand how far the Court strays from the practical and congressionally mandated standard articulated in Garmon, it is sufficient to look to the basis of the broad preemption doctrine. Under the Act, some activities are protected and some are prohibited; other activities are subject to state regulation, while still others, not at issue in this case, are to be left unregulated by both federal and state authorities. Thus, the determination of whether an activity falls within the sphere of protected or prohibited is the crucial question under federal law, and one which this Court recognized is not always an easy determination to make. Garmon, 359 U. S., at 244. Accordingly, Congress deprived state courts of jurisdiction over actually or arguably protected or prohibited conduct and “confide[d] primary interpretation and application of its rules to a specific and specially constituted tribunal,” thereby ensuring that the federal scheme would be administered uniformly with the wisdom and insight resulting from specialized expertise and experience. Garner v. Teamsters, 346 U. S. 485, 490 (1953), quoted in Garmon, 359 U. S., at 242.1 Permitting courts to *405determine whether activity is protected or prohibited could result in a court’s finding unlawful an activity that the Board might embrace as lawful.
In an attempt to garner support for its holding, the Court relies on Marine Engineers v. Interlake S.S. Co., 370 U. S. 173, 184 (1962). Such reliance is misplaced. Indeed, in Interlake the Court reaffirmed Garmon, recognizing that the definition of “labor organization,” like the definition of “supervisor,” is “of a kind most wisely entrusted initially to the agency charged with the day-to-day administration of the Act as a whole.” 370 U. S., at 180. In Interlake, this Court held that only the Board could determine whether the union met the statutory definition of a “labor organization.”
The Court in Interlake, in dicta, then reviewed the evidence that was presented. Such evidence was certainly not intended to be held up as the benchmark of the showing required successfully to claim that an activity is arguably protected; the Court made clear that that evidence was sufficient to show that the conduct was actually protected:
“This was a case, therefore, where a state court was shown not simply the arguable possibility of Labor Board jurisdiction over the controversy before it, but that the Board had actually determined the underlying issue upon which its jurisdiction depended” (emphasis added). Id., at 184.2
*406Thus, in Interlake, the Court was presented with actual determinations by the Board; under Garmon that is the only kind of showing sufficient to take the pre-emption decision out of the hands of the Board.
The present case underscores the signal merit of Garmon.3 Davis was fired for union activities. According to Davis, he was assured by the Union that, if fired, he could obtain reinstatement. Davis’ ability to obtain reinstatement turns on whether Davis is a supervisor. If Davis is a supervisor, the Act would not protect him against retaliatory actions by his *407employer based on his union activities and Davis’ suit would be cognizable in state court for the Union’s alleged intentional misrepresentation. However, if Davis is not a supervisor, the employer would have committed an unfair labor practice in firing him, and Davis would be entitled to redress by the Board. Thus, the issue here falls within the rubric of “arguably” — the conduct at issue is arguably protected because Davis may be a statutory employee, not a supervisor.4
The crucial question then was whether Davis was a supervisor. The task of identifying supervisors is an “aging but nevertheless persistently vexing problem.” NLRB v. Security Guard Service, Inc., 384 F. 2d 143, 145 (CA5 1967). Supervisory status is an inherently fact-specific determination that turns on an individual’s duties, not job title or classification. See, e. g., Winco Petroleum Co., 241 N. L. R. B. 1118 (1979) (giving an employee the title “supervisor” or even theoretical power to perform some supervisory functions does not convert a rank-and-file employee into a statutory supervisor); Pattern Makers Assn., 199 N. L. R. B. 96 (1972) (shop foreman with supervisory authority who worked with tools 40% of his time was supervisor despite contract which defined supervisory employees as persons who did not work with tools of trade). It is precisely because of the difficulty in assessing the statutory supervisory status of an individual, and the need for uniformity in the interpretation of the federal labor laws, that this Court, in Hanna Mining Co. v. Ma*408rine Engineers, 382 U. S. 181 (1965), held that state law can be applied only if the supervisory status of the individuals in question “has been settled with unclouded legal significance.”5 Id., at 190. The supervisory status of Davis has never been settled by the Board.
Thus, in asserting that Davis was arguably a supervisor, the Union “advance[d] an interpretation of the Act that is not plainly contrary to its language and that has not been ‘authoritatively rejected’ by the courts or the Board.” Ante, at 395, quoting Interlake, 370 U. S., at 184. That is the only kind of showing that is properly required under Garmon,6
I therefore dissent from Part III of the Court’s opinion and from its judgment.

