# Import Motors II, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board

> District Court, N.D. California · September 8, 2025

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11134904

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, N.D. California
- **Decided:** September 8, 2025
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

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## Opinion text

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

IMPORT MOTORS II, INC., Case No. 25-cv-07284-RFL

Plaintiff,
ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR
v. TEMPORARY RESTRAINING
ORDER AND PRELIMINARY
WILLIAM B. COWEN, et al., INJUNCTION
Defendants. Re: Dkt. No. 5

After Import fired one of its employees in December 2023, the union representing him
filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (the “NLRB”). In
January 2025, the NLRB issued an administrative complaint against Import and scheduled a
hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) to occur on September 9, 2025 (which was
recently rescheduled for September 10). Import now moves for a temporary restraining order
and preliminary injunction staying that long-scheduled hearing because the agency’s proceedings
allegedly violate the Constitution. (See Dkt. No. 5 (the “Motion”).) It raises three claims:
(1) that the two-layer for-cause removal scheme required by Congress improperly insulates
NLRB ALJs and Board Members from the President’s Article II authority; (2) that any tort-like
damages awarded by the presiding ALJ would deprive Import of its Seventh Amendment right to
a jury trial; and (3) that awarding tort-like damages through a quasi-judicial proceeding before an
ALJ would transgress the Constitution’s separation-of-powers regime.
To obtain a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction, a movant must
demonstrate, among other things, that it “is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of
preliminary relief.” See Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008) (citations
omitted); see also Stuhlbarg Int’l Sales Co. v. John D. Brush & Co., 240 F.3d 832, 839 n.7 (9th
Cir. 2001) (“[O]ur analysis is substantially identical for the injunction and the TRO . . . .”).
Having considered the briefs submitted by the parties and intervenor, as well as the argument at
the hearing earlier this afternoon, the Court DENIES the Motion because Import fails to
demonstrate that any of its enumerated, alleged violations of the Constitution would cause
irreparable harm.
Two-Layer Removal and Causation. Under binding Ninth Circuit authority, a party
challenging agency action on the basis of allegedly unconstitutional removal provisions must
show that those removal provisions caused actual harm by affecting the proceedings at issue.
See Kaufmann v. Kijakazi, 32 F.4th 843, 849 (9th Cir. 2022); Decker Coal Co. v. Pehringer, 8
F.4th 1123, 1137-38 (9th Cir. 2021). This requirement originates from the Supreme Court’s
decision in Collins v. Yellen, 594 U.S. 220 (2021). There, the Court held that an unlawful
removal provision does not automatically “inflict compensable harm,” and cannot be the basis to
seek relief, unless there is an additional showing that the inability to remove the officer actually
caused some harm to the proceedings. See id. at 259-60. Such harm could be shown, for
example, if “the President had attempted to remove [the officer at issue] but was prevented from
doing so” because the President “did not have ‘cause’ for removal.” See id. at 259. In so
holding, the Court reasoned that, unlike an unlawful appointment, an unlawful removal provision
“does not strip” the officer of the “power to undertake” the responsibilities at issue and does not
automatically render all of the officer’s actions void ab initio. See id. at 257-58 & nn.23-24.
Although the Supreme Court did not discuss this causation requirement in the context of
a request for prospective injunctive relief, courts have overwhelmingly held that the “reasoning
in Collins applies with equal force regardless of the relief sought.” Cortes v. NLRB, No. 23-cv-
02954-JEB, 2024 WL 1555877, at *6 (D.D.C. Apr. 10, 2024) (quotation marks omitted)
(collecting cases), aff’d, 145 F.4th 57 (D.C. Cir. 2025). This Court agrees. There is no
principled basis for applying Collins’ causation requirement only to requests for retrospective
relief and not to requests for prospective relief. Accordingly, Import must demonstrate that the
NLRB’s removal provisions would cause harm. It has not done so. Indeed, it offers no
explanation whatsoever of how restrictions on the President’s ability to remove NLRB ALJs or
Board Members would affect the upcoming hearing, and it appeared to concede as much at oral
argument on the Motion. Nor is there any basis to conclude that the President has been thwarted
in efforts to remove NLRB ALJs or Board Members. Therefore, as dictated by binding
precedents from the Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit, Import fails to satisfy the irreparable harm
requirement with respect to its two-layer for-cause removal objection.
Import nonetheless suggests that the Supreme Court’s decision in Axon Enterprise, Inc. v.
FTC, 598 U.S. 175 (2023), overruled Collins’ causation requirement sub silentio and abrogated
the Ninth Circuit’s post-Collins decisions. Specifically, it asserts that “being subjected to
unconstitutional agency authority . . . is a here-and-now injury because it is a proceeding, led by
an illegitimate decisionmaker,” even if there is no proof that the purported constitutional
infirmity would actually cause injury. (See Motion at ECF Page 21 (citing Axon, 598 U.S. at
191) (quotation marks omitted).) In Axon, however, the Court did not address questions of
injury, relief, or irreparable harm. Instead, the question there was whether parties to agency
proceedings could challenge statutory removal provisions for ALJs in federal district court,
despite a statutory scheme allowing those proceedings to be reviewed only after their conclusion
by the federal courts of appeals. The Court applied the three-part Thunder Basin test to evaluate
whether this statutory appellate-review scheme had stripped the district courts of jurisdiction.
See Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, 510 U.S. 200 (1994). The first part of the test asks
whether “precluding district court jurisdiction [could] foreclose all meaningful judicial review of
the claim.” See Axon, 598 U.S. at 186 (citation and quotation marks omitted). In answering that
prong in the affirmative, the Court explained:

