U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia Trevor McFadden ruled that National Labor Relations Board administrative law judges’ (ALJs) protections against being fired by the President violate the U.S. Constitution. In his ruling, McFadden relied on the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which held that the layered protections for PCAOB board members were unconstitutional. McFadden said in his ruling that the in-house judges’ layered removal protections amount to a “byzantine process” that “eviscerates the President’s ability to control NLRB ALJs.” The case is VHS Acquisition Subsidiary Number 7, Inc. v. NLRB.