 Justice Harlan, whose concurrence in Garmon indicated his initial hesitancy to accept its categorical treatment of particular claims, came to embrace its approach, recognizing that any other would require this Court, as *405the final court of review, to monitor every case in which a pre-emption claim is raised:
“Nor can we proceed on a ease-by-case basis to determine whether each particular final judicial pronouncement does, or might reasonably be thought to, conflict in some relevant manner with federal labor policy. This Court is ill-equipped to play such a role and the federal system dictates that this problem be solved with a rule capable of relatively easy application, so that lower courts may largely police themselves in this regard.” Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, 403 U. S. 274, 289-290 (1971).

 Similarly, the fact that the Board had asserted jurisdiction over the unions in Interlake, at the time the state-court ease was pending, is not an indication of the standard of “arguably,” because that evidence “was more *406than sufficient to create an arguable case” (emphasis supplied), 370 U. S., at 182, n. 16, even though the unions had consistently advanced the position before the Board that they were not organizations within the meaning of the Act.

 To be sure, the Garmon universe is not without imperfection. Justice White has long sought to eliminate the “arguably protected” coverage of Garmon pre-emption. See, e. g., Lockridge, 403 U. S., at 325-332 (White, J., dissenting); Longshoremen v. Ariadne Shipping Co., 397 U. S. 195, 201 (1970) (White, J., concurring). In Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Carpenters, 436 U. S. 180 (1978), the Court addressed what I believe was at the heart of Justice White’s opposition to “arguably protected.” There the Court acknowledged an exception to Garmon pre-emption for conduct that is arguably protected where the injured party has no means of bringing the dispute before the Board. The opinion today speaks of a broader opposition to “arguably protected,” as its effect in this case is to expand the Sears exception to encompass a case where the injured party, here Davis, does have the means of bringing the dispute before the Board. Apparently seeking to eliminate “arguably protected,” but unable to do so directly, Justice White establishes a standard that is nearly as effective. Justice Harlan, speaking for the Court in Lockridge and responding to those who sought to weaken Garmon, provides the answer to Justice White today:
“[Although largely of judicial making, the labor relations pre-emption doctrine finds its basic justification in the presumed intent of Congress. While we do not assert that the Garmon doctrine is without imperfection, we do think that it is founded on reasoned principle and that until it is altered by congressional action or by judicial insights that are born of further experience with it, a heavy burden rests upon those who would, at this late date, ask this Court to abandon Garmon and set out again in quest of a system more nearly perfect.” 403 U. S., at 302.

 In the ordinary ease, since a determination of pre-emption poses a jurisdictional bar to a court’s adjudication of the merits of a suit, a defendant claiming pre-emption will do so at the threshold, usually in a motion to dismiss. Thus, courts will be called upon to determine pre-emption before facts have been developed or discovery has occurred. This poses a difficult burden for a defendant required, under today’s decision, to present a factual showing. If a fair reading of the complaint leads to a possibility that the activity complained of may be protected or prohibited, then the ease falls squarely within the reach of “arguably protected,” and the state court lacks jurisdiction over the dispute. See Construction Laborers v. Curry, 371 U. S. 542, 546 (1963).

 There is indeed a cloud over Davis’ status. As a “ship superintendent,” Davis performs the same functions as workers called “walking foremen” in Houston, Tex. We are advised that the Houston walking foremen formed a union and are covered by a collective-bargaining agreement. See Juris. Statement 4, n. 3.

 In establishing the new standard, Justice White is joined by the four Justices who dissent from the Court’s holding that pre-emption goes to subject-matter jurisdiction. These four would hold that pre-emption is merely a defense. Because, under Alabama law, a defense that is not raised during trial is deemed waived, see ante, at 386, n. 7, the view of these four Justices means that the decision of the Alabama Supreme Court rested on an independent and adequate state ground, see ante, at 388-389, ineluctably leading to the conclusion that this Court is without jurisdiction over this case. Rather than stating that they would dismiss for want of jurisdiction, however, those Members of the Court reach out to join Part III of Justice White’s opinion.