White House disagrees with court recess appointment decision

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Friday said it disagrees with a U.S. federal appeals court's "novel and unprecedented" decision to reject President Barack Obama's "recess appointments" to a labor board last year, but declined to say whether the administration would appeal.

"We respectfully but strongly disagree with the rulings," White House spokesman Jay Carney said at a briefing. "There have been, according to the Congressional Research Service, something like 280-plus intra-session recess appointments by ... Democratic and Republican administrations dating back to 1867."

Carney referred questions about the administration's next steps to the Justice Department.

He also said the court decision was about one case and has no bearing on Richard Cordray, whom the president used a recess appointment to install as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal, Roberta Rampton and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Will Dunham)