Court Opinion

ID: 9473142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:20:33.726351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:20.707302
License: Public Domain

NORRIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment of the court affirming the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the City. I also concur in that part of the majority opinion holding that Golden State’s due process claim must fall because Golden State has failed to establish that a constitutionally protectable property interest was created.
I write separately, however, because I believe it is wholly unnecessary to the disposition of this appeal to address Golden State’s legal argument that the NLRA prohibits a City from refusing to renew Golden State’s franchise under what Golden State alleges to be the facts of this case.1 Golden State’s preemption argument is constructed on two factual premises: (1) that the City’s purpose in refusing to renew the franchise was to assist the Teamsters in their labor dispute with Golden State, and (2) that the effect of the City’s refusal to renew the franchise was to destroy Golden State’s economic ability to resist the strike.2 Golden State cites no evidence, *835however, that gives rise to a triable issue of fact with respect to either of these factual allegations. As a result, we should hold that the City is entitled to summary judgment on the narrow ground that Golden State has offered no substantial evidence to support its critical factual allegations. It is totally unnecessary for us to go further and discourse on the legal question of the possible preemptive effect of the NLRA on the City’s action.

. Because I view the majority's discussion of the preemption issue as dicta, I refrain from commenting on what I perceive to be serious deficiencies in its analysis.

. In short, Golden State's argument is that the City’s refusal to renew its franchise is preempted by the NLRA because it constituted an attempt to dictate the terms of a collective bargaining agreement or because it otherwise altered the relative bargaining powers of the parties to a labor dispute. As support for this argument, Golden State relies on the line of cases recognizing that certain state actions that alter the relative bargaining positions of labor and management may "frustrate effective imple*835mentation of the Act's processes” and therefore be preempted. E.g. Machinists v. Wisconsin Emp. Rel. Comm’n, 427 U.S. 132, 147-48, 96 S.Ct. 2548, 2556-57, 49 L.Ed.2d 396 (1976).