Doyle, Jr. v. Covenant House NY

Background

John D. Doyle, Jr., the Regional Director of Region 2 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), filed a petition seeking a preliminary injunction against Covenant House NY under Section 10(j) of the National Labor Relations Act. The NLRB also moved to have the court decide the injunction request using the closed administrative record from a March 2025 hearing before an NLRB administrative law judge, without discovery or an evidentiary hearing. Covenant House opposed that motion and moved for limited discovery and a hearing.

A preliminary injunction is temporary court relief issued while an underlying matter is pending. The court explained that Section 10(j) injunction requests are evaluated under four factors: likely success on the merits, likely irreparable harm without relief, the balance of the hardships, and the public interest. In this setting, the court predicts how the NLRB is likely to decide the underlying administrative matter rather than deciding the administrative merits itself.

Arguments and analysis

Covenant House identified three reasons it believed more proceedings were necessary. First, it sought evidence from NLRB attorneys and a labor expert concerning alleged violations of its right to counsel when NLRB personnel spoke with John Sentigar and Gabrielle Perez without counsel present. Covenant House said this evidence could show that its due process rights had been violated and could undermine the administrative proceedings.

The court held that this proposed evidence was not part of the record before the administrative law judge. Because the NLRB could not consider evidence outside that record when making its ultimate determination, the court found that the proposed evidence was irrelevant to the court’s assessment of the NLRB’s likelihood of success for the Section 10(j) proceeding. The court also noted that Covenant House had been given an opportunity to present testimony from the people it identified during the administrative hearing but did not do so. The court stated that reopening the administrative record was available only in extraordinary circumstances and that Covenant House would not satisfy that standard on these facts.

Second, Covenant House argued that discovery or a hearing was needed to provide its evidence concerning irreparable harm, the balance of the hardships, and the public interest. The court found that Covenant House had been given several opportunities to identify the evidence it would seek but had not identified any evidence that additional proceedings would produce on those factors.

Third, Covenant House argued that evidence concerning whether Sentigar and Perez were supervisors should have been excluded from the administrative record. The court stated that additional discovery or a hearing would add evidence rather than remove evidence already in the record. It explained that Covenant House could instead argue in its opposition to the injunction petition that the NLRB was unlikely to prevail because the administrative law judge might ultimately agree that the challenged evidence was improperly admitted.

Ruling and next steps

The court granted the NLRB’s motion to proceed without discovery or an evidentiary hearing. For the same reasons, it denied Covenant House’s motion for discovery and a hearing. The court did not decide the pending Section 10(j) injunction petition itself in this opinion.

Judge Ronnie Abrams ordered Covenant House to file its opposition to the Section 10(j) petition within ten days of the order. The NLRB’s reply was due no later than seven days after the opposition. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motions listed at docket entries 3 and 27.