National Labor Relations Board v. Wyman-Gordon Co.

The NLRB (plaintiff) had announced in an earlier adjudication, Excelsior Underwear, a prospective rule requiring employers to furnish unions with eligible-voter lists in future elections, without following APA notice-and-comment rulemaking; when the NLRB later ordered Wyman-Gordon Co. (defendant) to furnish such a list based on this Excelsior rule, Wyman refused, both unions lost the resulting election, and the NLRB ordered a new election with the list requirement again, which Wyman again refused, prompting the NLRB to seek judicial enforcement. The court of appeals held the underlying Excelsior rule was invalid because it was never properly promulgated as a rule under the APA, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.