Facts
- A labor association representing nonsupervisory professional employees at a Westinghouse plant petitioned the NLRB for certification in a bargaining unit limited to those professionals.
- A competing union intervened and urged expansion of the unit to include additional employees performing technical work.
- The NLRB determined that certain employees were not “professional employees” under the statute but nevertheless included nine nonprofessional employees in the unit based on shared employment interests.
- The NLRA required the NLRB not to place professional and nonprofessional employees in the same unit unless a majority of the professional employees voted for inclusion.
- The association requested a separate vote of the professional employees on whether to include the nonprofessionals; the NLRB refused and instead conducted a single election in the combined unit.
- The association won the election, and the NLRB certified it as bargaining representative for the combined unit.
- The association’s president sued in federal district court to set aside the unit determination, election, and certification based on the lack of the statutorily required professional-employee vote.
- The district court granted relief; the court of appeals affirmed, limited to the ground that the district court had jurisdiction.
Issues
- Whether a federal district court has jurisdiction to hear an original suit challenging an NLRB bargaining-unit determination alleged to violate an express statutory prohibition in the NLRA.
- Whether the NLRA’s review scheme impliedly precludes district court jurisdiction when the Board’s action is alleged to be ultra vires and otherwise not meaningfully reviewable.
Decision
- The Supreme Court affirmed.
- The Court held that the district court had jurisdiction to set aside the Board’s determination.
- The Court concluded the NLRB acted “in excess of its delegated powers and contrary to a specific prohibition” by including nonprofessional employees in a unit with professionals without the required majority vote of professionals.
- The Court treated the case as involving a facial statutory violation, not a request for premature review of an arguably erroneous unit determination.
- The Court found district court relief appropriate because the affected professionals otherwise lacked an adequate avenue to vindicate the statutory voting right.
Legal Principles
- A federal district court may exercise equitable jurisdiction to set aside agency action that is plainly ultra vires because it violates a clear, specific statutory prohibition.
- Statutory limits on judicial review do not necessarily bar district court jurisdiction where denying relief would leave no meaningful judicial remedy for an agency’s direct defiance of an express statutory command.
- The exception is narrow: it is aimed at agency acts that are not merely debatable errors within delegated discretion, but attempted exercises of power specifically withheld by Congress.
Conclusion
The Court upheld district court jurisdiction to invalidate the NLRB’s unit determination because the Board openly disregarded § 9(b)(1)’s requirement of a separate professional-employee majority vote before mixing professionals with nonprofessionals, and the statutory review scheme would otherwise leave that right without an effective remedy.