HUDGENS V. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 424 U.S. 507 (1976) CASE BRIEF

HUDGENS V. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

424 U.S. 507 (1976)

NATURE OF THE CASE: This was a dispute over the rights of pickets on private property and violation of NLRB statutes, rules and regulations.

FACTS: Scott Hudgens, is the owner of the North DeKalb Shopping Center. It has 60 retail stores leased to various businesses. One of the lessees is the Butler Shoe Co. Most of the stores, including Butler's, can be entered only from the interior mall. In January, 1971, warehouse employees of the Butler Shoe Co. went on strike. The strikers decided to picket the store in the North DeKalb Shopping Center. Four of the striking warehouse employees entered the center's enclosed mall carrying placards which read: 'Butler Shoe Warehouse on Strike, AFL-CIO, Local 315.' The general manager of the shopping center threatened them with arrest if they did not leave. The employees departed, but returned and began picketing in an area of the mall immediately adjacent to the entrances of the Butler store. The shopping center manager informed the pickets that, if they did not leave, they would be arrested for trespassing. The pickets departed. The union subsequently filed an unfair labor practice charge against Hudgens, alleging interference with rights protected by 7 of the Act. The Board entered a cease and desist order against Hudgens, reasoning that, because the warehouse employees enjoyed a First Amendment right to picket on the shopping center property, the owner's threat of arrest violated 8(a)(1) of the Act. Hudgens filed a petition for review in the Court of Appeals. Soon thereafter the Supreme Court decided Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner and Central Hardware Co. v. NLRB, and the Court of Appeals remanded the case to the Board for reconsideration in light of those two decisions. The Board remanded to an Administrative Law Judge who held that Hudgens had committed an unfair labor practice by excluding the pickets. The Administrative Law Judge's opinion also relied on the Supreme Court's constitutional decision in Logan Valley for a 'realistic view of the facts.' The Board agreed with the findings and recommendations of the Administrative Law Judge, but departed from his reasoning. It concluded that the pickets were within the scope of Hudgens' invitation to members of the public to do business at the shopping center, and that it was, therefore, immaterial whether or not there existed an alternative means of communicating with the customers and employees of the Butler store. Hudgens again petitioned for review in the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals enforced the Board's cease and desist order, but on the basis of yet another theory. The Court of Appeals held that the competing constitutional and property right considerations discussed in Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner 'burde[n] the General Counsel with the duty to prove that other locations less intrusive upon Hudgens' property rights than picketing inside the mall were either unavailable or ineffective,' and that the Board's General Counsel had met that burden in this case.

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