The claim, again, is about subjection to an illegitimate proceeding, led by an
illegitimate decisionmaker. And as to that grievance, the court of appeals can do
nothing: A proceeding that has already happened cannot be undone. Judicial
review of . . . structural constitutional claims would come too late to be
meaningful.
Id. at 191; see also id. (attending unconstitutional proceedings constitutes “a here-and-now
injury”). The Court thus concluded (after also applying the second and third Thunder Basin
prongs) that the “statutory review scheme does not preclude a district court from entertaining
these [structural constitutional] claims.” See id. at 180.
Although the Ninth Circuit has not expressly considered the argument that Axon
overruled Collins, this Court is persuaded by the reasoning of the Sixth and Tenth Circuits, and
other district courts both within and outside the Ninth Circuit, that have held that similar
challenges to removal provisions do not present irreparable harm warranting the extraordinary
remedy of preliminary injunctive relief, absent a causal showing.1 As those courts reasoned,
Axon did not address issues of relief or injury, and instead limited itself to the jurisdictional
question of “where” challenges could be brought. See also Axon, 598 U.S. at 180 (“The question
presented is whether the district courts have jurisdiction . . . .”). Axon also did not discuss
Collins or otherwise indicate that it was overruling Collins’ causation requirement.
Import relies on a recent decision from a split panel of the Fifth Circuit reaching the
opposite conclusion. See Space Expl. Techs. Corp. v. NLRB, No. 24-50627, 2025 WL 2396748
(5th Cir. Aug. 19, 2025). The lynchpin of that decision is an assumption that Axon “cannot be
squared” with a requirement of causal harm, because Axon describes “being hauled before an
unlawful tribunal” as a “here-and-now injury” that is “inflicted the instant the proceeding
begins.” See id. at *13 n.114. But there is nothing irreconcilable about this passage in Axon and
the causal harm requirement. A properly appointed ALJ is not illegitimate, and the hearing
conducted is not unlawful, unless there is some reason to believe that the removal restrictions
have tainted the ALJ’s ability to serve in that role. “The mere existence of an unconstitutional

