Kreisberg v. Healthbridge Management, LLC

732 F.3d 131, 2013 WL 5614101, 197 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2209, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 20837
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedOctober 15, 2013
DocketNo. 12-4890-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 732 F.3d 131 (Kreisberg v. Healthbridge Management, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kreisberg v. Healthbridge Management, LLC, 732 F.3d 131, 2013 WL 5614101, 197 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2209, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 20837 (2d Cir. 2013).

Opinion

LOHIER, Circuit Judge.

This appeal requires us to consider the power of the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board” or the “NLRB”) to authorize petitions for temporary injunctive relief under Section 10 of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”), 29 U.S.C. § 160(j), and the propriety of the District Court’s decision to grant an injunction in this case.

HealthBridge Management (“Health-Bridge”) and the six Connecticut-based nursing facilities that it manages (the “Centers,” and collectively, “Health-Bridge”) appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Chatigny, J.) granting a petition brought by the NLRB pursuant to Section 10(j) of the NLRA. The § 10(j) petition sought to enjoin temporarily, pending a final adjudication by the Board, alleged unfair labor practices related to a long-running labor dispute between HealthBridge and District 1199, SEIU (the “Union”), which represents the Centers’ approximately 700 employees. Health-Bridge argues that the Board lacked a quorum at the time that it purported to authorize the § 10(j) petition at issue, that the Board’s prior contingent delegation to its General Counsel of the power to authorize such petitions did not survive the loss of a quorum, and that the District Court therefore lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the petition was not validly authorized. HealthBridge also argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 555 U.S. 7, 129 S.Ct. 365, 172 L.Ed.2d 249 (2008), overruled this Circuit’s established legal standard for evaluating § 10(j) petitions, which the District Court applied, and that the District Court abused its discretion in granting the petition.

We conclude that the Board may contingently delegate the power to authorize § 10(j) petitions to the NLRB General Counsel. Such delegations, made in 2001 and 2002, were in effect here, and the petition at issue was properly authorized by the General Counsel pursuant to those délegations. Winter, which involved preliminary injunctions generally and not the specific right to injunctive relief created by the NLRA, does not impact the standard for § 10(j) petitions, and the District Court did not otherwise abuse its discretion in granting the petition in this case. Accordingly, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

We presume the parties’ familiarity with the relevant facts in this case, which were described in detail by the District Court. Kreisberg v. HealthBridge Mgmt., LLC, No. 12-CV-1299, 2012 WL 6553103 (D.Conn. Dec. 14, 2012). We provide only a summary here.

A. The Labor Dispute

HealthBridge began managing the Centers in 2003, assuming prior management’s employment agreements with the Union. In 2004 the parties entered into a collective bargaining agreement (the “CBA”) that was set to last through March 2011.

The disputes relevant to this litigation began in 2010, when HealthBridge unilaterally instituted a number of changes to the terms and conditions of some Union members’ employment. These changes included altering certain employees’ hours, overtime pay, vacation policies, and benefits, subcontracting out certain employees’ work and then rehiring them at reduced wages and benefits, and conducting layoffs without notice.

In January 2011, as their dispute continued, HealthBridge and the Union began to negotiate a new CBA. The parties characterize the year-and-a-half-long negotiations [135]*135quite differently, but there is no dispute that they went poorly. At first, the Union asked HealthBridge to rescind the unilateral changes it had implemented in 2010. HealthBridge refused and “sought to codify the unilateral changes underlying” the then-pending NLRB complaint in the new CBA. HealthBridge also proposed replacing the employees’ pension plan with a 401(k) plan, a proposal that emerged as a major sticking point in the negotiations.

The Union filed charges with the Board alleging various violations of the NLRA, and the Board issued a complaint in March 2011.

Notwithstanding the complaint, in December 2011, after the Union refused a purported “Final Offer” that included many of HealthBridge’s initial proposals, including the 401(k) plan, HealthBridge locked out Union employees from one of the Centers. One week after the lockout began, the Union proposed submitting all issues to arbitration. HealthBridge countered with a proposal for a three percent wage increase, replacement of the pension with a 401(k) plan, and arbitration of all other issues. The Union refused. Further counterproposals followed, but the parties made little progress. The employee lockout ended only in April 2012, after the Board issued a second complaint against HealthBridge (the “Lockout Complaint”) alleging that the lockout violated the NLRA.

Thereafter, the parties made “Last, Best, and Final proposals” (“LBFs”). Both parties offered concessions in the LBFs, but the pension issue remained unresolved. HealthBridge insisted it could not sign a CBA that did not phase out the pension, while the Union stated that it was “not willing to talk about the pension in a vacuum,” indicating that it could move on the pension issue only in exchange for other substantial concessions. While HealthBridge stated it would “consider modifications” to its LBF in exchange for agreement on the pension issue, it never made a concrete offer. Meanwhile, the Union proposed to offer four percent savings from HealthBridge’s gross payroll and to adopt a two-tiered system in which new employees would enroll in a 401 (k) plan rather than a pension. These offers were rejected. In May 2012 HealthBridge asserted that if the Union did not make any further proposals, the parties “will have reached an impasse in their negotiations.” 1 The Union rejected this assertion, pointing to its various counterproposals. At the next bargaining session, the Union’s representative was asked whether the Union had moved on the pension issue. The Union representative replied, “[W]e told you before depending on the overall proposal we would consider anything.”

In June 2012 HealthBridge declared an impasse and unilaterally imposed its LBFs, which included substantial modifications to employees’ benefits, benefits eligibility, overtime, and sick leave, as well as a change from the pension to the 401 (k) plan. This prompted the Union to notify HealthBridge of its intent 10 to strike and the Board to amend the Lockout Complaint, adding allegations that Health-Bridge had engaged in new unfair labor practices by unilaterally imposing its LBFs in the absence of a good faith impasse. After further failed negotiations to avert the strike, the Union declared an unfair labor practices strike2 on July 3, [136]*1362012. According to HealthBridge, striking employees committed acts of vandalism and sabotage against the Centers, but no proof of any sabotage exists in the record beyond the fact of the allegations. Meanwhile, the Union offered to end the strike and resume negotiations while working under conditions as they existed before HealthBridge imposed its LBFs, but that offer was rejected. By August 2012 HealthBridge had replaced all of the striking employees.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Care One, LLC v. NLRB
Second Circuit, 2026
Rieth-Riley Constr. Co. v. NLRB
114 F.4th 519 (Sixth Circuit, 2024)
Poor v. Amazon.com Services LLC
104 F.4th 433 (Second Circuit, 2024)
Leslie v. Starbucks Corp.
Second Circuit, 2024
Hooks v. Starbucks Corporation
W.D. Washington, 2023
Eric Taylor v. ADT, LLC
Sixth Circuit, 2023
N.L.R.B. v. Key Food Stores
Second Circuit, 2021
Wilson v. Jersey Shore Steel Co.
M.D. Pennsylvania, 2020
Osthus v. Trustone Financial Federal Credit Union
182 F. Supp. 3d 901 (D. Minnesota, 2016)
UC Health v. National Labor Relations Board
803 F.3d 669 (D.C. Circuit, 2015)
Merrill v. Lynch
151 F. Supp. 3d 342 (S.D. New York, 2015)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
732 F.3d 131, 2013 WL 5614101, 197 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2209, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 20837, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kreisberg-v-healthbridge-management-llc-ca2-2013.