The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday over Starbucks‘s challenge to an order requiring it to rehire fired union activists, giving the justices another shot at paring back agency power.
Justices will hear the case Starbucks Corp v. McKinney, which stems from the firing of seven employees in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 2022. Those terminated employees have since become known as the “Memphis 7.”
FILE – Pro-union pins sit on a table during a watch party for Starbucks’ employees union election, Dec. 9, 2021, in Buffalo, New York. (AP Photo/Joshua Bessex, File)
Starbucks and the National Labor Relations Board will appear before the nine-member high court to debate how federal courts should treat the agency’s request for a district court judge to order those employees reinstated while their case proceeds. A lower court judge agreed, and the Memphis 7 returned to work in September 2022.
Starbucks appealed a lower court judge’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which affirmed the district court’s findings. Now the coffee giant is telling the high court that the 6th Circuit erred because it applied a two-factor test rather than a more strict four-factor test.
The four-factor test is essentially a much more stringent way of considering the likelihood that a party seeking an injunction for relief will succeed on the merits. That test requires the consideration of the likelihood that the party seeking the injunction will ultimately win, if the party will suffer irreparable harm without preliminary intervention by the court, if the balance of equity tips in that party’s favor, and the general public’s interest.
The coffee company is essentially asking the justices to “restore uniformity” under the National Labor Relations Act, according to its brief to the nine justices, saying the simple two-factor test is far too lenient. The NLRA includes a section that provides plaintiffs with the basis for seeking injunctions against employers during ongoing labor disputes.
“Starbucks’s petition essentially asks SCOTUS to reject the notion that when the NLRB seeks a preliminary injunction, the lower court should give deference to th …