1 See Leacho, Inc. v. CPSC, 103 F.4th 748 (10th Cir. 2024); Yapp USA Auto. Sys., Inc. v. NLRB,
No. 24-1754, 2024 WL 4489598 (6th Cir. Oct. 13, 2024); Amazon.com Servs. LLC v. NLRB, No.
24-cv-09564-SPG, 2025 WL 466262 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 5, 2025); HonorHealth v. NLRB, No. 24-
cv-03009-PHX, 2024 WL 4769772 (D. Ariz. Nov. 13, 2024); Spring Creek Rehab. & Nursing
Ctr. LLC v. NLRB, No. 24-cv-09016-JKS, 2024 WL 4690938 (D.N.J. Nov. 6, 2024); Ares
Collective Grp. LLC v. NLRB, No. 24-cv-00517-TUC, 2024 WL 4581436 (D. Ariz. Oct. 25,
2024); Kerwin v. Trinity Health Grand Haven Hosp., No. 24-cv-00445-RJJ, 2024 WL 4594709
(W.D. Mich. Oct. 25, 2024).
removal provision . . . generally does not automatically taint Government action by an official
unlawfully insulated.” Collins, 594 U.S. at 267 (Thomas, J., concurring). Thus, there is no here-
and-now injury from moving forward with a hearing that has not been shown to be tainted in any
way by the challenged removal provisions. See id. at 270-71 (Thomas, J., concurring) (“I
seriously doubt that the shareholders can demonstrate that any relevant action by [the challenged
official] violated the Constitution. And, absent such an unlawful act, the shareholders are not
entitled to a remedy.”). By contrast, if Import had shown that the President tried to remove the
ALJ but was stymied by unconstitutional removal provisions, a proceeding before that ALJ
would be illegitimate, and Import would thus have shown a here-and-now injury caused by those
removal provisions if required to submit to such a hearing.
This Court declines to extend Axon to conclude that it overruled Collins and created a
sweeping new “entitlement on the merits to a preliminary injunction in every case where
[collateral] constitutional challenges [to administrative proceedings] are raised.” Leacho, 103
F.4th at 759. Nothing in Axon indicates the Supreme Court’s intention to adopt such a major
shift, in which litigants are entitled to a per se finding of irreparable harm whenever they
challenge an agency’s adjudicative processes. Axon simply holds that parties may have an
opportunity to bring those challenges, and make the required causal showing, in district court
before the administrative proceedings begin. See Alpine Sec. Corp. v. FINRA, 121 F.4th 1314,
1336 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (“Axon at most says that, as a matter of statutory jurisdiction, a federal-
court challenge to an unconstitutional appointment can begin before the agency acts. It does not
say that every agency proceeding already underway must immediately be halted because of an
asserted constitutional flaw.”), cert. denied, No. 24-904, 2025 WL 1549780 (U.S. June 2, 2025).
Indeed, the Supreme Court implicitly rejected this extension of Axon when it recently
denied an emergency application in Yapp USA Automotive Systems, Inc. v. NLRB, No. 24A348,
2024 WL 4508993 (U.S. Oct. 15, 2024). There, the Court declined to enjoin NLRB proceedings
following the Sixth Circuit’s refusal to enjoin those proceedings in a materially identical case
concerning the same removal provisions challenged by Import here. The Ninth Circuit has done
the same. See Amazon.com Servs., LLC v. NLRB, No. 25-886 (9th Cir. June 30, 2025) (Dkt. No.
40.1) (denying motion to stay NLRB proceedings pending appeal). “Although [a higher court’s]
interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its
equitable discretion in like cases.” Trump v. Boyle, 145 S. Ct. 2653, 2654 (2025).
In sum, binding authority requires Import to demonstrate how the allegedly
unconstitutional two-layer for-cause removal provisions would cause the complained-of harm. It
has not done so, and it therefore fails to show the irreparable harm necessary to obtain the
extraordinary relief of a preliminary injunction halting its long-scheduled NLRB hearing.
The Seventh Amendment and Separation of Powers. The same reasoning applies to
Import’s claims alleging violations of the Seventh Amendment and separation of powers. Both
claims assert, in essence, that the ALJ would be acting beyond their constitutional authority if
they issued a tort-like damages award against Import. The Seventh Amendment claim alleges
that only juries could award such damages, and the separation-of-powers claim asserts that the
NLRB’s interpretation of its own authority to allow its ALJs to award such damages invades the
province of the judiciary and exceeds the bounds set by Congress. Even assuming those claims
could be heard in district court now rather than in an appeal of the agency proceedings, and even
assuming the validity of the claims, Import has not shown an immediate threatened injury
