716
Opinion of the Court
to direct." There is no apparent textual justification for this asymmetrical limitation, and the Board has offered none. Surely no conceptual justification can be found in the proposition that supervisors exercise professional, technical, or experienced judgment only when they direct other employees. Decisions "to hire, . . . suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, . . . or discipline" other employees, ibid., must often depend upon that same judgment, which enables assessment of the employee's proficiency in performing his job. See NLRB v. Yeshiva Univ., supra, at 686 ("[M]ost professionals in managerial positions continue to draw on their special skills and training"). Yet in no opinion that we were able to discover has the Board held that a supervisor's judgment in hiring, disciplining, or promoting another employee ceased to be "independent judgment" because it depended upon the supervisor's professional or technical training or experience. When an employee exercises one of these functions with judgment that possesses a sufficient degree of independence, the Board invariably finds supervisory status. See, e. g., Trustees of Noble Hospital, 218 N. L. R. B. 1441, 1442 (1975).
The Board's refusal to apply its limiting interpretation of "independent judgment" to any supervisory function other than responsibly directing other employees is particularly troubling because just seven years ago we rejected the Board's interpretation of part three of the supervisory test that similarly was applied only to the same supervisory function. See NLRB v. Health Care & Retirement Corp. of America, 511 U. S. 571 (1994). In Health Care, the Board argued that nurses did not exercise their authority "in the interest of the employer," as § 152(11) requires, when their "independent judgment [was] exercised incidental to professional or technical judgment" instead of for "disciplinary or other matters, i. e., in addition to treatment of patients." Northcrest Nursing Home, 313 N. L. R. B. 491, 505 (1993). It did not escape our notice that the target of this analy-
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