1. On September 30, 2024, the Board initiated administrative enforcement proceedings against Amazon through service of a complaint and a notice of hearing. Amazon.com Servs. LLC v. NLRB, 2025 WL 466262, at *2 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 5, 2025). The complaint alleged, in short, that Amazon impermissibly failed to bargain with a union representing employees of a third-party business after Amazon had terminated its contract with that business. Id. Amazon continues to contest the merits of this claim before the agency.

b. On November 5, 2024, Amazon sued the Board in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Compl., Amazon.com Servs., No. 2:24-cv-09564 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 5, 2024), Dkt. 1. Amazon challenged the constitutionality of the statutory removal protections applicable to the Board's administrative law judges and Board members. Id. at 9-13; see also App., infra, 7a. Amazon then moved to preliminarily enjoin the Board's proceedings, and the union intervened to oppose the injunction alongside the Board. App., infra, 7a-8a. The district court denied Amazon's motion for a preliminary injunction, reasoning that the Act barred injunctive relief once administrative proceedings against Amazon had begun. App., infra, 8a. Amazon timely appealed. Id. at 8a.

c. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The court reasoned that the Act provides separate requirements for "the pending case and the underlying labor dispute." App., infra, 11a. Under the Ninth Circuit's reading, a "case need only 'involve . . . or grow out of [an underlying] dispute," but "it need not itself be a labor dispute." Id. at 12a (emphases added). Thus, so long as the underlying dispute (here, the Board proceeding) "concern[s the] terms or conditions of employment, or ... the association or representation of persons," a district court lacks jurisdiction to issue an injunction—even if the case before the district court is not a labor dispute. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); id. at 15a.

In reaching this conclusion, the Ninth Circuit acknowledged that the circuits were divided. But the Ninth Circuit held that "[i]n the split between the Third and Fifth Circuits," it "agree[d] with the Third Circuit." Id. at 22a.

Whether the Norris-LaGuardia Act bars district courts from enjoining National Labor Relations Board proceedings on constitutional grounds when the underlying dispute involves labor matters, even if the district court case itself is not a labor dispute,' norris-lagurdia-act, national-labor-relations-board, injunctive-relief, constitutional-challenge, labor-dispute, removal-protections