⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The First Circuit hears Hospital Menonita Ponce versus the National Labor Relations Board. After a hospital-asset purchase in Puerto Rico in 2022, Menonita Ponce faced a dispute over its employees' union representation. The union had represented seven groups under the previous operator. Menonita Ponce recognized the union for two groups, then withdrew recognition, saying the union lacked employee support. The union filed charges alleging unlawful refusals to recognize or bargain and retaliation in hiring; the hospital denies violating labor law. It also filed a separate constitutional lawsuit. It challenges rules limiting the President's power to remove Board members and administrative law judges, the agency's hearing officers. The hospital sought a preliminary injunction, a temporary order stopping the agency proceeding. The district court refused, invoking the Norris-LaGuardia Act's restriction on labor-related injunctions and, alternatively, the hospital's failure to meet the ordinary injunction requirements. The statute reaches cases involving or growing out of a labor dispute. The hospital invokes Axon, a Supreme Court decision allowing certain structural constitutional claims to go directly to federal district court. The Board responds that permission to litigate a claim does not itself confer a right to stop the agency. Listen for that distinction between hearing a constitutional challenge and granting the requested remedy.

Hospital Menonita Ponce v. National Labor Relations Board (No. 26-1589) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, argued November 3, 2026.