This past weekend was the unofficial beginning of the Summer season to many, but it also represents the beginning of the home stretch for the U.S. Supreme Court. With only 5 weeks left on the Court’s scheduled calendar, there still remain a number of cases for the court to decide, including a few key cases that could impact the labor and employment legal world.

Those who have noticed the National Labor Relations Board’s increased activity these days may be interested in the Court’s upcoming decision in Starbucks v. McKinney. That case deals with the NLRB’s requests for “Section 10(j)” injunctions, which are a tool used by the Board to get temporary court orders from a federal court requiring employers to take or not take certain actions in accordance with the NLRB’s view of the case, but prior to any final ruling on the case. At issue in that case is whether the NLRB should be required to make the standard showing any party seeking an injunction must make (most centrally that their case has a likelihood of success on the merits and that there is a likelihood of irreparable harm if some temporary order is not imposed), or whether the NLRB may secure these court orders under a lower standard that merely requires it to prove that it has a legal theory that is “not frivolous” and “some evidence to support it.”

Another case of note would affect agencies including the NLRB and another agency making some news lately with its rule banning non-competes, the FTC. In a pair of cases (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce) the court is considering whether to overrule, or perhaps just substantially limit, its long-standing Chevron doctrine. Under the Chevron doctrine, courts are required to defer to an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous law, rather than courts applying their own independent interpretation of the law. If this doctrine is eliminated or substantially limited, among other potential consequences, the FTC’s rule banning non-competes may be on shakier ground and there may be more predictability in the NLRB’s enforcement of labor relations issues across presidential administrations on different sides of the aisle.

We will be keeping a close watch on these cases and others in what is sure to be an impactful conclusion to the Court’s 2023 October Term.