Capital Medical Center v. National Labor Relations Board, et al.

Whether the National Labor Relations Board (Board), as affirmed by the D.C. Circuit, correctly determined that Republic Aviation Corp. v. NLRB, 324 U.S. 793 (1945) and Beth Israel Hospital v. NLRB, 437 U.S. 483 (1978)) (approving the Board’s presumption that employees of an acute-care hospital have a right under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act to orally solicit coworkers during nonworking time, other than in immediate patient care areas, and to communicate through distribution of written literature in non-patient care/non-work areas, during nonworking time), rather than NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U.S. 105 (1956) and Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U.S. 507

(Section 7 and private property rights must be balanced across a spectrum that depends on the nature and strength of the respective rights in any given context), establish the governing framework when employees seek to engage in informational picketing immediately in front of the main entrances to the employer’s acute care hospital.

Whether the Board, as affirmed by the D.C. Circuit, properly found that Capital Medical Center committed unfair labor practices by requesting that offduty employees refrain from picketing immediately in front of the Hospital’s main lobby entrance and by threatening discipline and contacting local law enforcement when employees declined to comply, even though employees were freely permitted to distribute informational handbills both on and off Hospital property and were safely and effectively able to engage in informational picketing on the public sidewalks surrounding the Hospital’s private property.