NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD V. NORTH MOUNTAIN FOOTHILLS APARTMENTS, LLC
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Affirmed
The Ninth Circuit granted the National Labor Relations Board’s petition to enforce its order against North Mountain Foothills Apartments, rejecting the employer’s constitutional challenges to the NLRB’s structure and upholding the Board’s findings that the employer violated § 8(a)(1) of the NLRA. The court held it had jurisdiction to hear the employer’s unexhausted constitutional claims, found no Seventh or Fifth Amendment violations, and concluded substantial evidence supported the Board’s decision under the Wright Line test.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
Whether § 10(e) of the NLRA bars courts of appeals from considering constitutional challenges not raised before the NLRB, or whether such claims fall within the statute’s “extraordinary circumstances” exception allowing judicial review without agency exhaustion.
Circuit Positions
Courts of appeals have jurisdiction to review unexhausted constitutional challenges under the § 10(e) extraordinary-circumstances exception.
§ 10(e) bars review of constitutional challenges not first presented to the NLRB; extraordinary-circumstances exception does not apply.
Conflict Summary
The D.C. and Ninth Circuits allow courts of appeals to consider unexhausted constitutional attacks on the NLRB under the § 10(e) extraordinary-circumstances exception, reasoning that agencies are ill-suited to decide structural constitutional questions. The Eighth Circuit holds the opposite view, concluding that § 10(e) categorically bars judicial consideration of issues not first presented to the Board, even if constitutional.