Facts
- Sears operated a retail store in Chula Vista, California, where carpentry work was being performed.
- A carpenters’ union believed the work should be assigned through its hiring hall and began peaceful picketing at the store.
- The pickets stood and walked on Sears’s private property, including areas in the parking lot adjacent to store walkways.
- Sears objected to the picketing’s location on its property, demanded that the pickets leave, and the union refused.
- Sears filed a state-court action seeking injunctive relief for continuing trespass, challenging only the location of picketing and not its message or objective.
- A trial court issued a preliminary injunction requiring picketing to occur off Sears’s property on public sidewalks; an intermediate appellate court affirmed.
- The state supreme court reversed, holding the NLRA preempted state jurisdiction because the conduct was arguably protected by § 7 and arguably prohibited by § 8, placing the dispute within the NLRB’s primary jurisdiction.
Issues
- Whether the NLRA preempts state-court jurisdiction over a trespass action concerning the location of peaceful union picketing because the conduct is arguably prohibited by § 8 (Garmon “arguably prohibited” preemption).
- Whether the NLRA preempts state-court jurisdiction over that trespass action because the conduct is arguably protected by § 7 (Garmon “arguably protected” preemption).
Decision
- The Supreme Court reversed the state supreme court in a 6–3 decision.
- The Court held that the NLRA did not preempt state jurisdiction over Sears’s trespass claim when the state proceeding was limited to the trespassory aspects of picketing.
- The Court concluded there was no realistic risk of interference with the NLRB’s primary jurisdiction because the state case concerned only where picketing occurred, not whether it constituted an unfair labor practice or protected activity.
- The Court permitted state courts to enforce an injunction requiring pickets to remain on public property, so long as the remedy addressed only the location of the picketing.
Legal Principles
- Garmon preemption turns on whether the controversy before the state court is identical to the controversy that could have been presented to the NLRB; if not, the risk of conflict with NLRB primary jurisdiction is reduced.
- A state trespass action directed solely at the location of peaceful picketing on private property is not necessarily preempted merely because the picketing might also be arguably protected by § 7 or arguably prohibited by § 8.
- State jurisdiction is more likely permissible where the state’s interest (protection of private property from trespass) can be vindicated through relief narrowly confined to the trespassory conduct, without adjudicating federal labor-law questions such as the objective or legality of the picketing under the NLRA.
Conclusion
The Court held that the NLRA did not preempt a state-court trespass injunction that regulated only the location of peaceful union picketing on private property, allowing state courts to order pickets to move from an employer’s property to adjacent public sidewalks without intruding on the NLRB’s primary jurisdiction.