agreed with the employer. Judgment Majority ruling Associate Justice Owen Roberts wrote the decision for the majority, joined by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Associate Justices James Clark McReynolds, Pierce Butler, and Harlan F. Stone. Roberts held that the NLRB's decision was not supported by the evidence before the Board. Although the Board had alleged that the evidence supported only one conclusion, this allegation was also not supported by the evidence. The majority concluded that since no negotiations were pending and no new meetings were scheduled, there was no "negotiating" going on and hence the employer's plant shut-down did not violate the NLRA. Furthermore, since the employer had offered to hire some men back, clearly there had been no refusal to bargain. The employer's decision to rehire some of the "old men" by contracting with them individually was also not a violation of the Act. Dissent Associate Justice Hugo Black dissented, joined by Associate Justice Stanley Forman Reed. No dissenting opinion was filed. Significance The case was one of the first clear-cut defeats for the NLRB before the Supreme Court, after an unprecedented string of 15 successes. The decision placed significant limitations on the ability of unions to engage in collective action. The Sands Court also upheld the right of an employer to violate the NLRA so long as the union had already acted illegally. The Court rejected the union's good faith effort to interpret its contract, which led to the strike. Only the Court's interpretation of the contract mattered, the majority concluded, and strikes over differences of interpretation of the contract were no longer protected activity. The "employer's overriding right to unimpeded access to labor was held to justify its unilateral action to resolve an impasse in its favor." Along with NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., 306 U.S. 240 (1939) and NLRB v. Columbian Enameling & Stamping Co., 306 U.S. 292 (1939), the decision has been called one of the three most significant NLRB cases since NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1938) upheld the NLRA's constitutionality. The three cases also expanded the way the Court interpreted the NLRA. Although the justices had previously interpreted the Act solely through the lens of the Commerce Clause (showing strong deference to the Board), now the Court evinced a willingness to apply evidentiary standards to the Board's actions and to impose a less radical interpretation on the