constituting irreparable harm. Neither of those claims would render NLRB proceedings void ab
initio, as in the case of an unlawful appointment. See Collins, 594 U.S. at 257-58. Rather, just
as an unlawful removal provision would inflict harm only if it thwarts removal of the
adjudicator, an unlawful authorization of the ALJ to award tort-like damages would inflict harm
only if it thwarts attempts to exclude a claim for such relief from the hearing. In other words, as
with its removal provisions challenge, Import must demonstrate causation.
Import has made no such causal showing here. In its administrative complaint, the
NLRB does not purport to pursue damages. (See Dkt. No. 5-1, Ex. A ¶ 11 (enumerating relief
sought).) Nor does Import provide evidence indicating that the NLRB intends to pursue
damages in its proceedings against Import. Instead, Import points solely to an administrative
decision where the NLRB “clarif[ied] that [its] traditional make-whole remedy should also
include compensation for direct or foreseeable pecuniary harms.” See Thryv, Inc., 372 NLRB
No. 22, at *14 (Dec. 13, 2022). But nothing indicates that the NLRB seeks such remedies
against Import in its current proceedings, let alone that Import has been thwarted in an attempt to
exclude such remedies from being sought. Indeed, it is not clear how tort-like damages might
apply to an administrative proceeding, like this one, about an employee allegedly terminated in
retaliation for union activity. In the end, Import’s assertion that such damages might be sought
and that Import might be thwarted in precluding their pursuit is wholly speculative. Import thus
falls far short of showing the “immediate threatened injury” required for preliminary injunctive
relief. See Caribbean Marine Servs. Co. v. Baldrige, 844 F.2d 668, 674 (9th Cir.1988); see also
id. (“Speculative injury does not constitute irreparable injury sufficient to warrant granting a
preliminary injunction.” (citation omitted)).
Moreover, even upon issuance of an award for such damages, it is difficult to see how the
harm would be irreparable. A requirement to pay money is quintessentially non-irreparable;
cancellation of the award in an appeal, as permitted by the applicable statutory scheme, would
afford complete relief. See 29 U.S.C. § 160(f); see also HonorHealth, 2024 WL 4769772, at *4
(appellate review guards against irreparable harm stemming from alleged violation of Seventh
Amendment); Ares, 2024 WL 4581436, at *2 (same). And, to the extent that Import would lose
time and money by preparing for and attending administrative proceedings concerning tort-like
damages, that kind of harm is not irreparable either. See Nationwide Biweekly Admin., Inc. v.
Owen, 873 F.3d 716, 735 n.20 (9th Cir. 2017) (“[M]ere litigation expense, even substantial and
unrecoupable cost, does not constitute irreparable injury.” (citation omitted)). Indeed, courts
routinely treat damage awards erroneously issued in violation of constitutional requirements as
being fully redressable on appeal, and they therefore decline to find irreparable harm based on
the threat of such an award. See Ponte v. FDIC, No. 24-cv-02379-APM, 2024 WL 4730602, at
*8 (D.D.C. Oct. 11, 2024) (observing that it is “well-established” that such a harm “can be
remedied on appeal”). The same reasoning applies here.
Furthermore, as to each claimed constitutional violation, “the timing of [Import’s] TRO
request undermines the irreparability and imminency of its alleged harms.” HonorHealth, 2024
WL 4769772, at *4 (citation omitted). The NLRB gave notice to Import of the September
hearing more than seven months before Import commenced this action. Import also waited
another six days after it filed the lawsuit to seek emergency relief. Despite multiple
opportunities to do so, including direct questioning at oral argument, Import has cited no reason
for its delay, beyond its desire to wait for more favorable case law. That, of course, is not a basis
for a failure to assert legal rights. To be sure, “[d]elay by itself is not a determinative factor,” but
it nevertheless “implies a lack of urgency and irreparable harm.” Cuviello v. City of Vallejo, 944
F.3d 816, 833 (9th Cir. 2019) (citations omitted).
In sum, Import does not demonstrate that any alleged constitutional violations would
cause irreparable harm. Accordingly, the Court DENIES the Motion.”
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: September 8, 2025
ALE
RITA F. LIN
United States District Judge

> Because failure to satisfy the irreparable harm requirement mandates denial of the Motion, this
Order does not reach any other issue presented in the Motion or the Parties’ briefing.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11134904. Public record. Not legal advice.