NLRB in Court: SCOTUS revises injunction standards, other standards under review

In a ruling widely considered a victory for employers, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the standards for assessing an application by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a 10(j) injunction should be the same as used in other civil injunction applications. Although widely anticipated as bringing harmony to an area with numerous “circuit splits,” the ruling will require the Board to be more thorough and persuasive than in past injunction proceedings, especially in this one involving Starbucks, currently the Board’s principal adversary.

Procedural regularity

In legal terms, the Court rejected the “less exacting” reasonable cause test the NLRB had sought (and frequently used), holding instead that the agency must show it is “likely to succeed on the merits” of the underlying claim, whether the Board’s power to fix the violation will be “irreparably harmed” without an injunction, and that an injunction would serve the public interest.