Oct 23 (Reuters) - A federal judge has rejected a

Pittsburgh newspaper publisher's claims that the National Labor

Relations Board's structure is unconstitutional, but suggested

that decades of precedent backing the agency could be vulnerable

to a growing number of legal challenges.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon in Pittsburgh said in a

brief docket entry on Tuesday that a 1937 U.S. Supreme Court

ruling upholding the National Labor Relations Act, which had

been adopted two years earlier was still good law, contrary to

arguments by PG Publishing, the owner of the Pittsburgh

Post-Gazette.

Bissoon denied PG's motion to dismiss an NLRB petition

seeking to force the company to bargain in good faith with three

unions pending the outcome of a related administrative case at

the board.

PG claims that the NLRB's in-house enforcement proceedings

are illegal, echoing arguments in more than 20 lawsuits filed

against the board, and that the agency lacks the power to seek

court injunctions, which it does in a small number of cases each

year.

Bissoon said those arguments were foreclosed by the 1937

ruling in NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel and, much more

recently, the Supreme Court's June ruling clarifying the

standard the board must meet to win an injunction in court.

But the judge said that respect for the legal doctrine that

courts should follow existing precedent, known as stare decisis,

"appears less 'in vogue' as of late."

"While PG's positions are not outlandish by contemporary

standards, this Court declines its invitation to ignore nearly a

century's worth of settled jurisprudence," wrote Bissoon, an

appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama.

The Post-Gazette and an NLRB spokeswoman declined to

comment.

In the underlying board case, PG is accused of bargaining in

bad faith with three of its employees' unions and unilaterally

implementing changes to the working conditions of newsroom staff

in the absence of a bargaining agreement. The company has denied

wrongdoing.

The NLRB filed a court petition in August seeking a

temporary order requiring PG to bargain in good faith with the

unions until the board case is resolved. PG moved to dismiss the

petition on Monday, arguing that NLRB administrative judges and

the board's five members are improperly shielded from being

removed at will by the president.

Bissoon on Tuesday said she agreed with a federal judge in

Michigan who recently rejected those arguments in a lawsuit by

auto parts manufacturer Yapp USA Automotive Systems. The Supreme

Court last week denied Yapp's petition to block a board case

against it from moving forward while it appeals the judge's

decision.

At least four other federal judges have sided with the NLRB

in bids by other companies, including Amazon ( AMZN ), to block

administrative cases from proceeding while they pursue

challenges to the agency's structure.

Three judges in Texas, meanwhile, have blocked board cases

against Elon Musk's SpaceX, pipeline company Energy Transfer ( ET ),

and the operator of a search engine for social services,

prompting appeals by the NLRB.

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,

widely regarded as the most conservative federal appeals court,

has scheduled arguments in the Amazon ( AMZN ) and SpaceX cases for Nov.

18.

The case is Wilson v. PG Publishing Co, U.S. District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania, No. 2:24-cv-01166.

For the NLRB: Anne Tewksbury and Zuzana Murarova

For PG Publishing: Brian Hentosz and Morgan Dull of Littler

Mendelson

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