Associated Builders & Contractors of Massachusetts/Rhode Island, Inc. v. Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 federal appellate · 4 district · 3 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “when the MWRA, acting in the role of purchaser of construction services, acts just like a private contractor would act, and conditions its purchasing upon the very sort of labor agreement that Congress explicitly authorized and expected frequently to find, it does not 'regulate' the workings of the market forces that Congress expected to find; it exemplifies them.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Building & Construction Trades Council of the Metropolitan District v. Associated Builders & Contractors of Massachusetts/Rhode Island, Inc. · Building Industry Electrical Contractors Ass'n v. City of New York

2. “Further, to permit private general contractors, but not states, to enter into construction-industry prehire agreements would likely produce an odd crazy-quilt of prehire practices. Whether one finds such an agreement would often reflect, not size of the project, or desire of the parties, or special conditions of the industry, but simply whether or not the entity letting the contracts is an arm of the state or private.... Finally, Congress had two perfectly good reasons for not making the construction-industry exceptions explicitly applicable to states, and neither of these reasons suggests any pre-emptive intent. First, the obvious reason is that the list of forbidden practices, to which the exceptions apply, itself applies only to an “employer,” defined to exclude “any State,” thereby leaving the regulation of labor relations between a state and its own employees primarily to state law. A drafter, writing a statutory exception to the resulting prohibition, would not normally extend its scope beyond those subject to the prohibition in the first place. Second, Congress, particularly when it enacted the construction-industry exceptions in 1959, had little reason to believe that a court might find, hidden in the silence of the Act, some other relevant prohibition applicable to a state.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Glenwood Bridge, Inc. v. City of Minneapolis

3. “[i]t shall not be an unfair labor practice under subsections (a) and (b) of this section for an employer engaged primarily in the building and construction industry to make an agreement covering employees engaged (or who, upon their employment, will be engaged) in the building and construction industry with a labor organization of which building and construction employees are members,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 172 F. Supp. 2d 138 - Building & Construction Trades Department v. Allbaugh