The employment community will continue to await a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision on the fate of a National Labor Relations Board standard for what constitutes a joint employer relationship.

A ruling Friday touched on the issue but did not come to a conclusion.

The three-judge panel overturned the NLRB ruling that Atlanta-based CNN America Inc. was a joint employer of Team Video Services, a group of subcontracted technicians that attempted to unionize workers. The labor board ruled in 2014 that CNN shared employment control with the subcontracting firm.

While the joint employer issue has been a lightning rod for the business community and workers' rights groups, Friday's ruling is limited in scope. The panel concluded that the labor board came to its conclusion without following consistent precedents or explaining why they do not govern. So the NLRB will get a second shot to make its case the two companies are in fact joint employers.

“Our conclusion does not bar the board from finding CNN to be a joint employer by applying a different standard or sufficiently explaining the one it did apply,” Chief Judge Merrick Garland wrote in the decision. “It means only that we cannot enforce the board's determination in this proceeding.”

The joint employer debate heated up with a ruling from the NLRB that widened the scope of direct or indirect control, which made it easier for corporations to be held liable for workplace violations committed by contractors or franchisees.

Friday's decision notes a pending case before the D.C. Circuit, Browning-Ferris v. The National Labor Relations Board. The judges argue that in that case the labor board instead carefully examined three decades of precedents to make its conclusions. It therefore, correctly used its power to identify the new standard for a joint employer relationship.

Kannon Shanmugam of Williams & Connolly, who argued for CNN America, declined to comment. CNN's lawyers said in D.C. Circuit papers the NLRB's ruling was “riddled with errors” and that the board “discounted the extraordinary technological advances that prompted CNN more than a decade ago to bring critical journalistic functions under its direct control.”

CNN Slams NLRB's 'Preposterous' Argument in Joint-Employer Case

A team from Littler Mendelson was on a friend-of-the-court brief for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“The board majority failed to acknowledge its imposition of a new joint-employer test in this case,” the Littler Mendelson attorneys wrote in the brief. “Instead, in a footnote in its decision, the board criticized three decades of its own precedent requiring direct and immediate control, but did not overrule that precedent.”

The U.S. Chamber's brief said the NLRB ruling created a situation where “CNN now faces extensive liability for charges filed on behalf of employees of another separate and independent company.”

The business community has pointed to the need for legislation to clarify the joint employer uncertainty in the wake of Browning-Ferris. U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Alabama, has filed a bill that would rewrite the joint-employer standard to rollback the decision.